Saturday, December 22, 2012

Friday, December 21, 2012

Make Sure It Helps

Here's some stuff related to Bill Easterly's critical review of Singer's book that we read for class.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Final Exam

Just a reminder: the final exam is Friday, December 21st, in our normal classroom and at our normal class time. You'll have 50 minutes to take it.

And Regular America Will Hate Your Fancy Book Learning

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Where to Give?

If you want to donate to an effective charity, check out the following links:

Don't Just Give. Give Well.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Extra Credit: "I Could've Done More"

Optional extra credit: Explain how Peter Singer thinks that we are in a similar situation as Oskar Schindler in this scene from Schindler's List. Do you agree with Singer? Why or why not?


The assignment doesn't have to be long (only about a paragraph). It's based on the Peter Singer article on pages 229-236 of the yellow textbook, and is due at the beginning of class on Friday, December 21st.  It's worth up to 10 points added to your final grade.

Good Guy Gates

Monday, December 17, 2012

New Jersey's Own

The Pete You Can SingHere's more than you ever wanted on Peter Singer:

Don't Respond This Way

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Assisted Dying

Here are a few links on euthanasia:

VERY Active Euthanasia

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Poetic Idol Tonight

If you're free tonight, you should stop by Poetic Idol. CCC's literary club puts on a performance contest every semester. Students read poems, short stories, or essays and get judged, American-Idol style, by a panel of judges. I'm one of the judges!

It's in the CIM Auditorium from 7:00-9:00 tonight. You can perform or just watch. There's free food for all.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Quiz #2

Quiz #2 is worth 7.5% of your overall grade, and will be held at the beginning of class on Monday, December 10th. You'll have about 25 minutes to complete it. It will consist of about 5 or 6 short answer questions, and will be on everything we've covered since the midterm:

  • abortion (Warren and Marquis)
  • animal ethics (Norcross)
  • death penalty (Primoratz, Nathanson)
A Little Too on the Nose, Sean

Friday, December 7, 2012

Your Inner Bigot

There's an insightful article called "Finding Your Inner Bigot" on racism and sexism that relates to our discussion in class this week: does prejudice have to be conscious, or can we unintentionally do something sexist or racist?

Psychological evidence suggests that unconscious prejudice is real, and often a bigger problem today than intentionally discriminatory behavior. As the article puts it,

"If you ask physicians whether all patients should be treated equally regardless of race, everyone says yes. But if you ask doctors how they will treat patients with chest pains who are named Michael Smith and Tyrone Smith, the doctors tend to be less aggressive in treating the patient with the black-sounding name. Such disparities in treatment are not predicted by the conscious attitudes that doctors profess, but by their unconscious attitudes—their hidden brains."
Counteracting these unintentional, hidden prejudices is pretty tough. They require a long-term approach of the kind discussed in Aristotle's virtue ethics: noticing your bad habits, then consciously trying to break them and replace them with better habits. The hardest part about unconscious biases, though, is how difficult they are to notice in the first place.

We Think We Know, But We Have No Idea

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Do You Remember? Prolly Not

Here's a video on the unreliability of eyewitness identification and the tragedy of misidentifying a suspect:


Unfortunately, many jurors seem to prefer eyewitness testimony over forensic evidence.  Given how unreliable our memories are, that's pretty scary.  Here's a quote:

"Despite all our scientific know-how, jurors weighing life and death decisions still crave what Leone calls the 'human element:' the act of watching another person testify and deciding if they’re telling the truth.

"As these witnesses enter the courtroom, a hush often falls on the gallery. Jurors — bored by days of dry testimony given by well-rehearsed experts — lean forward in their seats, pens at the ready to take notes about what the eyewitness has to say. They have seen this moment on television, too, and it’s usually really, really interesting."
A Broken System More Bad Evidence Isn't Better

Finally, here's an excellent, short video explanation of the unreliability of memory that ends with a dog licking peanut butter off a guy's face:

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Unfair and Arbitrary

Here are some links related to Nathanson's article outlining the problems in the U.S. legal system:

Judge Judy LolCat

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Crime and Punishment

While we're on the subject of capital punishment, here's some stuff on new research into punishment: