To speak in the same breath of personhood and political economy sounds odd because of the seemingly obvious radical difference between the two worlds of their application. On the one hand, a straightforward moral term from everyday life referring to the status of our fellow humans; on the other hand, a technical theory with roots in 18th-century French and British philosophical thought about the interrelation between economic production, society, and the state. What could these two possibly have to do with each other?
Continue reading The Political Economy of Personhood
When it comes to birds, difference looms in classifications of “things that fly”—in particular at the most inclusive levels termed in scientific biological classification the class, order, and family. But might the nature of particular birds bring them into the spotlight for attention regardless of culture, setting them up for similar conception (discrimination, naming, specificity in taxonomy), even if perception inevitably is fundamentally cultural?
Continue reading The Nature and Culture of Birds
by Gary Comstock The North Carolina State University College of Humanities and Social Sciences joins with the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies to announce a workshop celebrating Professor Tom Regan’s contributions to ethical theory.
Continue reading Tom Regan: A Celebration
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that could provide specifically for the formation of trade unions and “periodic holiday with pay”, might have mustered the specificity to mention women sometime, other than through “motherhood,” which is more bowed to than provided for. If women were human in this document, would domestic violence, sexual violation from birth to death, including in prostitution and pornography, and systematic sexual objectification and denigration of women and girls simply be left out of the explicit language?
Continue reading Are Women Human?
by Peter Singer from Practical Ethics, Third Edition, by Peter Singer Copyright © 2011 Peter Singer Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.
Is meat eating justified by the fact that millions of animals would never exist should no one care to eat them?
In Social Rights and Duties, a collection of essays and lectures published in
Continue reading Taking Life: Animals
by Michael Bérubé Bioethics is much too important to be left to bioethicists.
At the outset of his 2006 book, Choosing Children: Genes, Disability, and Design, Jonathan Glover asks:
Progress in genetics and in reproductive technologies gives us growing power to reduce the incidence of disabilities and disorders. Should we welcome this power, or should we fear its
Continue reading Humans, Disabilities, and the Humanities?
The apparent differences between humans and apes are not biologically fixed, but they are biologically and culturally instantiated. Differences in maternal care patterns, which human and bonobo infants experience from the moment of birth forward, are responsible for the many of the behavioral distinctions that later emerge between the species. They are culturally instantiated and are open to change at any time. From these caregiver patterns emerge the different styles of human/ape consciousness.
Continue reading Human Language—Human Consciousness
by Joshua Knobe, Assistant Professor, Program in Cognitive Science and Department of Philosophy
Yale University Imagine two people discussing a question in mathematics. One of them says “7,497 is a prime number,” while the other says, “7,497 is not a prime number.” In a case like this one, we would probably conclude that there is a single right answer and that anyone who says otherwise must be mistaken. The question
Continue reading Do People Actually Believe in Objective Moral Truths?
A trans-species perspective is an all-encompassing stance towards nature that embraces the continuity and comparability of all species’ lives. It shapes the way we view ourselves in relation to other animals and involves changing our current model of those relationships from one of separation and condescension to one of communalism and respect. Given the mass extinctions, global destruction of habitat, environmental degradation, and continued mass exploitation of other animals, nothing short of a shift in human psychological perspective is needed to turn things around.
Continue reading A Trans-Species Perspective on Nature
by Robert Sapolsky Symbols, metaphors, analogies, parables, synecdoche, figures of speech. And we understand them. We understand that a captain wants more than just hands when he orders all of them on deck. We grasp that the right piece of cloth can represent a nation and its values, and that setting fire to such a flag is a highly charged act. We can learn that a certain combination of sounds put together by Tchaikovsky represents Napoleon getting his ass kicked just outside Moscow. And that the name “Napoleon,” in this case, represents thousands and thousands of soldiers dying cold and hungry, far from home. Where did this expertise with symbolism come from?
Continue reading This Is Your Brain on Metaphors
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