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Suggested readings, 27 September 2020


Here are some interesting articles I've read over the past week that I think are worth checking out.

"There is a danger...that we end up with a cartoonish view of history and, guided by contemporary needs, ignore its complexities. There is a danger, too, that we fight not the struggles of the present but those of the past; and that symbolic gestures come to replace material change."

Joe Humphreys, “Cancel culture: can you defend people who say unpopular things?” 24 Sep, Irish Times. 
Interview with political philosopher Graham Finlay on John Stuart Mill's notion of free speech and how it can be understood in today's culture. Finlay also outlines Herbert Marcuse's response to controversial -- and even potentially dangerous -- ideas and how it compares to Mill's response.

Zachary Pincus-Roth, “The Rise of the Rational Do-Gooders.” 23 Sep, Washington Post Magazine. 
Very good in-depth article on the effective altruism movement. "If you really want to help people in the current pandemic, you can help more people in a country that has no health-care system to speak of, little information, no support." 

Dominic Wilkinson, “Coronavirus: why I support the world’s first COVID vaccine challenge trial.” 24 Sep, The Conversation. 
Medical ethicist Dominic Wilkinson makes the moral case for human challenge trials -- which entails purposely infecting volunteers with Covid-19. Human challenge trials, despite the risks involved, are arguably the most effective and fastest way to find out which vaccine, of the many under development, is the best one.

Inka Dewitz and Christine Chemnitz, “Meat Is Mayhem.” 14 Sep, Project Syndicate. 
Inka Dewitz and Christine Chemnitz warn us that factory farming is not only bad for animals and the environment, but it also threatens human health. "Until the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization’s warnings about zoonotic diseases -- caused by pathogens that are transmitted from animals to humans -- were largely ignored. The same is true of antibiotic resistance -- another global health threat closely connected to meat production."    

Richard Fasher, “Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?” 24 Sep, BBC Future. 
Are we living in the most critical part of human history? This article considers different responses from two leading philosophers.   

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