The Range of Justice (or, How to Retrieve Liberal Sectual Tolerance) In the last forty years, political philosophy has witnessed a plethora of visions of the just society—natural rights libertarianism, ”left” libertarianism, prioritarianism, sufficientarianism, egalitarianisms of a stunning variety, republicanism; theories of economic desert, welfare, need, and capabilities.
Streams of Consciousness. If you like to surf porn on the Internet, you’ve got company.
In a 2008 survey of college students, 90 percent of males and 60 percent of females had been there, done that. The practice is only half as common among people in their 40s, but still hardly rare, and the habits of youth are better predictors of what’s to come. No longer is there any real risk of exposure when you want to take a peek at a racy photo or video. Sitting at your computer is just about as private as you can get. So a lot of people figure, “Why not?”
Via Wikimedia Commons Maybe because this porn watching is perturbing male minds, engendering sexist, even misogynist attitudes toward women? A new report (The Sunny Side of Smut) in the current issue of Scientific American Mind by Melinda Wenner says nah, let the guys (and gals) have their porn. First of all, the guys who watch mainstream porn seem to be just normal guys—not total creeps—which, given that porn watching seems pretty darn common, does not surprise me. The Sunny Side of Smut. IT USED TO BE TOUGH to get porn.
Renting an X-rated movie required sneaking into a roped-off room in the back of a video store, and eyeing a centerfold meant facing down a store clerk to buy a pornographic magazine. Now pornography is just one Google search away, and much of it is free. Age restrictions have become meaningless, too, with the advent of social media—one teenager in five has sent or posted naked pictures of themselves online, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. With access to pornography easier than ever before, politicians and scientists alike have renewed their interest in deciphering its psychological effects.
Certainly pornography addiction or overconsumption seems to cause relationship problems [see “Sex in Bits and Bytes,” by Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Does Porn Harm Women? In 2007 researchers at the University of Zagreb in Croatia surveyed 650 young men about their pornography use and sex lives. Democracy is not a truth machine. In a democracy people are free to express their opinions and question those of others.
This is an important personal freedom, and also essential to the very idea of government by discussion. But it has also been held to be instrumentally important because in open public debate true ideas will conquer false ones by their merit, and the people will see the truth for themselves. In other words, democracy has an epistemic function as a kind of truth machine. From this it follows that in a democracy there should be no dogma: no knowledge protected from public challenge and debate. Yet this whole argument is founded on embarrassing misconceptions of the nature of truth and of the working of democracy.
What Are Facts? Do Facts Exist? « Ethical Realism. Do facts exist?
At least one person has claimed that facts do not exist and that thinking they exist would violate Occam’s razor (i.e. multiply entities beyond necessity). However, there is much to be said as to why we have reason to believe that facts exist, such as the reasons to endorse various kinds of realism. I will discuss what facts are, whether they are supposed to refer to something that exists, whether any facts exist, and an objection against their existence. I will argue that all objections to the existence of facts are self-defeating and we have more reason to believe that some facts exist than that no facts exist as a result. 1. The word “fact” has at least one meaning within our language and other languages could have equivalent words that refer to the same concept. The meaning of the word “fact” that I’m interested in refers to the reality, state of affairs, or relations that make statements true. 2. One, some people talk about facts being true. 3. Robert Zaretsky: Nihilism Is Dead.
What kind of perspectivist is Nietzsche? Why ‘personhood’ is powerful - Ideas. Should Zygotes be Considered People? Image via Wikipedia In the United States certain Republicans have been proposing legislation that would define a zygote as a legal person.
The most recent instance occurred in Mississippi when voters were given the chance to approve or reject the following: “the term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” The voters rejected this, but there are other similar attempts planned or actually in the works.
What Isn’t for Sale? - Magazine. Market thinking so permeates our lives that we barely notice it anymore.
A leading philosopher sums up the hidden costs of a price-tag society. There are some things money can’t buy—but these days, not many. Almost everything is up for sale. For example: • A prison-cell upgrade: $90 a night. . • Access to the carpool lane while driving solo: $8. . • The services of an Indian surrogate mother: $8,000. . • The right to shoot an endangered black rhino: $250,000.
. • Your doctor’s cellphone number: $1,500 and up per year. . • The right to emit a metric ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: $10.50. . • The right to immigrate to the United States: $500,000.