Conspiracy theorists think quasi-rationally, but their thinking only goes in one direction. Because conspiracy theorists are less analytic, their thinking tends not to override their starting intuitions. So how can we alleviate people’s tendencies to adopt irrational conspiracy theories?
At a gut level, most of us consider humans’ lives far more significant than lobsters’ lives. But does this intuition just reveal a cognitive bias most of us have? Are there any good arguments to support the idea that lobster lives matter less?
The idea that athletics and philosophy are connected may sound strange at first. But if we see philosophy as a way of life rather than a set of beliefs, it’s not a stretch to imagine that athletic training can cultivate skills we need for the whole of our lives, both on and off the playing field.
We are delegating more and more morally fraught decisions to computers and their algorithms. Many find the prospect of such a thing truly alarming. It’s hard to blame them for that. After all, how many of us would be willing to trust our own lives to a computer algorithm?
You might think that conspiracy theorists like the flat earthers don’t really think about things. But if you’ve ever argued with one, you’ll find that they do. They have an answer for everything. So how do we reconcile their irrationality with their rational thinking?
To say that a person can fail successfully sounds really weird. To succeed at something is to achieve some goal that you’re aiming at, and to fail at something is to not achieve a goal that you were trying to achieve. But this isn’t the end of the story.
Mission Impossible: Fallout is an intensely escapist movie, but it’s also a deeply philosophical one. It explores the question: should you be the kind of person who saves his friends and risks millions of lives, or the kind of person for whom saving the millions matters to the exclusion of all else?
Science is typically not construed as a form of intellectual arrogance. After all, the scientific method is about making sure your beliefs are regulated by observations and experiments rather than by personal biases, subjective preferences, or mere stubborn pride. But science has the tendency to believe that it is the measure of all things.
With the World Cup having just ended, I am led to reflect on my own lack of interest in soccer. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the athleticism involved in soccer. And it’s not that I can’t see the strategies unfolding. But somehow it still leaves me pretty cold.
Even as we wait in anticipation for Sunday’s World Cup final between France and Croatia, there is at least one other major soccer event that we can watch right now: the “Philosophers’ World Cup” by Monty Python.
Is the market the key to freedom and prosperity? Don’t markets necessarily lead to economic inequality? Is it possible to make markets work better for everyone? This week we’re exploring Radical-market Solutions for Our New Gilded Age.
Because the IDW thrives on consumer popularity rather than peer scrutiny, it doesn’t have mechanisms for sorting out the worthwhile stuff from the trash. The burden is on the consumer to decide to what extent the dark web pundits have something valuable to offer or to what extent they’re “enlightenment peddlers.”
Someone categorized as “a criminal” is likely to experience social ostracism, unlike people who break laws not associated with the word “criminal.” But we don’t call every single person who does a technically criminal act a “criminal.” So when is it appropriate to apply the label “criminal” to someone who breaks the law?
It’s no secret that black children in American receive a subpar education compared to their white peers: underfunded schools, higher rates of suspension, and largely teachers that are not like them. To address this, some black parents are turning to homeschooling their children.
The slogan “one person, one vote” have been used in a variety of settings to express a democratic ideal: elections should provide every citizen with an equal say in governance. But in America, the reality still falls short of the ideal.
The Rachel Divide, a documentary about Rachel Dolezal and the controversy over her claims to racial identity, came out in April on Netflix. The movie would have benefited, however, from some philosophical consideration of what race is—or is not—and what claims to racial identity assert.