A scenario beloved of ethicists, public policy experts, and management consultants asks you to imagine yourself on a lifeboat. Built into such scenarios are powerful assumptions with life-or-death consequences, so as we work through the lifeboat scenario try to make those assumptions explicit. Here we go: You were flying over the Pacific, but bad weather […]
por Stephen Hicks [This is a Spanish translation of “Our Che Guevara Problem”, first published in English at EveryJoe and then translated into Portuguese at Portal Libertarianismo.] Es muy probable que alguien que conozcas tenga una camiseta del Che. Versiones románticas del rostro barbudo de Ernesto Guevara Lynch son muy populares en los campus universitarios y
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[Below is the text of William James’s “The Moral Equivalent of War” [pdf].] The Moral Equivalent of War By William James [Based on a speech delivered at Stanford University in 1906. Published in 1910.] The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party. The military feelings are too deeply grounded
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[This is a Portuguese translation of “When Altruism Becomes Pathological”, originally published in English at EveryJoe.] Quem é mais propenso a trapacear — praticantes de esportes individuais ou de esportes coletivos? Um experimento fascinante realizado pelo professor Sharon K. Stoll, publicado no Chronicle of Higher Education, compara atletas de esportes individuais como golfe ou tênis simples
Quando o altruísmo torna-se patológico [Portuguese translation] Read More »
As with sex and money — and most of the important matters in life — many silly things are said about power. Perhaps the granddaddy of those silly things is the oft-quoted phrase, Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is an important truth that Lord Acton’s phrase tries to capture. But taken literally
Sex scandals in Philosophy departments: * Miami’s Colin McGinn resigned. * Colorado’s Graeme Forbes resigned. * Yale’s Thomas Pogge is under serious investigation (thanks to Alex Tabarrok for the link). We might expect philosophers — especially those who specialize in ethics — to be more principled than the average. So Eric Schwitzgebel’s question is an
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[This is a Portuguese translation of Stephen Hicks’s “How to Tame Religious Terrorists”, originally published in English at EveryJoe.] Derrotar um inimigo como o Islã politizado é uma batalha de múltiplas frentes — policial, militar, diplomática, cultural e filosófica. Toda luta começa com desavenças locais e de curto prazo. Entretanto, conflitos generalizados de longa duração são
Como domesticar terroristas religiosos [Portuguese translation] Read More »
A new entry in the ongoing contest to find the longest sentences written in the history of philosophy. Submitted by Ken Brown, a 239-word self-reflective monster from G. E. Moore’s “A Defence of Common Sense”: ‘In other words what (2) asserts is only (what seems an obvious enough truism) that each of us (meaning by
Philosophy’s longest sentences — G.E. Moore edition Read More »