Political Annihilation: An Examination
Jean Paul-Sartre entered a cafe and scanned for his friend, Pierre. He was usually hunkered in the middle of the
The Unseemliness of Saintliness
It’s an interesting question whether as much moral goodness as possible is a good thing – whether we should, if we could, hack our psychology all the way to moral perfection. Whether we would want to be moral saints.
Five Scientific Theories That Tell Us Why Things Are Funny
Some scientists are interested in what makes things funny, and they’ve developed some pretty sophisticated explanations. Here are five of the major scientific theories of humor. Read with caution, as this article could kill your sense of humor.
Labor: A Dab Will Do Ya
Many attribute countries’ falls to a purposeful and scheming series of methods by individual actors. America, as it is today, has doomed itself. It would be easy to procure an easy argument by blaming trends on the baby boomers or the millennials (it isn’t them). Instead, I will blame Marx.
The Needle and the Plug: Is There a Difference Between Killing and Letting Die?
Many people believe there is a significant difference between withdrawing life-sustaining treatment and letting a terminally ill patient die (passive euthanasia) and actively causing a terminal patient’s death by, for instance, delivering a lethal injection (active euthanasia). But is there?
John Christman’s Content-Neutral Version of Positive Liberty
In “Liberalism and Individual Positive Freedom,” philosopher John Christman attempts a positive conception of freedom that is not subject to the dangers that concerned Isaiah Berlin.
Political Life Contra Salvation
There was a time when churches were the harbingers of social justice. Now they often prefer tax exempt status over empowering their congregants.
The Knobe Effect and the Intentionality of Side Effects
In a famous 2003 experiment, the philosopher Joshua Knobe showed that people’s judgments about whether the side effect of an action is intentional or not depend on what the side effect is.
Freedom is Freedom is Freedom: Gerald MacCallum’s Singular Concept of Liberty
Gerald MacCallum doesn’t think that negative and positive liberty are two distinct concepts. He argues instead that there’s only one concept and that it is a mistake to characterize freedom, as Berlin does, as either one of two “dyadic relations” – “freedom from” (negative liberty) and “freedom to” (positive liberty).
The Liberty Bell’s Crack: Isaiah Berlin and Two Concepts of Liberty
It’s hard to find someone who is against liberty, but it’s easy to find disagreement about what the term “liberty” means.
G.E. Moore and the Naturalistic Fallacy
The philosopher G.E. Moore, writing in the early 20th century, criticizes the grounding of moral claims in non-moral observations, which Moore refers to as natural properties.
