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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? 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 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 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 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 Pretty much everyone agrees that some activities in the brain are never conscious. For example, it would be hard to find researches who think there can be conscious events in the cerebellum. Most researchers nowadays also deny that there can be conscious events in subcortical structures, though there is an occasional plea for the thalamus or the reticular formation. But what about the neocortex? Is any activity in that folded carapace a candidate for conscious experience? Does each cortical neuron vie for the conscious spotlight, like the contestants on a televised talent show? Continue reading Does Consciousness Outstrip Sensation? I was born in Den Bosch, the city after which Hieronymus Bosch named himself.1 This obviously does not make me an expert on the Dutch painter, but having grown up with his statue on the market square, I have always been fond of his imagery, his symbolism, and how it relates to humanity’s place in Continue reading Morals without God? |
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