A forum for discussing Philosophy, Ethics, and Academia
Many thanks to the Daves for inviting me to contribute to the PEA Soup community! One major focus of my past and current research is pragmatism: the view that there are practical reasons for and against belief and other doxastic attitudes like disbelieving, suspending judgment, […] Read More
The Kutak Center for the Teaching and Study of Applied Ethics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is pleased to announce that we are extending the deadline for submitting abstracts for our conference on ethics and technology. Featured Speakers: Alexis Elder University of Minnesota – Duluth Ryan […] Read More
I want to introduce what I think is a new puzzle and get your feedback. I might have an answer, but I’m curious to hear what others think first, about whether this is a (new) puzzle and about what might resolve/dissolve it. If I blame […] Read More
Welcome to what should be a fun and insightful discussion of Alison Toop’s “Is Marriage Incompatible with Political Liberalism?” Lori Watson (University of San Diego) has kindly contributed a critical précis, which appears immediately below. Please join the discussion! Toop and I agree that political […] Read More
“Trolley Follies” by Kerah Gordon-Solmon is the winner of the July Normative Ethics Prize! Congratuations! Second prize is split between Travis Timmerman’s “A Dilemmas for Effective Altruism” and Grant Rozeboom’s “You’re so Smug, I’ll Bet you Don’t Care This Post is About You.” First prize […] Read More
Uh, free Hobbes book! Uh, Part 1 of a Hobbes book is free! Arash Abizadeh’s monograph, Hobbes and the Two Faces of Ethics has been awarded the 2019 Canadian Philosophical Association Biennial Book Prize (English), and to celebrate, the publisher has made Part 1 of the […] Read More
For PEA Soup: “You’re So Smug, I’ll Bet You Don’t Care This Post is About You” There is something distinctively infuriating about a kind of conceit that we often call “smugness.” Consider the “tech bro” of Silicon Valley, a type made infamous by Justin Keller, […] Read More
Here’s a variation on the classic trolley problem that I haven’t seen before: Five innocent people are trapped in the path of an oncoming trolley. You could turn the trolley onto a sidetrack, away from the five. If you do so, the five will be […] Read More
Philosophical Examples: The Stark and the Dense by Vida Yao In “The Women of Trachis: Fictions, Pessimism, and Ethics,” Bernard Williams draws a distinction between dense and stark fiction, and their use in moral-philosophical discussion and reflection. Sophocles is his exemplar of the latter; Dickens the […] Read More