This is for tomorrow’s lecture. Sorry it tails off at the end, but I had to clip it to fit one page. Mill, John Stuart. “Utilitarianism.” Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings, 5th ED. Wadsworth Publishing, 2007. While John Stuart Mill also proposes a type of utilitarianism, his theory differs from Bentham’s most notably in […]
The topic we’re currently on is utilitarianism, so here’s one that I wrote for yesterday’s reading. Nozick, Robert. “The Experience Machine.” Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Basic Books, 1974. 118-119. Parfit, Derek, “What makes Someone’s Life Go Best?” Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings, 5th ED. Wadsworth Publishing, 2007. In his excerpt, Derek Parfit provides several […]
There’s the common perception that techies are somewhat spacey, unaware of what’s actually going on in the world. When programmers spend their time building artificial creations in virtual spaces, sometimes it’s hard to find the connection to the plight of the unemployed, or international conflict. Which might be a little true of me. My google […]
The reading for today in my moral philosophy class was again on Ethical Egoism, though from a different author. Specifically, Rachels, James, “Ch. 21: Ethical Egoism,” Ethical Theory: An Anthology, Russ Shafer-Landau ED., Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 213-220 Early in the excerpt, James Rachels makes the distinction between Psychological Egoism (which I will lazily abbreviate as […]
One of the classes I’m taking this quarter is Phil 20, intro to moral philosophy. Of which I know nothing. The class assignments are all writing (and I’ve never done phil writing before), including several response papers to our reading. They’re not supposed to be polished, and probably don’t even have to be right, but […]
Welcome everyone to 2009, which has come into this world with constant messages of optimism. There are a lot of people who could use some of that right now, and I will do my best to put some out there as well. This topic has turned into an annual event, but I’ll recap in case […]
This Christmas, my family is all back together, which, these days, is very rare. My sisters, my dad, and my grandparents have had staggered entrances and some quick exits, so the only day we’re all together is today. My sisters and mom are putting in the kitchen work behind me to prepare for dinner, while […]
I went in to visit and help out the Taylor AD team today, and I had come up with a sort of motivational speech for the occasion. I, however, was never actually called on to talk to them as a group, and thus, the speech ended up being unnecessary. Instead, it’ll reside here in my […]
Well, the end of the quarter has come, and almost all classes ended earlier today. The end of things can be bittersweet, but here, the emotion is mostly relief. With 10 week quarters, midterms begin as early as week 3 and last through week 10, meaning that most classes are more sprinting than marathoning. But […]
Every time I’ve double-posted so far, it’s been linking my other blog to a post here, usually when I write a particularly thoughtful post that I like enough to put in both places. In this case, however, I figured the topic is more academic than usual, so I put it in there and am linking […]