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The first question of philosophy is “how should I live my life?” Sometimes this is also presented as “what is the good life?” because the trivial answer to the first formulation is “the best way possible.” However you want to frame it, it eventually boils down to the same thing. For the purposes of this […]
Read More Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics: A Common MisunderstandingHey guys, Here’s a video I made to help my students understand Divine Command theory and the Euthyphro dilemma: https://plotagon.com/12834
Read More Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Dilemma (Video)I’ve talked about Gettier before and much of what I say here will overlap with what I’ve already said. It turns out I’m much more comfortable lecturing on something if I write about it the night before. Hopefully this won’t always be the case ‘cuz it takes up a lot of time… Why Should You […]
Read More Gettier RevisitedSo, I’ve been experimenting with a new way to explain major philosophical concepts and issues by video and dialogue (aka, Socratic method). I think dialogue is a much more intuitive way of understanding things. I’m not able to embed the video but here’s the link. Let me know what you think:https://plotagon.com/12235
Read More Cultural Relativism Vs Moral ObjectivismIntroductionAt some point, every semester in my critical thinking class, I issue a challenge to my students. For homework, they have to come up with their best possible argument for why it’s OK to eat factory farmed meat. Every class gives variations of the same handful of arguments and they are indeed the same arguments […]
Read More Standard Arguments for Why It’s OK to Eat Meat and Why They Are Much Weaker Than You ThinkIntroductionCritical thinking sounds fancy but it’s something most of us do everyday. In fact, most of us are quite good at it…so long as we are properly motivated. Unfortunately, we absolutely suck when the motivation is wrong–and I’m not talking about money. What do I mean by all this talk of correct and incorrect […]
Read More Critical Thinking: The Secret Technique Professors Don’t Want You to Know!Mill would might respond to Arnold one of 2 ways. First, he might say that while pain might sometimes be an instrumental good, it is not a good in itself (unlike pleasure). Therefore, pain cannot be pleasure. Second, he might respond that Arnold is confused. He seems to be saying that, for him, growing is […]
Read More Mill: On UtilitarianismIntroduction and ContextKant is considered to be one of the most important philosophers ever…EVER! Therefore, everything he says it true. The end. Well, not quite. Lets avoid appeals to authority and look at the arguments ourselves, shall we? As I mentioned in earlier posts the difference between the 3 main ethical theories (virtue, deontology, consequentialism) […]
Read More Kantian Ethics: A SummaryPlato: Introduction to Why Be Moral (aka Glaucon’s Challenge) The first question of philosophy is “how should I live?” Implicit in this question is a similar question: “what does living a good life entail?” Amongst other things, over the course of The Republic, Plato tries to answer this question. One of the central issues to […]
Read More Why Be Moral? Plato, The Republic Book IIIntroductionWelcome to one of my favorite topics: meta-ethics. Rather than describe what meta-ethics is, it might be easier understood by listing some of the questions it tries to answer:(a) What does it mean for something to be morally “good” or what is it that makes something “good” or “bad”?(b) What does it mean for something […]
Read More Intro to Meta-Ethics
Wrestling with Philosophy 