The Mountain Goat Dilemma Mountain goats are not native to Olympic National Park. They were introduced into Olympic Peninsula in the 1930s to encourage an increase of tourism via hunting. Shortly after, Olympic National Park was established. Under Park jurisdiction, hunting of any kind is forbidden, so the mountain goats placed there were protected. Olympic … Value Conflicts in Environmental Ethics
Part 1: What is the difference between Truth, a Lie and Bullshit? Students should begin by writing brief definitions of these words: TRUTH, LIE, SATIRE/ JOKE, FICTION, MISTAKE, BULLSHIT (or, politely, BS) What is the difference between truth, lie, satire/joke, fiction, mistake, and BS? After 10 minutes, discuss how these concepts overlap and differ from each other. It … Truth, Lies and Bullshit
In his article, “What is it like to be a bat?” Thomas Nagel argues that there are facts about conscious experience that are subjective and can only be known from that subjective perspective. Even if we know all the objective facts about bats, we may not actually know what it would really be like to … Nagel’s What is it like to be a bat?
Can a computer think? Do computers have minds? John Searle’s Chinese Room argument can be used to argue that computers do not “think” because computers do not understand the symbols that they process. For example, if you’re typing an email to your friend on the computer, the computer does not understand what your message to … Searle’s Chinese Room: Do computers think?
For much of modern science, since the Enlightenment, animals were generally thought to be automatons: materialist robots programmed to behave in certain ways. Rene Descartes drew a sharp distinction between thinking beings, humans, and everything else, matter. 20th Century behaviorism continued to think of animals in this way but added humans to the mix. “Mind” … Animal Minds: puzzling over Puppies and Parrots
Materials needed: Piece of paper and writing utensil Description: Note: this session operates as a good follow-up to a lesson plan on beliefs and evidence more generally. (1) Ask the students for some things that they know. Put a few examples on the board. (2) Tell the students the following story. It’s important that, for most … What Do You Know?
Self-driving cars are already cruising the streets today. And while these cars will ultimately be safer and cleaner than their manual counterparts, they can’t completely avoid accidents altogether. How should the car be programmed if it encounters an unavoidable accident? Patrick Lin navigates the murky ethics of self-driving cars. Patrick Lin navigates the murky ethics … The Ethics of Self-driving Cars
Medical Ethics and the State The role of the state (government) in medical ethics can be quite complex. In these two articles (see links below), two perspectives are explored. The famous Baby Theresa case involves a situation where the state prevents parents from acting to share their dying daughter’s organs. The second case concerns a … How Do We Decide Who Should Decide?
The new technology of driverless cards has opened up a real-world corollary to the 65- year-old philosophical tradition of trolley problems. The basic question here involves how these cars should be programmed: is the goal to protect passengers or others out on the road? Read these the two articles and watch the video, which focuses … Should Driverless Cars Kill Their Passengers?
In this high school philosophy lesson plan, students will engage with Gottfried Leibniz’s The Monadology.
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