George Singleton asks why we splash out on luxuries worth a month’s income, struggle to give up smoking, and resort to below-the-belt insults in heated arguments. Almost all heavy smokers are well aware of the likely consequences of their tobacco tendencies. Many even concede that it would be best to give up the habit. Still, …
Akrasia: Why Do We Act Against Our Better Judgement? Read More »
Gerald Jones discusses how we judge the past, how we will one day be judged, and what we can do about it. We do not know how the future will judge us – but judge us it will. Just as we look back at the past and find it wanting, so our descendants will find …
Raymond Boisvert explores prominent ethical facets of Frankenstein. Sir Walter Scott wrote one of the few favorable reviews of Frankenstein. He described the story as “philosophical and refined.” Following Scott, we can examine Mary Shelley’s novel for the ways it intersects with philosophical and refined positions dealing with good and evil. These fall into three …
Tim Madigan considers the core philosophical themes of the long-lived novel. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has remained in print ever since it was published two hundred years ago this year, and has been the basis for innumerable adaptations. While most novels from so long ago have been forgotten, Shelley’s lives on. Why has it remained so …
Are we what we eat? Feast your mind on the next few articles, says this issue’s editor Jeremy Iggers, philosopher and restaurant critic. “Know Thyself.”inscription at the oracle at Delphi. “You are what you eat.”American proverb. The inscription at Delphi challenged philosophers to explore the mystery of human identity, but several contributors to this issue …
Ray Boisvert describes the disdain which many philosophers down the ages have had for food, and the dire consequences this has had for their philosophy. Richard Watson was a trailblazer of sorts. In 1985, the Washington University professor published a book which combined dieting tips with ruminations on the big questions of life. The combination …
Lisa Heldke sticks up for the pastry chefs against Plato and the physicians. In Plato’s dialogues, food and food-related references spring up with a frequency that becomes rather impressive when one begins paying attention to them. They are nearly always found intertwined with discussions of bodily health, virtue, and knowledge. In the Republic, for example, …
Some feminists say women should forget old-fashioned ethical rules and focus on developing positive aspects of their characters. Not so, says Sarah Conly. Feminism is naturally ethical and political in nature, in that feminists want change, want improvement, and want, specifically, the liberation of the individual from ways of thinking which confine and pervert human …
Why Feminists Should Oppose Feminist Virtue Ethics Read More »
Feminist theory has recently faced accusations of trendiness, but Marianne Janack and Michelle LaRocque leap to its defence. As with any political movement, feminism has had a fraught relationship with theory. On the one hand, feminists have recognized the value of a sound theoretical basis for the effectiveness of political action; on the other, they …
Therese Dykeman on a case for a Sherlock Holmes and Dorothy Sayers. American women philosophers supposedly did not exist until the mid twentieth century. Of course, that wasn’t true, for it is no more possible for a mind conducive to philosophic thought to cease being so, than for a season to arrive out of order. …