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, studies suggest that the opposite is true. The additional legal battles in death penalty cases may cost more than a life sentence.
• Of course, for some death penalty opponents, it's not about whether innocent people are sentenced to death.

Does Death Harm Animals?

Here is a short post with some thoughtful analysis regarding the topic of our 2nd paper on the moral status of persons (specifically, on non-persons and killing animals):

• Can Death Harm Non-Persons?

I recommend reading it to help you start developing your own arguments on these issues for your paper.

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!)

Paper #2 Guideline

Due Date: The beginning of class on Wednesday, December 19th, 2012

Worth: 10% of your final grade

Assignment: Write an argumentative essay on the topic below. Papers must be typed, and must be between 600-1200 words long. Provide a word count on the first page of the paper. (Most programs like Microsoft Word have automatic word counts.)

Topic: Explain and defend your definition of “person” as it relates to morality, and specifically to the ethics of abortion and animal ethics.

(1) First, briefly explain and critically evaluate the different definitions of “person” that we have discussed in class. Be sure to explain the definition offered by Mary Anne Warren.

(2) Second, explain how each of the following authors uses the concept of “person” to attempt to settle the particular ethical debate she or he wrote about. (Warren and Marquis on abortion, and Norcross on animal ethics).
[NOTE: Many of these authors think personhood is irrelevant to their issue.]

(3) Third, explain and defend your definition of “person”: do you agree with one of the definitions we discussion in class, or do you have one of your own?

(4) Fourth, explain the solution that your definition of “person” gives to the ethical debates of abortion and animal ethics.

When outlining your definition of person, be sure to consider and answer the following questions: Which living entities are persons, and which living entities are not persons? Do you believe one needs to be a person in the moral sense in order to be worthy of moral consideration (for instance, do some non-persons have a right to not be killed and a right to not suffer unnecessarily)? Do persons have special moral significance? Can someone have moral rights before they have moral duties? Be sure to fully explain and philosophically defend each of your answers.

The Ethics of Killing

I don't often recommend an entire book to students, but if you're interested in some thoughtful analysis of abortion, euthanasia, animals, killing, and personhood, among other things, you should check out Jeff McMahan's The Ethics of Killing. Here's a short description of the book:

"This magisterial work is the first comprehensive study of the ethics of killing, where the moral status of the individual killed is uncertain. Drawing on philosophical notions of personal identity and the immorality of killing, McMahan looks carefully at a host of practical issues, including abortion, infanticide, the killing of animals, assisted suicide, and euthanasia."

McMahan teaches philosophy at Rutgers. He also just wrote a follow-up book called Killing in War. This is exactly the kind of careful, thought-out approach that I think complicated, serious issues deserve.

Here's an audio interview with McMahan on personhood.

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

November 26th Class Canceled

I'm sick, so Monday's Ethics class is canceled.

This pushes a few things back on the schedule. Consensus group #1 on animal ethics is now presenting in class on Wednesday, November 28th. Consensus group #2--the Igor Primoratz article on the death penalty--will present on Friday, November 30th, and group #3--the Nathanson article on the death penalty--presents Monday, December 3rd.

Abortion

Here are some links related to our class discussions on the ethics of abortion:

• Recent scientific research suggests that the earliest fetuses can feel pain is about 24 weeks into a pregnancy.  
• One philosopher argues that even if you think abortion is morally acceptable, it's controversial and morally risky enough for you to lower your confidence in your own moral judgment.  
• Here are two articles debunking the myth of the Mozart Effect that we discussed in one of our classes. 

Personhood

Here are some links related to our ongoing discussion of the the moral status of persons:

• Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on person.
• Here is a nice essay that examines various proposed criteria for personhood, such as intelligence and the ability to communicate.
• Are dogs persons? One of my favorite radio shows recently devoted 3 episodes to the science of what dogs can and cannot understand.  Listen below:
  
  Part One
  Part Two
  Part Three
• How about dolphins: are they sea-persons?

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)

Ethics of Care

Here's some stuff related to the ethics of care:

• Here's an excerpt from a video of Carol Gilligan explaining her work. The entire video is available here.
• For stuff on feminism in general, I highly recommend one of my favorite blogs: Feminist Philosophers.
• There's also a great blog called What Is It Like to Be a Woman in Philosophy? It's devoted to short accounts from women on their experiences while pursuing a career in philosophy.
  
• The cartoon Rose Is Rose offers a funny-ish critique of reason-centered approaches to ethics:

Breaking Habits

"If you want to change a habit, …don’t try and change everything at once. Instead, figure out what the cue is, figure out what the reward is and find a new behavior that is triggered by that cue and delivers that same reward."

-Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, on Monday's episode of Fresh Air

Just Right

Here is a trio of short audio interviews with philosophers talking about Aristotle's virtue ethics. All three interviews come from the "Philosophy Bites" podcast.

• Aristotle's ethics
  
  
• Aristotle on happiness
  
  
• Virtues
  

And here's a great overview on the current science of self-improvement: when trying to change something about yourself, which techniques work and which don't?