Here’s the third post in a series on cheating/academic dishonesty in college (first post, second post). A year and a half ago, I taught an introduction to philosophy course independently. The lectures were in person, but the tests were online because the class only met once per week and I didn’t want to use up …
Category Archives: ethics
prizes, payments, and donating blood
This old post, on the moral status of donating blood, still attracts a trickle of Google searches to this blog. I wonder who the searchers are — perhaps people trying to get motivated to donate, people trying to rationalize not donating, or biomedical ethics paper writers? Anyway, I hadn’t donated blood in over six months …
book review: Lierre Keith's "The Vegetarian Myth"
Somewhere between my ex-vegan interview at Let Them Eat Meat, the blog Hunt.Gather.Love, and Paleohacks, it was at least once recommended to me that I read Lierre Keith’s “The Vegetarian Myth.” So, I did. The author spent 20 years as a vegan. Understandably, veganism became ever nearer and dearer to her identity, but it also ruined …
the wrongness of cheating
Last time, I discussed some problems with the theory that, when you cheat, “you’re only cheating yourself.” Today, I have a few things to say on the wrongness of cheating. These are by no means comprehensive or ground breaking, just some food for thought. First, I’ll backtrack just a little and say that there is …
"you're only cheating yourself"
As a graduate teaching assistant and course instructor, I’ve encountered cheating and plagiarism a number of times. I know that many of my friends encounter similar issues as well. So, to mark the end of this semester, I thought I’d start a mini-series of posts on the subject. First up: the “you’re only cheating yourself” …
what’s there to find?
Last week, I received this fortune in a fortune cookie: “Turn your thoughts within — find yourself” People say things like this quite alot. It sounds very romantic and exciting to describe one’s trials and tribulations as being in the service of some greater, higher goal — that of finding oneself. Now, I’m not particularly …
sexism and the equality of persons
This post at Overcoming Bias caught my eye the other day: I Am Sexist Basically, Robin Hanson points out that a common definition and usage of “sexism” — having a “belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other” is flawed. It makes scientific observation …
my immortality poll & paper
I tweeted this recently: Philosophy poll: T/F — Death is a necessary condition for the meaningfulness of life; immortality is incompatible with meaningfulness. Here are the totally unrepresentative results: False — 6 True — 3 (assuming that this response counts as a “true”) For whatever it’s worth, my vote is “false.” Assuming that the meaningfulness of one’s life …
states of character vs. virtues
Ok, one last bit for now on the situationism stuff (continued from here, here, and here). I think a main source of confusion is the distinction between what empirical claims virtue ethicists make, imply, or are committed to, and what their normative claims are. Here’s my interpretation of at least part of the story: Empirical Claim: …
another stab at situationism
I think maybe I explained situationism rather poorly back here in skepticism about moral character. Some things Adam says over at Sophistpundit about The Nature of Character provide a good opportunity for me to clear things up for him as well as anyone else I may have unwittingly confused. So let me address a few …
