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Philosophy

A collection of 13 issues

To the Better End: How the Middle Can Improve the End

Neil deGrasse Tyson: “…[generational spaceships produce] interesting ethical questions … to bring an entire generation of humans into the world whose only mission is to bring another generation into the world with a goal that they will never see.” Chuck Nice: “In a way, Neil, that is [the] kind of the

Amartya Sen on Keynes, Robinson, Smith, and the Bengal Famine

Sen in conversation with Angus Deaton and Tim Besley — pdf and video. Excepts: On Joan Robinson “She took a position—which has actually become very popular in India now, not coming from the left these days, but from the right—that what you have to concentrate on is simply maximizing

The Declining Value of Personal Advice

There used to be a time when before buying something, you asked your friends and peers about advice, and it was the optimal thing to do. These days, it is often not a great use of time. It is generally better to go online. Today, the Internet abounds with comprehensive,

Disgusting

Vegetarians turn at the thought of eating the meat of a cow that has died from a heart attack. The disgust that vegetarians experience is not principled. Nor is the greater opposition to homosexuality that people espouse when they are exposed to foul smell. Haidt uses similar such provocative examples

The Best We Can Do is Responsibly Answer the Questions that Life Asks of Us

Faced with mass murder, it is hard to escape the conclusion that life has no meaning. For how could it be that life has meaning when lives matter so little? As a German Jew in a concentration camp, Victor Frankl had to confront that question. In Man’s Search for

Firmly Against Posing Firmly

“What is crucial for you as the writer is to express your opinion firmly,” writes William Zinsser in “On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction.” To emphasize the point, Bill repeats the point at the end of the paragraph, ending with, “Take your stand with conviction.” This advice

How Do We Know?

How can fallible creatures like us know something? The scientific method is about answering that question well. To answer the question well, we have made at least three big innovations: 1. Empiricism. But no privileged observer. What you observe should be reproducible by all others. 2. Open to criticism: If

Capuchin Monkeys and Fairness: I Want At Least As Much As The Other

In a much heralded experiment, we see that a Capuchin monkey rejects a reward (food) for doing a task after seeing another monkey being rewarded with something more appetizing for doing the same task. It has been interpreted as evidence for our ‘instinct for fairness’. But there is more to

Fairly Random

The lottery is a way to assign disproportionate rewards (or punishments) fairly. Procedural fairness—equal chance of selection—provides legitimacy to this system of disproportionate allocation. Given the purpose of a lottery is unequal allocation, it is essential that we seek informed consent from the participants, and that we only

Structural Inequality

Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, recently spoke about social mobility. He said, My particular focus is on inter-generational social mobility – the extent to which a person’s income or social class is influenced by the income or social class of their parents. Social mobility is a measure of