Suggested readings, 23 August 2020

Here are a small number of interesting articles I’ve read over the past week that I think are worth considering.

Lee McIntyre, “How To Talk to COVID-19 Deniers.” 18 Aug, Newsweek.

Five main tropes of science denial reasoning: 1 cherry picking evidence; 2 belief in conspiracy theories; 3 reliance on flawed "experts"; 4 insistence that science must be perfect; 5 illogical reasoning.

Zania Stamataki, “Is anyone safe from Covid-19? This is what we know so far about immunity.” 19 Aug, The Guardian.

A good summary of our current understanding of Covid-19 immunology.

Tomás Ryan, “Time to embrace zero-Covid policy.” 22 Aug, Irish Times.

Should Ireland consciously decide to live with Covid-19, or embrace a zero-Covid policy?

Timothy Garton Ash, “Belarus's struggle is a powerful reminder of the value of freedom.”21 Aug, The Guardian.

“I personally would love Belarus to become a liberal democracy, secure inside both the EU and Nato like its Baltic neighbours. But that will not happen any time soon, mainly because Vladimir Putin won’t let it, but also because there is currently no majority for it in the country itself. The Belarusian opposition wisely insists this is not a geopolitical struggle between Russia and the west”.

William J. Perry and Tom Z. Collina, “Who Can We Trust With the Nuclear Button? No One.” 22 Aug, New York Times.
“Unsettling as it may be, Mr. Trump has the absolute authority to start a nuclear war. Within minutes, the president could unleash the equivalent of more than 10,000 Hiroshima bombs. He does not need a second opinion. The defense secretary has no say. Congress has no role. Yet it would mean the end of civilization as we know it.”

Tom Chivers, “What worms can teach us about the AI apocalypse.” 19 Aug, UnHerd.

Can we do more good in the world by donating resources to help alleviate global poverty or by reducing the chance of an AI apocalypse?

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Should We Use Neuroenhancement Drugs to Improve Relationships?

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Intuitions and Ethics

A version of this article was printed in Humanism Ireland , May-June, Vol. 146 (2014) The notion that our moral intuitions possess epistemic authority has been associated with a number of philosophers within the canon of Western thought. Roughly speaking, these thinkers have argued that our intuitions have recourse to a unique authority of perception that yields special access to a sphere of moral legitimacy. Others, however, have claimed that our intuitions are incredibly diverse and often conflict with each other—for example, your intuition says assisted suicide is morally permissible and my intuition says it’s wrong. But it seems the two contrasting intuitions cannot both be right. At the same time, most of us think our own moral intuitions are right : they do not seem inconsistent to us, and we have a strong sense to believe them. Accordingly, they strike us as correct. Undoubtedly, moral intuitions can be shaped by our particular culture, environment or co...

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