The Future is Now: World’s first CRISPR gene edited baby is born
Read the article from The Atlantic linked HERE and answer the following questions: Were Dr. He’s actions ethical? How can you use this example in your essay?
Tag: ethics
Investigating the Moral Landscape: Knowledge systems, authority and a better way forward?
Watch the above TED Talk by Sam Harris titled, “Science can answer moral questions” and consider the following: Summarize his thesis in 1-3 sentences What are the strengths of Harris’ argument? What are the weaknesses of Harris’ argument? Ok, so lets say you agree with […]
Understanding Deontological and Teleological approaches to ethics
Download the learning helper linked here to facilitate your investigation and understanding of ethical systems: Ethics Jigsaw
Is tolerance the root of democracy’s Demise?
Karl Popper, a famous Austrian philosopher of science from the 20th century put forth the thesis that too much tolerance is a bad thing. Is it? Watch the Vice Media coverage of the Charlottesville Neo-Nazi gathering/protest below and assess your position on tolerance and censorship: […]
The Evolution Of Evil
The Evolution of Evil: Evolutionary biologists, especially those Darwinian in nature, believe that modern human behavior must have evolutionary origins. It would follow then, that our less desirable–EVIL–traits too have an evolutionary root. However why would these traits remain in our species if they were […]
Heidegger vs. Reductionism
Martin Heidegger is considered by many to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century and is a personal favorite of mine! His work centers around existentialism, and specifically, phenomenology, an area of philosophy. We’ll read Heidegger as we progress through the course, however reading […]
Analyzing an Ethical Choice
Thus far in TOK, we have analyzed the following Ways of Knowing: Perception Emotion Reason Language Your task, is to identify an Ethical Choice…this could be something real from your life like “not cheating on a test” or it could be something that is real […]
Those Who Walk Away from Omelas: A meditation on the tyranny of democracy
After our conversations yesterday, I immediately thought of the short story, “Ones who walk away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin. Read the story linked here: ones who walk away from omelas And then answer the following questions in your journal as “journal entry #3”: […]
Kantian Ethics vs. Utilitarianism
As an introduction to ETHICS, move through this incredibly excellent introduction to ethics, ethical hypocrisy, kantian ethics and utilitarianism: http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/fatman/Default.aspx One of the heaviest hitters in the philosophical world of ethics is German Philosopher Emanuel Kant. Kant wrote at length on a variety of topics and […]
Introduction to Ethics
We’ve already discussed various questions that the Human Sciences concern themselves with. We discussed that many of these questions are “Normative” in nature…meaning they concern themselves with what humans OUGHT to do. Dilemmas of behavior that people face are referred to as MORAL DILEMMAS or […]
