I am so glad to have been asked to spend time with Carey and Vitz’s paper, “Mencius, Hume, and the Virtue of Humanity: Sources of Benevolent Moral Development.” I am already a sympathetic reader of Vitz’s take on Hume, and it has been a pleasure to see how this connects with the Confucianism of Mencius. » …Read more
Are you interested in the forces that enable and shape moral development? Specifically, are you interested in the psychological and social sources of the virtue of humanity? If you answer yes to either question, please click on the link to check out the intriguing paper “Mencius, » …Read more
We’re excited to announce our next Ethics discussion, which will be about “Profile Evidence, Fairness and the Risks of Mistaken Convictions,” by Marcello Di Bello and Collin O’Neil. The paper is available through open access here. David Wasserman will kick off the discussion with a critical précis. » …Read more
Catastrophes in the complex, coupled, criminal justice systems
Jake Monaghan
Catastrophes, like the nuclear meltdowns at Chernobyl or Three Mile Island, happen despite the various safety systems put in place to prevent them. In some cases, activating a safety device exacerbates the catastrophe. » …Read more
I loved Bill Cosby when I was growing up. I would listen to his records again and again and again. I all but memorized his “Chicken Heart” sketch. As a kid I had like 7 albums and 5 of them were Cosby records. I just laughed my ass off listening to him. » …Read more
I’m wondering if people think there are plausible cases in which a person’s life would be prudentially better if they were to turn out to be a brain in a vat. Obviously there could be some possible rosy situations in a vat that would be prudentially better than the worst possible life in reality. » …Read more
By a country mile, the Soup’s most-read post of any kind in 2019 was “Kristina Gehrman’s Reflections in the Wake of the Searle Case.”
Thanks again to all of our readers for another tasty year of Soup. » …Read more