Skip to main content

Open for Debate

Choosing for Changing Selves

Choosing for Changing Selves

Posted on 18 October 2021 by

Our values change. What we want, value, prefer, desire, and how much; for nearly everyone, these will be different at different times in their lives. Perhaps when you were younger, […]

Mill and Ideal Theory

Mill and Ideal Theory

Posted on 4 October 2021 by

John thinks that facemasks, social distancing and other public health measures are necessary to deal with the Covid 19 pandemic. He is aware that some disagree with him about this. […]

Prejudiced Belief: Epistemic and Moral Perspectives

Prejudiced Belief: Epistemic and Moral Perspectives

Posted on 20 September 2021 by

Prejudice seems like a paradigmatic case of bad belief. But in what sense bad? Suppose we could agree that prejudiced beliefs tend to be false. That would be one way […]

On Anonymity

On Anonymity

Posted on 6 September 2021 by

After the England men's football team lost to Italy on penalties on the 11th of July, the three England players who missed penalties—Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka, and Jadon Sancho—were targeted […]

COVID-19 exceptionalism

COVID-19 exceptionalism

Posted on 23 August 2021 by

By Lisa Bortolotti and Kathleen Murphy-Hollies Exceptionalism Exceptionalism is the idea that a country is superior to other countries and in virtue of this superiority it is not subject to […]

Egotism in Higher Education

Egotism in Higher Education

Posted on 9 August 2021 by

By Tracy Llanera and Nicholas Smith Crisis or no crisis, vice-chancellors in Australia remain exorbitantly well-paid. While most of them committed to pay cuts in 2020 in response to the […]

The Surprise of COVID Vaccine Hesitancy Among Health Care Professionals

The Surprise of COVID Vaccine Hesitancy Among Health Care Professionals

Posted on 26 July 2021 by

The COVID vaccines were the one big hope story for the dismal year of 2020. The first shipments arrived in December to a few high-income countries and rollout started immediately […]

CONSPIRACIES AND ‘COUNTERSPEECH’

CONSPIRACIES AND ‘COUNTERSPEECH’

Posted on 12 July 2021 by

‘The 2020 US election was stolen.’ ‘COVID-19 was intentionally developed as a biological weapon.’ ‘Climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese.’ The times have been good for conspiracy […]

Our warped geometry of attention and trust: The mutually exploitative relationship between anti-vaxxers and the far right is undermining public health

Our warped geometry of attention and trust: The mutually exploitative relationship between anti-vaxxers and the far right is undermining public health

Posted on 28 June 2021 by

Over the last half decade, I’ve been monitoring the discourse on Twitter about vaccines and immunization. For a while, this was one of the few polarized debates that wasn’t politically […]

Legal Character Evidence Prohibitions and the Opacity of Character

Legal Character Evidence Prohibitions and the Opacity of Character

Posted on 14 June 2021 by

We tend to think another person’s character helps explain why she acts as she does. When we observe patterns in how others act, we take this to be evidence of […]

“With the intent to defraud or mislead”: Opioids, corporate propaganda, and epistemic rights

“With the intent to defraud or mislead”: Opioids, corporate propaganda, and epistemic rights

Posted on 31 May 2021 by

In May 2007, Purdue Frederick Company Inc., an affiliate of Purdue Pharma, along with three of its top executives, were ordered to pay fines totalling $634 million after pleading guilty […]

Deepfakes, Fake Barns, and Problems of Safe Belief

Deepfakes, Fake Barns, and Problems of Safe Belief

Posted on 17 May 2021 by

Every year, Queen Elizabeth II speaks to the UK in her annual Christmas Address. In her 2020 Address, the Queen not only spoke highly of NHS nurses, doctors, and other […]

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 3)

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 3)

Posted on 3 May 2021 by

To recap: In Part One of this series we looked at how our impulse to reduce messy situations to nice clean epistemological facts can cause us to miss what is […]

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 2)

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 2)

Posted on 19 April 2021 by

To read Part 1 of this series, click here. Let’s start simple. ‘I’m hurt.’ Taken by itself, this tiny phrase has an obvious meaning. Without any context, however, it is […]

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 1)

Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 1)

Posted on 5 April 2021 by

In an episode of The West Wing, a comment is made to the press that the fictional US President, Josiah Bartlett, is not particularly fond of green beans. On the […]

The Ethics of Belief: It’s not just Trump supporters who believe wrongly—it’s all of us

The Ethics of Belief: It’s not just Trump supporters who believe wrongly—it’s all of us

Posted on 22 March 2021 by

As the dust settles on the Trump presidency, we are left to reflect on its many themes. One of its most fundamental was this: believing without adequate evidence. Many aspects […]

Think Before You Push the “Share” Button

Think Before You Push the “Share” Button

Posted on 8 March 2021 by

You’ve just run across a hilarious satire on a comedic news site and can’t wait to re-post it so your friends can get a chuckle. Or you’ve found an over-the-top […]

Modeling Sex as a Joint Activity

Modeling Sex as a Joint Activity

Posted on 22 February 2021 by

There has been an ongoing philosophical discussion over the last three decades on consent and refusal of sex qua speech acts – that is, acts performed in the uttering of […]

Emotional Imperialism in Public Discourse

Posted on 8 February 2021 by ,

        Alfred Archer                                                  […]

Honesty and Radically Opposing Views: Flat-Earthers, Apocalyptic Preachers, and 2020 American Election-Deniers

Honesty and Radically Opposing Views: Flat-Earthers, Apocalyptic Preachers, and 2020 American Election-Deniers

Posted on 25 January 2021 by

One of the common labels used to condemn the other side is ‘dishonest.’ They are a bunch of liars. Or cheaters. Or deceivers. Don’t trust anything they say. We see […]