Think About It
Harm and Climate Change, Part 1
May 13, 2013
The recent report about atmospheric C02 levels reaching the symbolic level of 400 parts per million calls attention to some of the issues dealt with in the Philosophy Department’s Environmental Ethics module. Suppose you are engaged in an activity that causes significant harm to others. It forces them out of their homes, raises the cost …
Measles, Mill, Madoff
April 26, 2013
What can the state legitimately compel its citizens to do? This is not a question about the means of compulsion (e.g. criminal vs. civil law; incentives vs. penalties) but the question of whether such compulsion is ever justified. There are good reasons to think not. One is that it is usually the individual who is …
Can a rat teach a rat with only its mind?
March 21, 2013
Sometimes scientific news stories amaze me. Here is one: scientists have connected the brains of lab rats, allowing one to communicate directly to another via cables. One rat knew which lever to push for a reward because it was attached to another rat who knew. Scientists made the tentative conclusion that one of the brains …
Freedom of Religious Expression
January 16, 2013
Freedom of religious expression is once again in the news. The European court of Human Rights has this week delivered a mix bag of verdicts concerning the action of Christians in the UK ranging from the wearing of a cross at work, a marriage counselor sacked after saying he might object to giving sex therapy …
Video Games: Are They Art?
January 3, 2013
The Museum of Modern Art in New York has recently admitted a number of video games, ranging from arcade classics like Pac-man to rather more esoteric titles such as flOw, into their hallowed halls. Predictably, this move has been met with a flurry of voices asking the ubiquitous question ‘but is it art?’ Jonathan Jones, …
Philosophy and the Living Wage
November 2, 2012
A report by accountants KPMG this week claimed that one fifth of the UK’s workers are paid less than is required for a basic standard of living. The current hourly ‘living wage’ is calculated to be £8.30 in London, and £7.20 in the rest of the UK. The current minimum wage throughout the UK is …
Mitt Romney and Gender Inequality
October 18, 2012
The internet is abuzz with discussion of Romney’s comment, in the VP debate, about having a ‘whole binders full of women’; the internet memes are running amok. What is it about this comment that has prompted such levels of mockery? Romney’s remark came in the context of his explanation, alongside his debating partner President Obama’s, …
Looking for a bad painting
September 26, 2012
We arrived late at the Church of San Michele near Rapello, Northern Italy. The kindly tourist board person had arranged for us to see a little known van Dyke crucifixion there, painted, it is said, while he was in hiding there after trouble in Genova. We eventually located the caretaker, who opened up, and the …
The bravery of burglars
September 12, 2012
On Tuesday 4th September a Teesside Crown Court judge said: ‘It takes a huge amount of courage…for somebody to burgle somebody’s house. I wouldn’t have the nerve.’ On Thursday 6th, David Cameron responded, saying: ‘I am very clear that burglary is not bravery. Burglary is cowardice. Burglary is a hateful crime‘ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-19503922). So, is burglary courageous …
Art and Science: the same thing?
September 11, 2012
“People with an interest in narrative tend to have a squiffy view of reality”. So says Ian McEwan, or rather, so says his character Professor Beard, the overweight Nobel Prize winner, intellectual has-been and compulsive womaniser of Solar. But for all Beard’s faults, there is something in his distrust of narrative imperialism, the tendency to …
