Contemporary Society & Philosophy

Cognitive biases

February 25, 2014
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An earlier post featured three TED lectures by the behavioural economist Dan Ariely, each of which revealed some of the predictable ways in which the human mind falls short of the ideal of perfect rationality. Ariely is just one of a large and growing number of researchers interested in human irrationality. These researchers come from the fields of cognitive and social psychology, behavioural economics, behavioural ethics, and experimental philosophy. And just as the research in this area is increasing, so too are the findings concerning the full extent of human irrationality. The following extensive list from Wikipedia summarizes some of…

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Predictably irrational (TED lectures by Dan Ariely)

February 25, 2014
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Dan Ariely is a behavioural economics researcher, most famous for his two books Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, both of which challenge the assumption of rationality at the heart of classical or “rational” economics. As a behavioural economist, Ariely is interested in showing the multitude of ways in which the human mind departs from the norms of rationality. In this series of TED lectures, Ariely uses optical illusions and humorous anecdotes to expose in a vivid way some of the biases of the human mind and the predictable mistakes most of us make in judgement and  decision-making. More…

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9/11 conspiracies

January 12, 2014
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A conspiracy is defined as “a secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal.” Since nobody doubts that the infamous acts of violence and destruction carried out in Manhattan and Arlington VA on September 11, 2001 were planned by two or more people, it follows that, strictly speaking, no one really doubts that a conspiracy was carried out on that fateful day. This is worth repeating: everyone is a conspiracy theorist (at least in this one sense) with respect to the events of 9/11. Accordingly, the intense and vitriolic debates over 9/11…

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Does money make you mean? (TED lecture by Paul Piff)

December 23, 2013
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Paul Piff is a researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.​ He studies how wealth, the perception of being wealthy, and even the type of car one drives all affect people’s moral behaviour. His findings are both fascinating and disturbing. In general, the wealthier people are, the less compassionate they tend to be and they more they feel entitled to their wealth. These finding hold even with one’s “wealth” is clearly undeserved, as in a rigged game of monopoly. There already exists a large body of evidence indicating that the more economic inequality there is…

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Rationality and the belief in life after death

October 11, 2013
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Anna Corwin is a Ph.D. student in anthropology at UCLA. She has spent a significant amount of time in a Catholic convent trying to figure out why nuns outlive other women and seem to enjoy such healthy aging. She summarizes her observations in this interesting article in Yes! Magazine.” The six tips are as follows: 1. Keep moving – nuns are apparently on their feet most of the day. 2. Practice positive emotions – nuns communicate a sense of love to each other and also in prayer daily. 3. Have a purpose and work for it – many nuns continue…

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Islamophobia and gender equality

July 15, 2013
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A recent article reprinted in Truthout has the provocative title “The biggest lie you’ve told about the oppression of Muslim women.” And what is that biggest lie? According to Lauren Rankin, author of the article and  graduate student in Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, the biggest lie is that Islam is a “violent and misogynistic faith, one from which Muslim women need to be saved.” Rankin adds that those who perpetuate this lie–as Joyce Carol Oates allegedly did in this series of tweets–suffer from a form of racism known as “Islamophobia,” a term that has also recently been…

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Zombie education

June 27, 2013
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William Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel of the US Air Force who now writes for TomDispatch and other publications. In his latest piece for Truthout he explains the concept of “zombie education.”    True education, Astore writes, is transformative and soul-enriching. “It opens alternative paths to living that don’t begin and end at the workplace. It measures personal fulfillment in ways that aren’t restricted to take-home pay… It’s about becoming a savvier citizen whose appreciation of, and dedication to, democracy is keener and more heartfelt.” Zombie education, on the other hand, is narrowly focused on individual profit or vocational training.   “Students are…

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Markets erode moral values (study)

June 15, 2013
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In a recent study, researches from the University of Bamberg and University of Bonn suggest that they have found causal evidence of the corrupting effects of markets on moral values. The abstract reads as follows: The possibility that market interaction may erode moral values is a long-standing, but controversial, hypothesis in the social sciences, ethics, and philosophy. To date, empirical evidence on decay of moral values through market interaction has been scarce. We present controlled experimental evidence on how market interaction changes how human subjects value harm and damage done to third parties. In the experiment, subjects decide between either…

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Another hero

June 10, 2013
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A recently created Wikipedia entry on Edward Snowden read as follows: Edward Joseph Snowden (born 1984) is an American technical contractor, a former CIA employee, and a traitor. Snowden released classified material on ­top-secret United States National Security Agency (NSA) programs including the PRISM surveillance program to The Guardian and The Washington Post in June 2013. PRISM is a top-secret government surveillance program, in operation since 2007, that enables the NSA to access the servers of nine major Internet companies, including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo! and Facebook, to collect data on the emails, documents, audio and video chats, photographs, and connection logs of not only Americans but also billions of people around the world…

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Inequality and trolleyology

May 27, 2013
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The most famous thought-experiment of contemporary philosophy, first described by Philippa Foot, goes roughly as follows: Suppose a runaway train is hurtling down a track headed toward five innocent people who will surely be killed if the train is not stopped or diverted. The brakes on the train have failed and there is no other way of stopping it, but the driver can divert the train on to a side-track, where one innocent person is standing. This person will surely die if the train is diverted. Should the driver divert the train on to the side-track? In the last decade…

