It's Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature

retro 70s margarine commercials, as promised in class. enjoy!



more info at http://www.tvacres.com/admascots_mothernature.htm .

Join the Thoreauvian Small House Movement

Animal Rights

Hi guys.
I had to read this article for my debate class and I thought it was really interesting. It discusses ethics in regards to animal rights. A lot of the concepts we covered in this class appear in the debate, like utilitarianism and moral philosophy.
Just thought a lot of you might enjoy it...

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/200106--.htm

Is Fargo a true story? lies and deception redux

the following is from snopes.com:

"Fargo opens with: 'This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.'

"Great opening. And not a word of truth to it.

"Fargo's creators, the Coen brothers, are known for their playfulness, the inclusion of 'little touches' that add to a film. Given the Coens' reputation for this, you'd think any responsible film reviewer would have made at least a stab at confirming this bold claim before blithely passing it along as fact. (Had they done any checking, they would have quickly discovered that nothing so much as vaguely resembling that level of carnage had occurred in Minnesota. Not in 1987. Not ever.) As a result of those reviews, an even greater number ended up believing what the Coen brothers had to have thought no one but the incredibly gullible would fall for. Their little leg-pull went over big time."

read the rest here.

Laws

Hi Everyone,

I was thinking the other day about the discussion of ethics being separate from the legal system and the importance of not confusing ethics and the law, and I though of this book...

"You May Not Tie and Alligator To a Fire Hydrant: 101 Real Dumb Laws"
http://www.amazon.com/You-May-Alligator-Fire-Hydrant/dp/0743230655

It seems to offer some support for the idea that not all of our laws are based on morality...

-Emily

Filming for the Environment

*Call for Submissions*

ACUPCC Video Competition

The American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment <http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org/>(ACUPCC) is soliciting videos that demonstrate creative strategies for communicating the Climate Commitment across your campus and beyond. Deadline is Oct 1.

Five selected videos will be highlighted and screened at the 2nd biennial conference of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education <http://www.aashe.org/conf2008/> (AASHE) November 9-11th in Raleigh, NC. Videos will also be made publicly available on the ACUPCC and AASHE websites, providing exposure for your institutional efforts and sharing creative strategies to build awareness.

For more information and for guidelines on submitting videos:

http://www.aashe.org/conf2008/ACUPCCvideocompetition.php

Money for Green Projects on Campus

In case you all didn't see this:

Now that you are back on campus, it's time to make it a better,greener place. Students can implement projects on campus, making the college more sustainable, while also building their resume.

National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology program awardsfellowship grants to undergraduate and graduate students who arecommitted to reduce their campus carbon footprint; projects including: greenhouse gas inventories, climate action plans, energy conservationand efficiency, habitat restoration, convening climate actiongatherings and more will be considered.

Grant awards:

Up to $2000 for Undergraduate Students

Up to $5000 for Graduate Students

Fall deadlines: October 1, 2008

November 14, 2008

Visit www.nwf.org/fellows for details about the Campus Ecology

Fellowship program.

How Wild is Wilderness?

An excellent and eye-opening read on just how dramatically the Americas where transformed by humans BEFORE they turned into wilderness, that is, before the majority of humans living in the America's were wiped out by European disease and made room for the beasts to roam:

1491, New Revelations about the Americas before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann

For a very special take on American wilderness see
http://www.rewilding.org/

Food for thought 1. Zeitgeist Movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kHhc67GopM

This is what you signed up for when you signed in

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Ethical and psychological egoism

Hi everyone,
Don't be bashful about using some of the links to the right from various philosophy resources on the web. Lawrence Hinman's site is very thorough; check out the page on "ethical egoism" at http://ethics.sandiego.edu/theories/Egoism/index.asp , for example.

Please do suggest other links to other resources if you encounter them, and I'll put them on the sidebar.

Jim

A little Calvin and Hobbes

Hey guys, sorry that the font is so tiny, but you can read the comic strip better at http://progressiveboink.com/archive/calvinhobbes.htm ...... I couldn't help but laugh at Calvin's logic when I read this. It says quite a lot about us, doesn't it? Are we right to be hunting deer in order to limit populations when we ourselves our extremely overpopulated? Is overpopulation a valid excuse for taking the life of another being? Any thoughts?

Welcome to Ethics and the Environment, Fall 2008 version

Hi everyone,
I've sent out the invites to class members to sign up. Feel free to pass along news items, tentative speculations about ethical issues, clear-cut cases of injustice and/or righteousness . . . it's all good.

