Join the Club!

Still subscribed to this old course blog? Nice.

So, I'm trying to start up a school club -- the "Owning Our Ignorance" club -- devoted to fun and logic, in that order. I've put up a blog for it over here.

Check it out. Please join if you're interested.

Goodbye to Yesterday...

In case you haven't checked yet, your grades are now posted. Enjoy your summer, 10 o'clock class!
Good luck, 11 o'clock class!

Own Your Ignorance

Here's an excerpt from a podcast I listen to called Jordan, Jesse GO! Two guys in their twenties are jovially discussing a favorite topic of mine: owning your ignorance. (Remember this during our discussion of the death penalty?)

Other sincerely awesome stuff from them is available at Maximum Fun.

Moopheus

Here are some links on animal ethics:

• Vegetarians Still Love the Smell of Bacon
• David Foster Wallace: Consider the Lobster
• How to Cut Back on Meat Slowly
  
• Animal Research (Peter Singer's Sometimes OK with It!)
• Peter Singer on Michael Vick & Dog Fighting
  
• Audio Interview with Peter Singer
• Michael Pollan's "An Animal's Place"
• Is Worrying About the Ethics of Your Diet Elitist?
• Huge List of Resources on the Moral Status of Animals

The Meatrix

We Have to Give?!?

Here is some stuff on giving to charity.

First, if you buy the arguments for giving to charity, you might want to research which charities aren't squandering their donations. Here's a link to lists of reputable charities, sorted by type of charity (such as hunger or international relief).

Next, check out The Hunger Site. You can donate food FOR FREE there! You can also donate rice for free by playing a word game at FreeRice. Links to other charitable organizations are at the bottom of this post.

The next two links will help those who can't find their Vice & Virtue textbook. This one's from Peter Singer, the same guy we read for class. It's his updated argument with some interesting specific proposals:

The next is the James Shikwati interview we read for class. (Shikwati's organization is online here. A similar organization you can donate to is online here.) The NPR program Fresh Air just aired a radio interview with someone who agrees with Shikwati's claim that most government aid to developing nations is doing more harm than good.

Here's an interesting article in which Nicholas Kristof discusses many of the concerns Shikwati raises about giving aid to African nations. I especially recommend reading the last section of the article.

Here's an article on all the reasons why we might give away the money we earn. This article even references Thomas Nagel's anti-I'M-SPECIAL-ism.

Next, here is Peter Singer's appearance on The Colbert Report. He's talking about our next topic: animal ethics.

Next, here's another short video of Peter Singer on giving to charity:


Finally, here are some cheaper charities designed for people who can't donate a lot of money:

• The $10 Club
  
• Microcredit
• Oxfam
  

Paper #2 Guidelines

Due Date: Friday, May 9th, 2008

Worth: 15% of final grade

Assignment: Write an argumentative essay on the topic below. Papers must be typed, and must be between 600-1200 words long. Provide a word count on the first page of the paper. (Most programs like Microsoft Word & WordPerfect have automatic word counts.)

Explain your conception of personhood as it relates to morality.

(1) First, briefly explain and critically evaluate the different conceptions of personhood that we have discussed in class. Be sure to explain each conception offered by Mary Anne Warren, Stephen Schwarz, James Rachels, and Roger Scruton.

(2) Second, explain how each of these authors uses their conception to attempt to settle the particular ethical debate he or she wrote about. (Warren on abortion, Schwarz on abortion, Rachels on euthanasia, and Scruton on animal rights).

(3) Third, explain your conception of personhood: do you agree with one of these authors’ conceptions, or do you have one of your own?

(4) Fourth, explain the solution that your conception of personhood gives to the ethical debates of abortion, euthanasia, and animal rights.

When considering your conception of personhood, be sure to answer the following questions: Which living creatures are persons, and which living creatures are not persons? Do you believe that you need to be a “person” in the moral sense in order to have moral rights (in particular, the right to life and the right to not suffer unnecessarily)? Can someone have moral rights before they have moral duties? Be sure to fully explain and philosophically defend each of your answers.

Death Penalty Box

Here are some links on the death penalty.

This first link is a large collection of resources on the ethics of capital punishment. I mean, wow.

In class, we discussed the financial cost of the death penalty. Although it's common sense to think that keeping a criminal in prison for life would cost more than putting her to death, many studies suggest that the opposite is true. The additional legal battles in death penalty cases may cost more than a life sentence.

Finally, here's a nice article on measuring the reliability of the justice system. How often do courts convict the wrong person?