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Should animals be off the menu? (a public debate)

May 18, 2013
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The official description of the debate: Do you eat meat? Did you know you are in the minority? Out of an audience of hundreds, 73.6% agreed meat should be off the menu – find out why, then ask yourself if you are making the right choice. Intelligence Squared‘s 2012 series of debates kicked off with a look at the ethics of eating meat. Six speakers are divided into two teams for lively and insightful arguments for and against the proposition, ‘Animals Should Be Off the Menu’. Speaking for the proposition are Peter Singer, Philip Wollen and Veronica Ridge; against it, Adrian Richardson,…

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HOME (documentary)

May 18, 2013
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HOME is a documentary that highlights how human activities are altering planet earth. It’s a direct, and at times emotional, appeal to viewers to wake up and pay attention to what is going on around them. It is filled with stunning  and disturbing footage from around the globe. But it’s not all doom and globe. The film ends with uplifting scenes and information on some of the positive changes that are taking place all around the world today and ways in which individuals can act, as citizens and consumers, to avert catastrophe.  Video embedding has been disabled by request, but…

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Born Rich (documentary)

May 17, 2013
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As the rich get richer, their children live lives of abundance. One wealthy American family decided to make this point perfectly clear by naming their son “Lavish.”  Considering his behavior, though, perhaps the parents should have named him “Obnoxious” instead: he  openly boasts about his wealth on his instagram account (eloquently named “itslavishbitch“), he uses gold-plated staples, and shows off flying around the world with his family’s private jet. Lavish is just one of a growing number of insanely wealthy teenagers who are, contrary to their rather secretive plutocrat parents, not shy to show off their assets. These kids grow…

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How Class Works (animated lecture by Richard Wolff)

May 17, 2013
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The description for this short lecture reads as follows: Richard Wolff is an economist who has studied class issues for more than 40 years. In this animation and audio presentation, Wolff explains what class is all about and applies that understanding to the foreclosure crisis of 2007–2011. He argues that class concerns the “way our society splits up the output [and] leaves those who get the profits in the position of deciding and figuring out what to do with them… We all live with the results of what a really tiny minority in our society decides to do with the…

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Harris, Greenwald, and elementary logic

April 26, 2013
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An opinion piece written by Murtaza Hussain and posted on the Al Jazeera website last month has given rise to a rather heated and very public dispute between Sam Harris and Glenn Greenwald. The dispute can be found in this vitriolic email exchange, which Harris posted on his blog, this response from Greenwald, published in the Guardian, and this follow-up piece from Harris. All are well worth reading. Those who have skimmed through this material may well wonder why these two well-educated and highly articulate men, who share much in common, can’t seem to agree on anything. What exactly is it that so divides…

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You don’t have to go down in my basement (lecture by Dan Barker)

March 9, 2013
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Dan Barker, ex-evangelical priest and now outspoken atheist and secularization-activist begins his lecture for the 4th Skepticon, the annual skeptics convention set in Springfield, Missouri, with the following words: If I wasn’t a true Christian, nobody is. I felt it, I believed it, I prayed, I read the Bible, I dedicated my life, I lived by faith, I was preaching for 19 years, and also when I prayed I got these feelings, all these amazing goosebumps, and I knew God was real. It’s a real thing that is happening in the brain, in fact I can still do it now.…

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Andrew McAfee’s technological utopia

March 1, 2013
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Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business at the MIT Sloan School of Management, delivered this astonishing lecture at a TEDx event in Boston in 2012. The main question of the lecture was “Are droids taking our jobs?” His answer, which is based on research, not mere speculation, is “most definitely yes.” And it’s not just mechanical or manufacturing jobs that are being taken over by robots, but also jobs involving higher order cognitive skills, like writing newspaper articles. Indeed, McAfee points out that Forbes online magazine has already started publishing flawless articles written by droids,…

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Will the Internet bring an end to religion?

January 17, 2013
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Not any time soon, but organized religion is on the decline in many places around the world,  and in this interesting article Valerie Tarico argues that the Internet is one of the principal causes of this phenomenon.  Here are the six kinds of web content that she thinks are leading the faithful astray:  1. Radically cool science articles and videos;  2. Curated collections of ridiculous beliefs. 3. The kinky, exploitative, and violent side of religion 4. Supportive communities for people coming out of religion. 5. Lifestyles of the fine and faithless. 6. Interspiritual okayness. Could it be that the internet…

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Sam Harris and the ethical argument for guns

January 11, 2013
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In a recent and lengthy blog post entitled “The Riddle of Guns” author Sam Harris takes issues with the “fanatacists and zealots” on both sides of the gun debate in America.  He claims to be searching for some rational middle ground between the two extremes of, on the one hand, the “liberals”who respond to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School with calls for much stronger gun control and, on the other, the right-wing NRA types who respond to the tragic mass shooting with calls for more guns in the form of armed guards at elementary schools and other public…

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The Science of Morality (CBC radio interviews)

October 30, 2012
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One of the jewels in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is the radio series Ideas, which does a good job of providing Canadians with in-depth journalism on issues of scientific or cultural significance. Here are links to a two-part series on the new science of morality (Part 1; Part 2).  The series provides a nice introduction to the field and investigates what light science is shedding on our moral beliefs and behavior. The series features interviews with Frans de Waal, Paul Bloom, Jon Haidt, Joshua Greene, and Sam Harris.

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