From Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation to arguments offered by the ancient Greeks and Hindus, many philosophers and environmentalists have made convincing cases against the practice of eating meat. But could there be a moral case in favor of it?
From the ancient Greeks, philosophical writing about sport has been rooted in theories of virtue and the good. Discussions in this genre regard sport as a form of human excellence. On versions of this view, excluding or marginalizing women in sports is shutting them out from opportunities for excellence.
It’s clear that many of the prevailing intellectual traditions throughout the world are disproportionately influenced by Western (European, Christian, white) ideas. So how can we take up the project of decolonizing philosophy?
What will life be like when every road you travel, every device you own, every building you enter is connected to the internet? Will these developments transform our world in ways that enrich our lives? Or will they just create more opportunities for hackers, corporations, and governments to pry into every aspect of our lives?
Scott Pruit offers you a job at the EPA. His agenda is to roll back regulations that help protect the environment. So what should you do? Take the job and try to change the EPA from the inside? Or would it be more productive to work for an environmental agency whose efforts you support?
It is a little known fact that the German philosopher was a hard-core right-wing, anti-democrat, anti-liberal, racist, nationalist anti-Semite. While he died before the rise of Hitler, one can only speculate how he would’ve responded.
We’re continuing to get some great responses to our recent show, A World Without Work, including this email from Paul R. If you have questions or comments on a show, feel free to send us an email and we might just feature it here on the blog.
How exactly does consciousness occur? Neuroscientist Anil Seth argues that it is a controlled hallucination. Having less to do with intelligence than we often think, consciousness depends on how the brain predicts its world to operate.
Does learning about the inconceivably large universe mean that we must doubt the significance of human life on this planet? Is there a way to account for the intuition that we are just a microscopic blip in the universe and avoid nihilism?
Why on earth would anybody want to get rid of the word “racism”? It seems like a perfectly fine word. In fact, it seems like a morally valuable word. If racism is a morally bad thing, then having the language to address it—to track it, analyze it, condemn it, and call it out—must be a good thing, right?
We had a great response from listeners to our recent show, A World Without Work. Katherine B had a number of fantastic questions, so I asked our guest, Juliana Bidadanure, as well as our hosts, Debra and Ken, to respond to their favorite one.
Hate speech: it can exclude, stigmatize, and potentially threaten our progress toward equality. So why is hate speech protected under the First Amendment, and should it actually be protected?
Do you think America is the greatest country in the world? Do you think other countries have bigger problems and worse institutions than ours? Could you never imagine moving to another country?
How should Americans balance the values of equal respect and free speech? What role should universities play in protecting and promoting speakers? What makes free speech valuable anyway?
The word “fascism” is thrown around so much, it risks becoming an empty label. It has been used to describe students at Yale who demand a safe space as well as self-declared anti-fascists. So should we just give up on this word?
Will technology eventually eliminate the need for human labor? Without work, will we finally have all the free time we want to pursue our hobbies and passions? Or do we need work to give our lives a sense of purpose and achievement?