Is atheism irrational? Alvina Plantinga says there is insufficient evidence for atheism.
Year: 2014
Aid in dying
Aid in dying v. assisted suicide. Is this the difference between killing and letting die? “In a Gallup Poll conducted in May, for example, 70 percent of respondents agreed that when patients and their families wanted it, doctors should be allowed to ‘end the patient’s life by some painless means.’ Yet in the same 2013 poll, only 51 percent supported allowing doctors to help a dying patient ‘commit suicide.’”
The dangers of certainty
A lesson from Auschwitz. “We always have to acknowledge that we might be mistaken. When we forget that, then we forget ourselves and the worst can happen.”
Can ancient philosophy help people lead better lives?
Five books on ancient philosophy and modern life. Jules Evans “explores philosophy lessons of the ancients relevant to our globalised, information age – by way of cognitive behavioural therapy, and government measures of happiness.”
It it the brain that makes humans unique?
What makes you so special? The brain probably has something to do with it. But what exactly? “If it seems like scientists trying to find the basis of human uniqueness in the brain are looking for a neural needle in a haystack, it’s because they are. Whatever makes us different is built on the bedrock of a billion years of common ancestry. Humans will never abandon the quest to prove that they are special. But nor can we escape the fact that our minds are a modest tweak on an ancient plan that originated millions of years before we came onto the scene.”
Was it immoral to watch the Super Bowl?
Are football fans complicit in the brain damage and other injuries players suffer? Steve Almond worries that he and other fans are: “[M]edical research has confirmed that football can cause catastrophic brain injury — not as a rare and unintended consequence, but as a routine byproduct of how the game is played. That puts us fans in a morally queasy position. We not only tolerate this brutality. We sponsor it, just by watching at home. We’re the reason the N.F.L. will earn $5 billion in television revenue alone next year, three times as much as its runner-up, Major League Baseball.”
Thinking about law school? Be prepared for some philosophy!
Why has philosophy been central to legal education for more than a century? Brian Leiter explains “it has partly to do with the nature of philosophy as a discipline and partly to do with the deep affinities between law and philosophy.”
Teaching children about God
Is it wrong to teach children about God? “[Parents who believe in God] teach their children to believe in God, atheists teach them not to. Who is doing the right thing?” Michael Ruse, the director of history and philosophy of science at Florida State University, searches for an answer.
What scientific idea is ready for retirement?
Edge.org’s big question for 2014. 175 short essays by some of today’s best known thinkers. “Science advances by discovering new things and developing new ideas. Few truly new ideas are developed without abandoning old ones first. As theoretical physicist Max Planck (1858-1947) noted, ‘A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.’ In other words, science advances by a series of funerals. Why wait that long?”
Free will, fate, chance
Some good books about freedom and luck. “Many philosophical theories try to evade the uncomfortable truth that luck and fate play a role in the conduct of our moral lives, argues philosopher Paul Russell. He chooses the best books on free will and responsibility. “
Socratically Speaking 