Happiness is not an unalloyed good, Kant says. Without the correct character and orientation, without a sense of duty, happiness is just an animalistic state of mind.
Search Results
You searched for: Ethics
On this blog, I often write about so-called controversial topics, which test people’s moral convictions: If you agree about abortion, you should agree about infanticide; there are no good reasons […]
The Matrix is real… and everyone here at NASA for the GSP has taken the red pill. If you recall in the movie, Neo is startled, puzzled, and quite frankly […]
What’s the Big Idea? There are not only wrong answers — there are also wrong questions, says Slavoj Žižek, philosopher and author of Big Think’s most recent Book of the Month. And sometimes […]
Deriding the Democratic Party’s “Julia” propaganda yesterday, Ross Douthat recycled a conservative truism. Unlike those admirable (because safely extinct) old-timeliberals, he wrote, today’s Democrats want the government to do what families should: “The liberalism […]
Jesse Bering is the author of the new book, “Why is the Penis Shaped Like that?: And Other Reflections on Being Human.” He is well known in my circles as […]
Good intentions can lead to bad outcomes in business. This is especially true in organizations that have toxic cultures in which leaders tout worthy values–and then put up roadblocks that prevent employees from […]
Most of us, especially if we follow the principles of critical thinking, go through life slowly building up a patina of evidence supporting the beliefs that matter to us. Under […]
The future is mysterious, but not entirely. It is tangible in the promises that a person makes and in the unspoken responsibility one has to others. However much a person […]
In an extraordinary move, a prominent executive at Goldman Sachs has resigned on grounds of ethical discomfort with a company culture of maximizing profits at clients’ expense. Greg Smith – […]
What is the Big Idea? Dominique Moisi, a special advisor at the French Institute of International Relations, published a few words of advice for president-elect François Hollande inLos Echos. His […]
In the midst of an intense meditation on Walt Whitman in his Studies in Classic American Literature, D. H. Lawrence suddenly proclaims: The essential function of art is moral. Not […]
Here is a version of The Trolley Problem, a classic experiment in ethics. Let’s say you are next to some train tracks, and down the tracks and behind a […]
Here is a version of The Trolley Problem, a classic experiment in ethics. Let’s say you are next to some train tracks, and down the tracks and behind a […]
In defence of Alberto Giubilini, Francesca Minerva and the Journal of Medical Ethics, as per the recent publication about killing newborn infants. This essentially is an open letter of solidarity […]
An idea which devastated many of my previous assumptions has implications for important views many of us hold. It also indicates the underlying basis of this blog itself. Investigating what […]
Human beings have the capacity to stop time. It is, in fact, a commonly used capacity. We use our ability to stop time as a bulwark against the threat of […]
This post is an introductory framework for moral infanticide. Before we can even discuss cases of ending an infant’s life for non-medical reasons, we must understand why infants’ lives can […]
I agree in a broad sense that Weiner owes it to both his audience and his art to be true to what he discovers about the history of the era he’s chosen to depict.
Rather than being afraid of our new publicness, says Jarvis, we ought to use it to solve some of our most complex problems.
A recent proposal to remove the heads and legs of chickens may be the best thing we can do for them. If we can reduce our farmed animals to vegetables, […]
What really goes on in a brain-on-porn? A recent study conducted at the University of Groningen Medical Center came to a surprising conclusion.
By consciously practicing optimism, Jason Silva believes, we create circumstances that make external challenges weaker and easier to overcome. It’s mind over matter – thinking your ideal world into being by choosing to believe it already exists.
Without feeling like the victim of my own lust, I experienced freedom for the first time in my life.
A simple and cheap device that stimulates the brain with a mild electric current appears to improve our capacity to learn skills like mathematics or a foreign language. Should we use it?
If you feel that life is uncomplicated, easy, satisfying, carefree, under control – then this post is not for you. On the other hand, if you feel frustrated, anxious, deeply […]
At least in the sense that it is overturning old doctrines, like folk psychology, and attracting legions of people seeking answers to contemporary philosophical and spiritual questions.
As I’ve written before, I’m a skeptical of claims, like Jonathan Gottschall’s, about the power of stories to make us better people. Adam Gopnik of The New Yorkeris skeptical too. […]
Aging is just another non-infectious disease, like Alzheimer’s, diabetes or cancer, says Aubrey de Grey. We might be able to cure it using the protective sequences of our own DNA.
–Guest post by Ezra Markowitz, doctoral candidate at the University of Oregon. The moral judgment system—the set of cognitive, emotional, social and motivational mechanisms responsible for producing our perceptions of […]