Some questions I had been thinking about came up at the Wisconsin Metaethics Workshop, and I wondered if people had any thoughts about them. As a moral irrealist, and indeed someone tempted by the error theory, I am inclined to say that I don’t believe […] Read More
Many philosophers believe that suicide is permissible in at least some circumstances. Others go further and claim that there are circumstances in which suicide is morally obligatory — that there’s sometimes a "duty to die." While I accept that suicide may be morally permissible in […] Read More
The Committee for the Graduate Conference in Political Theory at Princeton University welcomes papers concerning any period, methodological approach, and/or topic in political theory, political philosophy, and/or the history of political thought, for a conference at Princeton April 11-12, 2008. For more details, visit the […] Read More
Some photos from the Wisconsin Metaethics Workshop, which was attended by at least 11 PEA Soupers, are here.
I’m working on putting together an anthology of readings in political philosophy. The book is aimed for use in undergraduate courses and will have both classic (e.g. Locke, Hobbes) and contemporary (e.g. Rawls, Dworkin) sources. It will contain about 40 readings, and these readings should […] Read More
The Rutgers Institute for Law and Philosophy, based at the Law School in Camden, is pleased to announce a two-day symposium on F. M. Kamm’s Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm (Oxford, 2007). The symposium will take place on Friday, February 22nd and Saturday, […] Read More
There’s an approach to a number of different domains in ethics, which we can call “specificationism”, that is seldom explicitly discussed but that I think warrants greater attention. Easily the most famous example of specificationism is found in the theory of rights and is owed […] Read More
I’d like to return to one of the favourite topics of Pea Soup for a bit, i.e., the Zombies. Couple of years ago we had great discussions about Zombies, well-being, and the notion of ‘good for’ (here, here, and here). We’ve even talked about whether […] Read More
Some philosophers are bold; they defend strong positions with few hedges or caveats. Others are cautious; they defend weak positions with many hedges and caveats. Which of these two approaches, bold or cautious, is better?