Is trolleyology a joke? No, seriously, is it a joke? That people chuckle when asked if they would push the fat man on the trolley tracks could mean the entire thought experiment isn’t of much use. “A trolley is careening toward an unsuspecting group of workers. You have the power to derail the trolley onto a track with just one worker. Do you do it? It might not matter.”
Ethics
Use Socrates to be a better boss.
5 Things Socrates Can Teach You About Being a Better Mentor. “The key to being a great mentor is asking great questions. Ancient philosophy can help, according to VC and Techstars co-founder Brad Feld.”
What philosophers do … outside the academic world
As Rebecca Rosen says in The Atlantic, “The romanticized version of what it’s like to be a philosopher must be one of the most appealing careers possible: read great thinkers, think deep thoughts, and while away the days in a beautiful office, surrounded by books, an Emeralite lamp, a hot mug of coffee, and perhaps a cat curled up by your feet.” But what about philosophers in the real world?
Helen De Cruz of New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science interviewed seven philosophy Ph.D.s who have left academia for the private sector: Part 1: How and why do they end up outside academia?, Part 2: What’s it like to have a nonacademic job?, and Part 3: Transferrable skills and concrete advice.
As Zachary Ernst, a software engineer at Narrative Science, puts it, “As a professional philosopher, if you haven’t gotten over-specialized and narrow, then you’ve got really good analytic and communication skills. So you’ve got the ability to learn quickly and efficiently. You’re also in the habit of being very critical of all sorts of ideas and approaches to a variety of problems. And if you’ve taught a lot, then you’re probably pretty comfortable with public speaking. Those skills are very rare in almost any workforce, and they’re extremely valuable.”
Happy … the Epicurus mix
Alain de Botton says that while previous philosophers wanted to know how to be good, Epicurus wanted to know how to be happy. “Even today, Epicurus remains an indispensable guide to life in advanced consumer capitalist societies because advertising – on which this system is based – functions on cleverly muddling people up about what they think they need to be happy. An extraordinary number of adverts focus on the three very things that Epicurus identified as false lures of happiness: romantic love, professional status and luxury.”
How to make hard choices.
Are you a drifter or do you choose your life? Philosopher Ruth Chang explains in this TED talk.
Empty ideas?
Philosophy is a bunch of empty ideas. Or so Peter Unger, a philosopher who has written quite a few impressive works of philosophy, now claims.
Language and moral judgment
Moral judgments depend on whether we are speaking a foreign language. “… when people are presented with the trolley problem in a foreign language, they are more willing to sacrifice one person to save five than when they are presented with the dilemma in their native tongue.”
Biology and blame
Will contemporary science, especially genetics and neuroscience, require substantial changes to our notions of criminal responsibility? Biology and Blame is a series of very interesting articles examining historical and current influences on the notion of criminal responsibility.
The recurring myth about Nietzsche and fascism
Brian Leiter explains that when student members of the Union Council at University College London banned the Nietzsche Club, their “action betray[ed] profound misunderstandings of both Nietzsche and of universities.”
Socratically Speaking 