Dazed and Confused

Here are some links on drugs:

• The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's case against legalizing drugs.
• James Q. Wilson's defense of keeping drugs illegal that we're reading in class.
  
• The two faces of America's drug policy.
• A case for keeping weed specifically illegal.
• Legalize Pot? We Think Not!
• Criminalizing pot keeps cops from doing police work, and crowds prisons.
• A recent article celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the groundbreaking study on the medical value of marijuana.
• What was the Supreme Court thinking when it kept medical marijuana illegal?
• A radio show on drug legalization. And another on pot laws.
• Facts on weed, from Ethan Nadelmann's organization trying to stop the drug war.
• Slippery Slope? Pot doesn't lead to heroin!

Finally, here's Nadelmann's interview on the Colbert Report:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Better Know a Lobby - Drug Lobby
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

We Have to Give?

Here is some stuff on giving to charity.

• Free Charity! The Hunger Site. Just clicking there donates food! Also, try the word game at FreeRice.
• Affordable Charities! $10 Club, Microcredit, & Oxfam.
• Research on Effective Charities! Want to know which charities aren't squandering their donations? Check out Charity Navigator or GiveWell.
• Peter Singer's been promoting his new book a lot lately. He's pointed out the biases that keep us from giving, and called out professors for not teaching about poverty.
  
• NPR's Fresh Air ran a radio interview with someone who argues that a lot of current aid does more harm than good. (Donate to his organization here.)
• Here's a great article on the concerns about giving aid to African nations. I recommend reading the last section.
• Why would we give away the money we earn? (This article even references Thomas Nagel's anti-I'M-SPECIAL-ism.)
  

Finally, here's Peter Singer's recent Colbert Report interview .

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Peter Singer
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Naked Morality

Here are some links related to our discussion of the ethics of pornography:

• Is porn legitimate free speech?
  
• In class, we'll be focusing on criticisms of porn from a feminist perspective. But many argue that feminism and porn can coexist.
• Exorcising Pornography (1985 Boston Review)
• Exchange: Catherine MacKinnon & Ronald Dworkin (New York Review of Books)
• In Praise of Porn (Reason)

Hunting

-via FailBlog

Death Penalty Box

Here are some links related to our discussion of the death penalty:

• An encyclopedia of philosophy article on the death penalty.
• A large collection of resources on the ethics of capital punishment. I mean, wow.
• What's up with punishment in general? That's a big ethical issue.
  
• What about the financial cost of the death penalty? Although it's common sense to think that keeping a criminal in prison for life would cost more than putting her to death, some studies suggest that the opposite is true. The additional legal battles in death penalty cases may cost more than a life sentence.
• A nice article on measuring the reliability of the justice system. How often do courts convict the wrong person?
• I'll be mentioning "owning our ignorance" in class during our discussion of the death penalty. I like this issue so much that I've started a club about it!
  

Moopheus

Here are some links on animal ethics:

• Vegetarians Still Love the Smell of Bacon
• David Foster Wallace: Consider the Lobster
• How to Cut Back on Meat Slowly
• What Is The Meatrix?
  
• Animal Research (Peter Singer's Sometimes OK with It!)
• Peter Singer on Michael Vick & Dog Fighting
  
• Audio Interview with Peter Singer
• Michael Pollan's "An Animal's Place"
• Is Worrying About the Ethics of Your Diet Elitist?
• Huge List of Resources on the Moral Status of Animals

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Peter Singer

Ron Paul Interview
Bob Barr Interview

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Consensus Groups

Here are the group assignments for the consensus sessions. If you're not in a group yet, let me know as soon as possible so we can get you in one. Click on the Topic Heading for links to more info on your topic.

Death Penalty (April 7th)
-Group #1 (Pojman & Reiman articles): Elissa, Glenn, Justin, Michael
-Group #2 (Primoratz & Nathanson articles): Allison, Danielle, Jennifer

Pornography (April 14th)
-Group #1 (Longino article): Amanda, Carly, Erica, Joseph, Susan
-Group #2 (Wicclair article): Iryna, Lauren, Stephanie R.


Charity (April 21st)
-Group #1 (Singer article): Kelly, Kim, Nicole, Tiffany
-Group #2 (Hardin article): Emily M., Emily S., Katie, Steph D.

Drugs (April 28th)
-Group #1 (Nadelmann article): Irene, Megan, Samar
-Group #2 (Wilson article): Amber, Ann, Jess

Check the Source

-via GraphJam

Subjective To You, But Not To Me...

(click to enlarge)
Here are some links on our first topic: are moral claims merely opinions or are they factually based?

• BASIC: a conversation between cartoon dinosaurs on moral relativism (the theory similar to moral subjectivism)
• INTERMEDIATE: a clarification of what moral relativism & subjectivism are and are not
  
• ADVANCED: a detailed overview of various versions of moral relativism from my favorite free online philosophy encyclopedia (yes, there is more than one free online philosophy encyclopedia)
• An interview with a moral psychologist who supports a sophisticated version of moral subjectivism
• An argument against a key premise supporting moral subjectivism: cultures morally agree more than they disagree
• A video lecture titled "Is Morality Real or Do We Make it Up?"

Evaluating Args

Here are the answers to the handout on evaluating arguments that we went over in class. Feel free to call, text, email, or comment if you have a question about any of this.

1) All kangaroos are marsupials.
All marsupials are mammals.
All kangaroos are mammals.

P1- true
P2- true
structure- good
overall - good

2) (from Stephen Colbert)
Bush was either a great prez or the greatest prez.
Bush wasn’t a great prez.
Bush was the greatest prez.

