Tag: Philosophy

Misconceptions: “Female Leaders Who Express Dominance are Acting Male”

Recently, I listened to an argument claiming that female leaders like Hillary Clinton, Condoleeza Rice, Margaret Thatcher, or Angela Merkel do not represent significant improvements to gender equality because they “act male” in that they are perceived have dominant personalities reminiscent of those of males. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how leadership works and what it is to be male or female. Today, I aim to dissect, identify, and pick apart this misconception.

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The Core Goods Model

There is a wide spectrum of disagreement on political and ethical questions. It is often wondered how it is possible for so many people to have so very widely divergent conceptions of what it means to do good politically. In an attempt to answer this and similar questions, I have developed a mathematical model to roughly estimate the ethical rightness or wrongness of a given government policy that illuminates where these differences come from. Today, I would like to share it. It’s called “The Core Goods Model”.

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Utilitarianism and Equality

One of the key topics in moral philosophy is utilitarian ethics–the notion that some principle or concept, usually happiness or pleasure or some variant, should be maximised across society. Famously created by Jeremy Bentham, the system of ethics has attracted many famous supporters over the years, most notably John Stuart Mill. However, many writers and theorists critical of utilitarian ethics, including John Rawls, have claimed that utilitarianism attempts to justify high inequality, forcing some to toil in misery for the gain of others. Today I’d like to explore this criticism of utilitarianism to see if it holds water.

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Bill Nye the Anti-Creationism Guy

A few days ago, before it went viral, I happened upon this video from Bill Nye (of Bill Nye the Science Guy) commenting on creationism:

 

The video certainly struck me as interesting, but not particularly controversial. Big Think, the YouTube channel that put out the video, frequently posts intellectually engaging videos that encourage viewers to reassess their ideas or consider new ones, and videos like this one are what I’ve come to expect from them as a subscriber. However, a few days later I discovered that it had attained over a million views, and as I check today the count is over three million. I’d like to discuss Nye’s comments and why they seem to have struck a nerve, for good or for bad, with so many people.

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