"My Life is Evil"

Comedian Louis CK's take on Peter Singer's argument:

Make Sure It Helps

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

• Easterly is an economist at NYU whose book is called The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good.
• He also ran a blog called Aid Watch with the catchy subtitle, "just asking that aid benefit the poor."
• Some similar websites include GiveWell's blog and Good Intentions Are Not Enough.
• Here's an interesting review of Easterly's book that seriously considers his concerns about giving aid to African nations. I especially recommend reading the last section of the article.
• Here's a great chat between Easterly and Singer:
  

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.

New Jersey's Own

Here's more than you ever wanted on Peter Singer:

• His recent book on giving is called The Life You Can Save.
• Here he points out the biases that keep us from giving.
• Here he calls out professors for not teaching about poverty.
• Here he updates his argument and offers some specific giving guidelines.
• Here he defends his position against some tough questions.
• And here's his recent appearance on The Colbert Report.

Youth In Asia

Ali G's Take on Euthanasia
[More on euthanasia]

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."

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:

Crime and Punishment

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

• Mark Kleiman, professor of public policy at UCLA, has a new book called When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment. He argues that smaller, swifter punishments can greatly increase deterrence.
• Here's a review of When Brute Force Fails.
• Kleiman runs a blog called Same Facts.
  
• Here's a video dialogue about Kleiman's book:
  

New Jersey's Own

An article we're reading toward the end of the semester was written by by well-known philosopher, utilitarian, vegetarian, and New Jersey resident Peter Singer. He's particularly known for arguing in support of better treatment of animals. Here are some interviews with him:

• Peter Singer on Michael Vick & Dog Fighting
  
• Audio Interview with Peter Singer
  
• Animal Research (Peter Singer's Sometimes OK with It!)

You Know Chicken's Chicken, Right?

Jonathan Safran Foer--author of the critically acclaimed novel Everything Is Illuminated--has a new book about his decision to not support factory farming called Eating Animals. Here's some stuff on it:

• A thoughtful review of the book by a philosopher.
• Another review: "You Know That Chicken Is Chicken, Right?"
  
• His appearance on the Colbert Report:

Moopheus

Here are some links on animal ethics:

• David Foster Wallace: Consider the Lobster
• How to Cut Back on Meat Slowly
• What Is The Meatrix? (see video below)
• Vegetarians Still Love the Smell of Bacon
• What If We Could Make Pain-Free Animals?
• Audio Interview: Jeff McMahan on Vegetarianism
  
• Huge List of Resources on the Moral Status of Animals

Moral Psych Out

Here are some links loosely related to moral psychology:

• Here's a decent explanation of Lawrence Kohlberg's psychological theory of moral development that we mentioned in class.
  
• Psychological research on our moral judgments is a lot wackier today. For instance, clean smells make us behave better, while smelling farts makes us judge more harshly.
  
• There's some great new research on moral development in children, too. Here's Rebecca Saxe's TED Talk:
  
  
• One large strand of psychological research is on the impact of emotions on our moral reasoning. Here's Jonathan Haidt's TED Talk on the emotional difference between conservatives and liberals:
  

Delusions of Gender

Psychologist Cordelia Fine has a great new book out called Delusions of Gender. In it, she debunks a lot of the myths about so-called 'hard-wired' gender differences between boys and girls. Our brains are much more malleable than these myths suggest, and such perceived gender differences are likely either non-existent or the result of social pressures.

Fine wrote a nice summary of her book here, and there are two good reviews of her book here and here.  Below is an excerpt from a talk Fine recently gave.


Cordelia Fine: Discovering Sexism in Neuroscience
Here's a comparison of the different words used in ads for boys’ toys and ads for girls’ toys.

(hat tip: Feminist Philosophers blog)

Kantian Links

Here are some links related to Immanuel Kant's theory of ethics:

• An intermediate overview of Kant's theory of ethics.
• An advanced overview of Kant's ethics.
  
• Kant's theory is deontological (which is a fancy word that basically means morality is about more than just the consequences of an action). Here's an advanced overview of deontological ethics.
• Some harsh criticisms of Kant's ethical judgments. My favorite excerpt: "Kant's philosophical moral reasoning appears mainly to have confirmed his prejudices and the ideas inherited from his culture. Therefore, we should be nervous about expecting more from the philosophical moral reasoning of people less philosophically capable than Kant."
• A 3-minute video on Kant's ethics is below:

The Psychology of Happiness

Since utilitarianism focuses so much on happiness, I thought I'd share some links on the cool new psychological research on happiness popping up lately.

• Here's a great overview of the psychology of happiness. And here is another, and another.
• Recent studies suggest that our baseline level of happiness doesn't change much throughout our life. So, even if we won the lottery, we wouldn't wind up that much happier. This is potentially very depressing news, although some say there's room for some optimism, and others think the research is wrong.
• There's an insightful, accessible book by Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert called Stumbling on Happiness. One of his big points is that we often don't know what makes us happy. Here's Gilbert's appearance on The Colbert Report:
  
• And here's Gilbert giving an awesome TED talk on his research:
  
  

Utilitarios

Here are some links on the theory of utilitarianism:

• A neat little biography of know-it-all John Stuart Mill.
• An advanced encyclopedia article from my favorite free online philosophy encyclopedia on utilitarianism and other theories that focus on consequences of an action.
• (Yes, there is more than one free online philosophy encyclopedia. Here's another encyclopedia's entry on the same topic.)
• The trolley problem gets brought up a lot when evaluating utilitarianism. A short video intro on it is below. Also, there's some new research on the psychology of the trolley problem.

Natty Law

Here's a Bloggingheads video dialogue explaining and debating natural law theory:


Bloggingheads is a great resource that I've learned a lot from.  They post conversations between smart people on all sorts of interesting topics.  I recommend browsing the site, or checking out some of my favorites.

Am I A Jerk Because I Annoy You, Or Do I Annoy You Because I'm A Jerk?

Let's evaluate divine command theory!

• Two quick explanations (one and two) of the Euthyphro dilemma, the big criticism of divine command theory
  
• Some responses to the Euthyphro dilemma
• Other criticisms of divine command theory
• Important question: do the robot gods love what is pious because it is pious, or is something pious because it is loved by the robot gods?

• Let's hear God's response:

• But for obvious reasons, this one's my favorite:

That Beyoncé Video WAS Great...

Why doesn't Kanye give a toast to the tools?

Maybe Kanye should just eat some cookies.

Howard Sure Is a Duck

Howard the Duck is my favorite synecdoche for the 80's:

Philosophy: The Annoying 3-Year-Old

Here's that video from class of comedian Louis CK's take on the broad, fundamental questions kids ask.

Louis CK - Why?