Before you ask, no, this week’s post isn’t a Your Momma joke! It’s another in a series of questions about the moral problem of the trolley. Last week’s poll was interesting; in the population at large, most people would choose to push the fat villain in front of the trolley in order to save the… Continue reading Moral Monday: The Trolley Problem and Your Mom
Category: Ethics
5 Reasons To Power Down During Dinner
Lately I’ve been very focused on food. It’s something that we probably don’t think about often enough but permeates pretty much every aspect of our lives and is a major focus of each and every day. I didn’t know anything about calories until college, and really didn’t start to expand my palate to include delicacies… Continue reading 5 Reasons To Power Down During Dinner
Hurricane Katrina: 7 years later
Hurricane Isaac will be making landfall 7 years to the date of the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I was three months into owning my first home when Katrina struck and rendered it unlivable for the next four months. Several things still stand out very strongly to me since then: Devastation emphasizes the importance of community. After… Continue reading Hurricane Katrina: 7 years later
Moral Monday: The Trolley Problem and the Fat Villain
This week, we are going to look at the third in a series of trolley-related moral dilemmas. In the first poll, the majority of you guys said you would flip a switch to divert a trolley headed toward five people toward only one instead. In the second poll, the majority of you said you would… Continue reading Moral Monday: The Trolley Problem and the Fat Villain
Moral Monday: Trolley Problem and the Fat Man
Last week we looked at the classic philosophic conundrum of the trolley. Nearly 70% of respondents said that they would flip a switch in order to divert a trolley that would then kill one person, but miss 5 others at which it was previously heading. This response percentage tends to line up with surveys that… Continue reading Moral Monday: Trolley Problem and the Fat Man
Film Friday: Waking Life
Wiley visits Eamonn Healy, Chemistry professor at Austin. Healy discusses human evolution and the values that are associated with it: parasitism, dominance, morality, war, predation. In this scheme “the individual is at the whim of the collective.” He then states that we are beginning a new kind of evolution, which involves bio-technology (artificial intelligence, neuro-biology),… Continue reading Film Friday: Waking Life
Moral Monday: The Trolley Problem
A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should… Continue reading Moral Monday: The Trolley Problem
Is struggle necessary for happiness?
A passing comment on Twitter recently started an interesting conversation about how a person can achieve true happiness and peace of mind in life. In religious discussions, the presence of evil in the world despite the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present God is often reconciled by arguing that evil is necessary. In other… Continue reading Is struggle necessary for happiness?
Film Friday: When Harry Met Sally – Why Women Fake Orgasms
Today I’m happy to announce a new regular posting on Philosophy Matters: Film Friday (yes, I like alliteration!). Each week at Philosophy Matters, we will be watching a movie and thinking about it philosophically. This week, LKAwesome selected “When Harry Met Sally,” which I had surprisingly never seen before! The following entry is a collaboration… Continue reading Film Friday: When Harry Met Sally – Why Women Fake Orgasms
The Jetsons: Work in the Modern World
“George Jetson: age 34, is a loving family man who always seems to make the wrong decision. He works ‘full-time,’ 9 hours a week, at Spacely’s Sprockets as a computer engineer.” – Wikipedia For me, one of the most interesting “predictions,” so to speak, from the TV show the Jetsons, was the idea that George… Continue reading The Jetsons: Work in the Modern World