Philosophy & Ethics

A Better Way To Do “Studies", Perhaps

This semester I’ve been running a graduate level seminar at the City University of New York, on the difference between philosophy of science and science studies. The latter is a broad and somewhat vaguely defined term that includes (certain kinds of) socio ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Nov 25 2012 - 9:33pm

Muddled Ethics: Why Death Pathways Are Okay But Cognitive Enhancers Are Bad

The current raging ethical debate in western health care is not how to save lives but how to end them. The controversial Liverpool Care Pathway in the UK, for example, where health care is nationalized, is really a death pathway. Unfortunately, half of th ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 24 2012 - 8:00pm

New-Year Resolution: Should I Kill Myself In 2013

Guilty feeling Germans doubting all, asking the profound and not accepting the silly answers, starting out thinking that science, physics is important.   Muhō decided to live as a homeless monk in a park in central Osaka in 2001.   Since then he sits, in o ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - May 29 2014 - 3:30am

LessWrong On Morality And Logic

There has been a debate on morality brewing of late  over at LessWrong. As readers of this blog know, I am not particularly sympathetic to that outlet (despite the fact that two of my collaborators here are either fans or even involved in major ways with t ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Jan 8 2013 - 6:00am

Most Overrated Philosopher Of The 20th Century

There is currently a Twitter survey going on to establish a list of favorite philosophers of all time, organized by Oxford University Press. I don’t know the results yet, but my entries would have to be David Hume (1st prize), Aristotle (2nd) and Bertrand ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Jan 16 2013 - 6:32am

Heaviness: Euthanasia For Expediency

It's all over the internet now, the story of the twin brothers in Belgium who were deaf and going blind and decided not to kill themselves in a joint suicide, but instead to seek legal euthanasia. According to the  Daily Mail, they spent two years se ...

Blog Post - Kim Wombles - Jan 16 2013 - 10:12am

Novel Colors Against Physicalism

Light which triggers predominantly the so called L-cones, which are photoreceptors for long (L) wavelengths, trigger us to experience red color.   In this sense, some people hold the color red to be physical and “out there” in “reality”. ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - Apr 16 2013 - 11:38am

Maybe Moral Relativism Can Make Way For Moral Realism

No one thinks much about morality these days, besides it being a personal metric. Once postmodernists and moral relativists took over philosophy, it became overrun with amateur ponderings. Now it has social psychologists seeking to bring back some objecti ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 29 2013 - 12:34pm

Call For More Transparency In Clinical Trials

Pharmaceuticals are in decline as an industry due to over-regulation, lawsuits and cultural distrust. A new initiative from the European Medicines Agency, to commit to releasing all of the information from clinical trials once the marketing authorization ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 29 2013 - 6:22pm

Buddhism, Epicureanism, And Stoicism

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them? (Buddha) It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself. (Epicurus) Adapt yourself to the ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Feb 17 2013 - 3:30pm