Philosophy & Ethics

This semester I’m teaching a graduate level course on “Hume Then and Now,” which aims at exploring some of the original writings by David Hume, particularly the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and contemporary philosophical treatments of Humean themes, such as induction, epistemic justification, and causality. I want to talk here about a particular episode belonging to Section 2 of the Enquiry, where Hume introduces the famous problem of the missing shade of blue, which is still discussed today in philosophy of mind. I think reflection on the problem itself, as well as some attempts…

Why is deciding to abort a baby a legitimate ethical choice but choosing to have a boy is not? Some groups see the ethical issues in both but some only see the ethical issues in one. It shows that ethics is rife with subjective beliefs and rationalizations, so it can't be government policy. Yet there are efforts to claims such arbitrary lines are an evidence basis for decision-making. Thomas H. Murray, President Emeritus of The Hastings Center, writes in Science that "preventing a lethal disease is one thing; choosing the traits we desire is quite another."  Why? If genetic and genomic…

A lot of principles in teaching and learning are taught, tested, re-proven to work, and eventually found their applications. However, there are those that exist but are better left unsaid. Examples of Some Principles that are are taught: In Chemistry "Like dissolves like" is a fundamental  truth in dissolution of substances.  This means that a polar solute dissolves in polar solvent, and non-polar solute dissolves in non-polar solvent. Thus, oil, being non-polar, will not dissolve in water (a polar solvent), but will dissolve in kerosene (a non-polar solvent).. In Assessment and…

I keep hearing that Notre Dame philosopher and theologian Alvin Plantinga is a really smart guy, capable of powerfully subtle arguments about theism and Christianity. But every time I look, I am dismayed by what I see. If this is the best that theology can do, theology is in big trouble. (Well, to be fair, it has been at least since David Hume.) Recently, Plantinga has been interviewed by another Notre Dame philosopher with theistic leanings, Gary Gutting, for the New York Time’s “Stone” blog. I often enjoy Gutting’s columns, for instance his argument for why the Pope should revisit the…

Playing fair is an altruistic behavior - we sacrifice our own potential gain to give others what they deserve.  It's persisted since man has existed, so is it biological or social? Regardless, it's still nice. No one is against fairness except people who have earned less of something and think others should reward them for it. And it may not even be altruistic. Northeastern University assistant professor of philosophy Rory Smead suggests another, darker origin behind fairness.  Spite. It’s unclear why any seemingly pointless behavior sticks around. 'Spite' is characterized as paying…

Cosmologist Sean Carroll is one of many who have recently answered the annual question posed by Edge.org, which this year was: What scientific idea is ready for retirement? Sean, whom I’ve met at the Naturalism workshop he organized not long ago, and for whom I have the highest respect both as a scientist and as a writer, picked “falsifiability.” Which is odd, since the concept — as Sean knows very well — is not a scientific, but rather a philosophical one. Now, contra some other skeptics of my acquaintance, at least one of whom was present at the above mentioned workshop, Sean is actually…

By growing “mini-livers” from adult mouse stem cells, the road may be paved to replacing, reducing or refining the use of animals in science. Dr. Meritxell Huch from the Gurdon Institute at Cambridge received the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) 3Rs Prize for developing a method that enables adult mouse stem cells to grow and expand into fully functioning three-dimensional liver tissue.  Using this method, cells from one mouse could be used to test 1,000 drug compounds to treat liver disease, and reduce animal use by up to 50,…

I’ve been reading for a while now Jim Baggott’s Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth, a fascinating tour through cutting edge theoretical physics, led by someone with a physics background and a healthy (I think) dose of skepticism about the latest declarations from string theorists and the like. Chapter 10 of the book goes through the so-called “black holes war” (BHW) that stretched for two and a half decades between Stephen Hawking on one side and Leonard Susskind, Gerard ’t Hooft, and others. The BHW is interesting because Baggott turns it…

It used to be that only rich people could afford to be fat. Now only rich people can afford to be thin. And there's even a growing income gap when it comes to suicide. Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland but that doesn't make it equal, and the authors of a paper in the International Journal of Epidemiology have found that assisted suicide is more common in wealthier areas. To be clear, euthanasia is not legal, just assisted suicide is. It's a subtle distinction, courtesy of the country that says you can't hang clothes out to dry on a Sunday. Doctors don't need to be involved in assisted…

Gay marriage is rapidly becoming less and less controversial, at least in the Western world. Yes, the battle hasn’t been won just yet, both in Europe and in the US, but we are getting there at a pace that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The next frontier, it seems, is adoptions by gay parents. When I talk to even some of my somewhat progressive friends and relatives, including those in the Old Country, they seem to resist the idea of gay couples adopting children much more than they resisted (if they ever did) the idea of gay marriage. Why? Time to deploy some good SciPhi…