What is good, anyway? discuss.

new ethics blog announced

**Please contact miriam.wood@philosophy.ox.ac.uk with any queries**

This is to let you know about a new blog which will provide ethical analysis of the news, with a focus on developments in science and technology developments. You can find it at http://ethicsinthenews.typepad.com/ and we plan to provide comment at least daily for an initial month‚s trial. Authors are drawn from researchers at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, the Program on the Ethics of the New Biosciences and the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute at the Philosophy Faculty, University of Oxford. Content has so far included ŒSupermouse‚, the monkey cloning, and imaging the brain as well as obesity and home medical diagnosis.

Best wishes,
Miriam

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Miriam Wood

Administrator and PA to the Director
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
Suite 8
Littlegate House
16/17 St Ebbe's Street
Oxford
OX1 1PT

Tel: 01865 286888
Fax: 01865 286886
www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk
blog: www.ethicsinthenews.typepad.com

Here's a better one . . .

Actually filmed at Walden Pond. enjoy.

Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories blog

I will proceed with some very succinct comments about one article for this week.
In the article Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories, I though it was interesting how Brandt makes use of a disease know to have antagonistic or contradictory/incompatible elements as a metaphor. That is, indeed, how society works: a stunted moral life or disharmony. Biology has often asked the question: Is there such a thing as ‘true’ altruism? It depends on how one defines ‘true’ and ‘benevolent person.’ There might be cases in which a rarity happens in nature, and one encounters an individual who is morally good by nature and does not have to strive to be in control and do great efforts to be good. Because generally, an individual will do a good (a ‘blessing’) if the results of such action exceed or are equal (in the future) to the benefits received by its ‘blessed’ counterpart. But when it comes to kinship, would it be fair to say that it is easier to reciprocate because one is doing a favor to one’s own lineage or genes?
Every society has something called the Favor Bank. If one deposits favors in another person’s account, in the short/long run, that is an investment. So, concerning the ‘benevolence’ topic which Brandt talks about, I think that people do favors and are nice, in most cases, due to reciprocity. So, can there be a world full of harmony when the rule is ‘quid pro quo?’ I’m not trying to be cynical….this personal conclusion is empirical ……but it is opened to any critic from anybody in class. You are welcomed to refute this point if you wish…but please provide solid proof.

Robert Nozick's Experience Machine

Here are some links about Nozick's "experience machine" thought experiment and its significance:

Wikipedia's "experience machine" entry;
philosophical note on Nozick's "experience machine" thought experiment;
Philosophy and The Matrix entry on "experience machine," with accompanying film clip!

Grave Robbing

I was thinking about the example Professor Tantillo gave in class about the underlying ethic behind what different cultures do with their dead (that one culture who buries their dead might view another culture's eating of their dead as unethical, but really both are just upholding the underlying ethic of honoring the dead).

I thought of another scenario that applies to this situation. What about grave robbers of the late 18th century and early 19th century who unlawfully took bodies and used them as cadavers in the name of studying human anatomy. For religious reasons and because of society's lack of acceptance for this type of behavior, these people were often severely punished by the law.

But is what they are doing unethical? Does it violate the widely accepted ethic of honoring the dead? Or are they still honoring the dead? OR, are they living by a different set of ethics? Does the government have the right to make laws based on a widely accepted ethic that is not held by everyone? In a practical sense, do the benefits that were gained for science outweigh the importance of honoring the dead? Eventually as pressure was put on different governments, laws like Britain's Anatomy Act of 1832 were passed to make cadavers more available and widespread. If there are two different ethics here, are laws like this a reflection of a change in ethical priorities, or simply a compromise because both ethics are important?

Ethics in the News

From today's BBC News:

Is stealing wireless wrong?

By Finlo Rohrer BBC News Magazine

A man has been arrested after being spotted allegedly sitting in a street with a laptop using someone else's unsecured wireless connection. Is it immoral to do this?

So here's the thing.

You're walking down the street in Hypotheticalville and in front of you is a gentleman who, when he walks, spills seemingly endless torrents of golden coins on to the pavement behind him.

He seems unconcerned by this and you notice that if not picked up, these magic coins quickly evaporate. Is it moral for you to pick a few up?

It's the kind of tree-falls-in-the-forest whimsy that an undergraduate philosopher might mull over for a moment, but back in the real world a not entirely dissimilar debate is being played out.

The man arrested in a street in west London is at least the third person to be accused of breaching the law by taking internet service without permission.

The Communications Act 2003 says a "person who (a) dishonestly obtains an electronic communications service, and (b) does so with intent to avoid payment of a charge applicable to the provision of that service, is guilty of an offence".

It is a bit like reading your book from the light coming out from someone's window Julian Baggini Philosopher

There are also suggestions using somebody else's wireless could come under the Computer Misuse Act, usually used to combat hacking and electronic fraud.

But if it can be interpreted as illegal, can it be truly said to be immoral?

Read the entire article here.