This NYT article piqued my curiosity: Selling Lesson Plans Online Raises Cash and Questions Basically, some teachers have made quite a bit of money by selling their lesson plans online to other teachers. Some teachers’ employers are wondering whether they should be receiving a cut of the profits, and one educational expert warns that the …
Tag Archives: applied ethics
wasting food
Even though I try really hard to buy only the groceries we need and in amounts we can use, my husband & I still end up throwing away a pretty good bit of food on a regular basis. What I can’t figure out is why throwing away food feels so much worse than letting clothes …
business-izing higher ed: I’m not scared
A few days back, this post about higher ed in the UK appeared over on one of my favorite blogs, Feminist Philosophers. Here’s the big quote: “Business secretary wants students and parents to be treated more like customers in proposals to overhaul higher education.” The original poster worries that “universities get put under a great …
more thoughts on veganism and well-being
I was thrilled to receive this thoughtful comment on my last post on my vegan experiment: Comment from abeala I have some disjointed things to say in response. First of all, yes, it can definitely be difficult to have a significant other who does not eat the same way as you. Around the time I …
why I became vegan
Here’s the second in a series of posts on vegetarianism & animal welfare. If you spend any time at all in the veg*n (vegetarian and/or vegan) areas of the internet (websites, blogs, message boards), you learn the ideological territory pretty quickly. For people who recognize and take seriously the ethical problems surrounding food animal production, …
how I semi-accidentally became vegetarian
Animal welfare issues are really important to me, but somehow they have failed to make an appearance here so far. Allow me to rectify the situation. This is part 1 of a few posts on my adventures in plant-based eating. Flash back to fall 2007. It was my first semester in graduate school. I was …
state control of abortion: funding, or failing to provide?
I am genuinely confused by this recent Feministe post, Michele Bachmann: radical pro-choice feminist? The author offers two pieces of information that she seems to believe are contradictory. 1. A quote by Michele Bachmann: “That’s why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal …
kant on queueing, or why I am not a kantian
In response to my post on how not to think about cutting in line, Jacob Levy makes these important points: I’m puzzled. This seems like the easiest of cases for a Kantian. I cannot will as a universal maxim that the cutter be allowed into line, because that would destroy the coherence of lining up. …
my least favorite facebook group: "cancel student loan debt to stimulate the economy"
I found out about this little movement through its Facebook group, “Cancel Student Loan Debt to Stimulate the Economy.” Basically, a guy named Robert Applebaum hatched an attractive-to-some but crazy plan to have the government bail out those carrying college debt by paying off their loans. This would, allegedly, cause all those formerly oppressed by …
how to think about cutting in line: a follow-up
Here is the second half to my previous post on this topic, as promised. CAUTION: Ideas in progress! Constructive criticism welcome. It seems to me that there is a (rough) distinction between two kinds of lines: those that are instituted for practical purposes, and those that confer moral status upon the persons at the front. First, …
