Skip to main content

value

WHY CARE ABOUT KNOWLEDGE?

WHY CARE ABOUT KNOWLEDGE?

Posted on 22 August 2022 by

We care about knowledge. Given a choice between getting information about my illness from a doctor or a quack, I’d always go with the doctor. Why? Because, unlike the quack, […]

Choosing a future for humanity: effective altruism and longtermism: Part 2

Choosing a future for humanity: effective altruism and longtermism: Part 2

Posted on 29 November 2021 by

In discussions among the charity evaluators whom I described in the previous post, Derek Parfit is often quoted as saying that we live at ‘the hinge of history’. What he […]

Choosing a future for humanity: effective altruism and longtermism: Part 1

Choosing a future for humanity: effective altruism and longtermism: Part 1

Posted on 15 November 2021 by

At one time, not so long ago, it was the mosquito nets. If you wished to give to £100 to charity, and you wanted your donation to do as much […]

Nudging for Changing Selves

Nudging for Changing Selves

Posted on 1 November 2021 by

When we go into a car showroom and we’re greeted by a series of sales assistants, one after the other, we tend to end up buying from the first person […]

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, […]

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 […]

Epicurus on Losing Arguments

Epicurus on Losing Arguments

Posted on 11 March 2019 by

Epicurus’s Vatican Saying #74 runs: “the one who loses in a philosophical dispute gains more the more he learns.”  I remember reading that line as an undergraduate, thinking it curious […]