An interesting ethical question was put to me recently–what interest are teachers ethically obliged to serve or defend? I was given several options:
It’s an interesting opportunity to apply philosophy, so I’d like to explore it further.
An interesting new report is out from the US state department about the Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed oil pipeline running from Canada’s tar sands to the United States. Key to the report is this line in particular:
Project is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the rate of development of the tar sands, or on the amount of heavy crude oil refined in the Gulf Coast area.
This may have some interesting implications for the question of whether or not the pipeline ought to be built. Let’s discuss them.
Continue reading “Keystone Pipeline: To Build or Not to Build”
The IMF has a new paper out that confirms what I have long suspected–when a state with a depressed economy reduces spending, the spending cuts lead to sufficient contraction to result in the cancellation of savings for the state. How does it work? Let’s explore.
Continue reading “How Spending Cuts Make Debt Problems Worse”
Today I wish to take on subjectivism, the belief that truth is necessarily agent-relative or determined by one’s perspective or point of view, or that it is socially constructed and does not refer to any metaphysical external reality. In short, I will defend metaphysical (i.e. not Randian) objectivism, the belief that truth exists independently of one’s interpretation, perspective, society, et al, and that this truth can be discovered through science and logic.
As a utilitarian, whenever moral philosophy comes up, I always find myself having to answer some hypothetical designed to show how very clearly and obviously all morality cannot merely be about consequences by engaging some emotional, intuitive moral feeling meant to be common to all people. Too often, utilitarians accept this constant defensive position against all other values as their lot. Today I’d like to go on the offensive with a moral hypothetical of my own–the case of the worst of all possible universes.
Benjamin Studebaker 