Suggested readings, 27 September 2020

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

Kenan Malik, “David Hume was a complex man. Erasing his name is too simplistic a gesture.” 20 Sep, The Observer.

"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.

Comments

Should We Use Neuroenhancement Drugs to Improve Relationships?

A version of this article was printed in Humanism Ireland , July-August, Vol. 147 (2014) L ove, it is fair to say, is probably the strongest emotion we can experience. It can come in many different forms: love of one’s parent, sibling, or child. Though most people consider romantic relationships—which include companionship, sexual passion, intimacy, warmth, procreation and child-rearing—as the most significant component of one’s life; and it is probably the thing we find discussed more than anything else in novels, films and music. Committed romantic relationships tend to occur within the institution of marriage—something that is ubiquitous to most, if not all, cultures. Indeed, relationships today, which are primarily love-driven, are not just confined to marriages, as many couples sustain relationships outside of wedlock. Being in a love-driven relationship is considered important for most people, as it contributes to happiness—something we a...

Is Adult Incest Wrong?

An version of this article was printed in Humanism Ireland , March-April, Vol. 151 (2015) Incest is something most people find morally objectionable and it's one of the most common of all cultural taboos. The British Medical Association’s Complete Family Health Encyclopaedia (1990) defines incest as “ intercourse between close relatives,” that usually includes “intercourse with a parent, a son or daughter, a brother or sister, an uncle or aunt, a nephew or niece, a grandparent or grandchild.” The Oxford English Dictionary ’s definition is a little broader: it doesn’t confine incest to just intercourse, but to “sexual relations between people classified as being too closely related to marry each other.” Most countries have some kind of law against incest—though consensual adult incest is not a crime in France, Spain, Russia the Netherlands, and a host of countries in South America. In England and Wales, however, t he Sexual Offences Act 2003 ...

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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