MetaFilter posts tagged with philosophy and Ethics

I prefer to think of it as a 'trolley opportunity'

grobstein — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:46:36 -0800

Michael Sandel's "Justice" has long been one of the most popular courses at Harvard. Now for the first time the class is being broadcast online. The site for "Justice." "Justice" is a wide-ranging introduction to issues in normative ethics and political morality that aims to work as a kind of supplementary civic education: "In a way, . . . the course [tries] to model what public discourse would be like if it were more morally ambitious than it is." The video series is an ambitious (and expensive) production, using multiple cameras to capture student discussion as well as Prof. Sandel's words.

X-Phi

homunculus — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:25:20 -0800

Philosophy’s great experiment. "Philosophers used to combine conceptual reflections with practical experiment. The trendiest new branch of the discipline, known as x-phi, wants to return to those days. Some philosophers don’t like it." [Via]

Society upto speed?

daksya — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:59:15 -0800

Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy - a commentary in Nature that says, "we call for a presumption that mentally competent adults should be able to engage in cognitive enhancement using drugs". Farkesque debate here. Some earlier related FPPs: "By their drugs shall ye know them." Nootropics ("smart" drugs)

Roger Williams

homunculus — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:20:30 -0800

The First Founder: The American Revolution of Roger Williams. [Via 3quarksdaily]

Dignity and Bioethics

homunculus — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:35:43 -0800

The Stupidity of Dignity: Conservative bioethics' latest, most dangerous ploy. Steven Pinker reviews Human Dignity and Bioethics, the latest report from the President's Council on Bioethics. dgaicun posted Pinker's article in the Leon Kass vs. ice-cream thread, but I think it and the report deserve their own post.

What is the meaning of this post?

desjardins — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:47:53 -0800

Ask a Philosopher. Is the sentence of death really a punishment? How can we discern the difference of how we authentically "feel" as opposed to how we "think" we feel? If humans didn't exist, would animals still have rights?

The psychology of the moral instinct

homunculus — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 09:31:52 -0800

The Moral Instinct. "Evolution has endowed us with ethical impulses. Do we know what to do with them?" [Via The Mahablog.]

Beyond "Immanuel Kant was a real pissant."

anotherpanacea — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 19:45:49 -0800

What can I know? What should I do? For what may I hope?

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values online library

cog_nate — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:57:31 -0800

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values are all online for you to peruse. The library consists of around 180 full text PDFs by a wide variety of authors -- Christine Korsgaard, Antonin Scalia, Jared Diamond, John Rawls, Richard Dawkins, Frans de Waal E.O. Wilson, Francis Fukuyama and the previously mentioned Elaine Scarry among them. Lots of interesting reading to be... read. Navigation is to the left. The collection is sorted alphabetically by author.

melting wax

painquale — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 01:00:18 -0800

Is Civilization Decaying? Will technological progress be accompanied by moral progress? Notes on a 1923 debate between J. B. S. Haldane (Daedalus) and Bertrand Russell (Icarus). "As John Brunner pointed out in an article in the New Scientist in 1993, these two books ... inspired two generations of science fiction writers."

Comments open; continually revised

painquale — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 16:45:49 -0800

The Ethics of Deep Self-Modification. What will happen when machines gain the ability to modify their own psychology? Do we have a responsibility to step in? What happens when we have the ability to modify ourselves? Philosopher Peter Suber has dedicated himself to issues of self-modification... not just in psychology, but also in constitutional law. Small wonder that this is the guy who invented Nomic. His site is littered with great stuff; he now is primarily involved with the open access movement. Check out his open access primer and blog.

Neuroethics

homunculus — Wed, 10 Mar 2004 11:17:10 -0800

Whose life would you save? Carl Zimmer takes a look at the work of philospher-neuroscientist Joshua Greene in the emerging field of the neuroscience of ethics and morality (Leon Kass, take note.) [Via Dynamist Blog.]