P1- questionable ("great" is subjective)
P2- questionable ("great" is subjective)
structure- good (it's either A or B; it's not A; so it's B)
overall- bad (bad premises)

3) Some people are funny.
Sean is a person.
Sean is funny.

P1- true (we might disagree over who specifically is funny, but nearly all of us would agree that someone is funny)
P2- true
structure- bad (the 1st premise only says some are funny; Sean could be one of the unfunny people)
overall- bad (bad structure)

4) All email forwards are annoying.
Some email forwards are false.
Some annoying things are false.

P1- questionable ("annoying" is subjective)
P2- true
structure- good (the premises establish that some email forwards are both annoying and false; so some annoying things [those forwards] are false)
overall - bad (bad first premise)

5) All bats are mammals.
All bats have wings.
All mammals have wings.

P1- true
P2- true (if interpreted to mean "All bats are the sorts of creatures who have wings.") or false (if interpreted to mean "Each and every living bat has wings," since some bats are born without wings)
structure- bad (we don't know enough about the relationship between mammals and winged creatures just from the fact that bats belong to each group)
overall- good (bad structure)

6) Some dads have beards.
All bearded people are mean.
Some dads are mean.

P1- true
P2- questionable ("mean" is subjective)
structure- good (if all the people with beards were mean, then the dads with beards would be mean, so some dads would be mean)
overall- bad (bad 2nd premise)

7) This class is boring.
All boring things are taught by Sean
This class is taught by Sean.

P1-questionable ("boring" is subjective)
P2- false (it's reasonable to believe that there are some boring things not associated with Sean)
structure- good
overall- bad (bad premises)

8) All students in here are mammals.
All humans are mammals.
All students in here are humans.

P1- true
P2- true
structure- bad (the premises only tell us that students and humans both belong to the mammals group; we don't know enough about the relationship between students and humans from this; for instance, what if a dog were a student in our class?)
overall- bad (bad structure)

9) All hornets are wasps.
All wasps are insects.
All insects are scary.
All hornets are scary.

P1- true!
P2- true
P3- questionable ("scary" is subjective)
structure- good (same structure as arg #1, just repeated once more)
overall- bad (bad 3rd premise)

10) All students in here are humans.
All humans are shorter than 10 feet tall.
All students in here are shorter than 10 feet tall.

P1- true
P2- true!
structure- good (same structure as arg #1)
overall- sound

11) If Sean sings, then students cringe.
Sean is singing right now.
Students are cringing right now.

P1- questionable (since you haven't heard me sing, you don't know whether it's true or false)
P2- false
structure- good
overall- bad (bad premises)

12) If Sean sings, then students cringe.
Sean isn't singing right now.
Students aren't cringing right now.

P1- questionable (again, you don't know)
P2- true
structure- bad (from premise 1, we only know what happens when Sean is singing, not when he isn't singing; students could cringe for a different reason)
overall- bad (bad 1st premise and structure)

13) If Sean sings, then students cringe.
Students aren't cringing right now.
Sean isn't singing right now.

P1- questionable (again, you don't know)
P2- true
structure- good
overall- bad (bad 1st premise)

14) If Sean sings, then students cringe.
Students are cringing right now.
Sean is singing right now.

P1- questionable (again, you don't know)
P2- false
structure- bad (from premise 1, we only know that Sean singing is one way to guarantee that students cringe; just because they're cringing doesn't mean Sean's the one who caused it; again, students could cringe for a different reason)
overall- bad (bad premises and structure)

(More on Sisyphus)

Join the Club!

So, I'm starting up a club -- the "Owning Our Ignorance" club -- devoted to fun and logic, in that order. I've put up a blog for it over here.

We're having our first meeting at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 11th, at Coffee Works in Voorhees. (I know that's a long way for y'all, but students from most of the schools I've taught at are planning to attend, so I'm trying to make it centrally located for them.)

Check it out! If you're interested, feel free to join us.

3rd Week Readings

Here is a slightly better version of the Elliott Sober reading assignment:

Elliott Sober - Ethical Subjectivism

Thanks to Tiffany for reminding me to post these! This version is a Word document. The document is ten pages long, but you only have to read the first six pages. It's not much easier to read than the photocopies I handed out in class, but it's a little better.

A copy of the Thomas Nagel reading assignment is also available online here. Both of these are the assigned reading to be read for our February 10th class.

Defining Our Terms

1. Tool: Here's one Urban Dictionary definition of "tool," the one I had in mind when referring to Dane Cook:

someone who tries too hard. a poser. one of those chic's who holds the sign saying "Carson Daly is Hot." the asstard who goes to a rock show because they heard one of the songs on the radio or mtv. or someone who insists on wearing velour sweat suits. Avril Lavigne.

To find out more, I suggest watching Tool Academy to see our heroes in action:

2. Fugly: uh, rather ugly. Moe Szyslak has been called a few variations of this term.

3. Emo Kid: "Emo" has a ton of meanings. The wikipedia article on "emo" has a nice history of the term.

4. Lame: South Park usually nails this term.

Did I forget any terms? Let me know!

Definitions of "Philosophy"

Here are some videos on the definitions of the word "philosophy" that we discussed in class. First, the Bobby Brown definition: Nothing says "philosophy as a worldview" like 1988 Bobby Brown.

Bobby Brown - My Prerogative
Now for the 3-year-old definition. Here's comedian Louis CK's take on the broad, fundamental questions kids ask (the routine starts 2:40 into the video).

Louis CK - Why?
I couldn't find a video on doing philosophy. If you know of one, let us know in a comment to this post.