“Courting controversy is instrumentally valuable towards the production of knowledge and other goods philosophy might bring about, but other things are valuable, too… So while I want to say, ‘yes, go for controversy,’ and ‘yes, have institutions protect the academic freedom and ability of philosophers to discuss controversial matters,’… there are ways to do this responsibly and ways to do it better…”
Tag: moral philosophy
Grandstanding: What Kind of Problem Is It?
The Cleveland Humanities Festival is focused on the topic of public discourse and for one of its sessions brought on Brandon Warmke, a philosopher at Bowling Green State University, and me, to discuss “moral grandstanding.” Warmke is the co-author (with Justin Tosi) of the book, Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk. Grandstanding, as […]
What is this AI Bot’s Moral Philosophy?
Delphi is an AI ethics bot, or, as its creators put it, “a research prototype designed to model people’s moral judgments on a variety of everyday situations.” Visitors can ask Delphi moral questions, and Delphi will provide you with answers.
Expert Moral Advice: A Dialogue
Moral philosophers sometimes take it to be within the domain of their expertise to tell other people what, morally, they should do. But is moral advice something that moral philosophers are experts in? In a recent presentation, I argued that there are several reasons for thinking that being an expert in moral philosophy does not […]
Wishing for Harm
Philosophers lately have been writing about what is the proper reaction to Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. Mostly, they have taken to writing how it is wrong to wish that the course of his illness goes badly for him. This is a mistake, for a couple of reasons.