Team Egoism

First, you should read some of the section on Morality and Self-Interest (beginning on page 31o) in our Vice and Virtue textbook. Some specific articles worth reading: Rachels's "Egoism and Moral Skepticism" (pages 332-342), Pojman's "Egoism, Self-Interest, and Altruism" (345-349), Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness" (342-345), and Browne's "The Unselfishness Trap" (327-332).

Also, here are some links:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Article on Egoism
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Article on Egoism
Reason's Issue on Ayn Rand
Rand, Net Philosopher-Queen (London Review of Books)
Benevolent Egoism: Yes, But is it Egoism? (Reason)

Natty Law & Virtue Ethics

Here are some links on recent stuff we've done in class.

• An audio interview on Aquinas's natural law theory of ethics.
• Two audio interviews (one and two) on virtue ethics.
• An audio interview on Aristotle and happiness.

Also, here's a visual reminder of the just-right aspect of virtue ethics:

Kant, You Ignorant Slut

I thought it might help us all if I opened up a post dedicated solely to complaining about how tough the Immanuel Kant reading was. Leave your best Kant insults insults in the comments of this post.

[can't get enough Kant?]
[want tips on reading these articles?]

Links Worthy of a Swine

Here are some links that are loosely related to the stuff on happy ethics (utilitarianism) that we are studying. Most of these deal with psychology. There's a lot of psychological research on happiness popping up lately. The first two links are overviews of the psychology of happiness:

Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness
and
Hedonic Man

The second is a slightly optimistic take on our ability to change our baseline level of happiness. This is important to know for an ethical theory that values maximizing happiness:

The Hedonic Set Point Can Go Up

The next link deals with a famous moral thought experiment, the trolley problem. This gets brought up a lot when evaluating happy ethics:

Psychology of the Trolley Problem

The last link is an advanced overview of consequentialist ethical theories. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory, since it only looks at the consequences of an action to figure out whether an action is morally good or bad:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry: Consequentialism

So what makes you happy? WaWa? Ping pong? Cookies?

God Stuff

Here are some links on God ethics (divine command theory).

• A transcript and audio of the entire F.C. Copleston & Bertrand Russell debate on the existence of God excerpted in our John Arthur reading. (Or just click the 'play' button on the audio player below.)
  
• A quick explanation of the Euthyphro Dilemma.
• An advanced overview of God ethics from my favorite free online philosophy encyclopedia (yes, there are more than one free online philosophy encyclopedias).

Relative to You, But Not to Me

Here are some links on ethical relativism.

• an advanced overview of various versions of moral relativism (from a free online philosophy encyclopedia)
• Ruth Benedict and Herodotus
• The Kwakiutl from Northwest America [Google Kwakiutl!]
• The Dobu of Melanesia
• Cannibalism!
• An interview with a moral psychologist who supports a sophisticated version of ethical relativism
• An argument against the DIVERSITY THESIS: cultures morally agree more than they disagree
• A webcam dialogue on morality, psychology, and religion