The Santa Monica Philosophy Meetup Group

Hey People,

We're voting now for the topic for this Sunday’s meeting – message me, email me (angelonapinhead@gmail.com), or post a comment with the topic(s) you most want to talk about! I’ll post an update with the winning topic in a couple of days.

The monthly Meetup is this Sunday, December 21 at 5 PM; we’ll meet on Zoom this month. (Note: next month we’ll meet in person in Santa Monica).

Here are the topics to choose from for this Sunday:

1) VAGUENESS, AMBIGUITY AND GENERALITY. What is "vagueness" and what are the different kinds of vagueness? What's the difference between a vague idea and an ambiguous idea? What's the difference between a vague idea and a general or broad idea? Is all vagueness linguistic/conceptual or do some kinds of vagueness exist in the world? Can objects or events be vague? Can experiences be vague?

2) DO PHYSICAL OR COGNITIVE DISABILITIES NECESSARILY REDUCE YOUR HEALTH OR WELL-BEING? Though many find it counterintuitive, philosophers are calling into question three common and closely related assumptions about disabilities. One assumption being challenged is "the widely-held view that it is desirable to prevent, correct, or mitigate disabilities, and generally undesirable to acquire one" (as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it). A second assumption being challenged is the idea that being disabled means being unhealthy. A third assumption being challenged is the belief that having a disability entails a decrease in wellbeing. What do you think of these three challenges? Is disability necessarily undesirable? Are disabled people necessarily unhealthy? Does disability necessarily decrease the quality of life?

3) WHY IS LYING WRONG? (OR, IS IT WRONG?) First, what makes lying wrong? Most agree that lying is wrong on the face of it (even if it’s justified in certain situations), but it's tougher to say exactly what the reasons are that lying is wrong. Second, if lying is wrong, is it inherently wrong, or is it wrong only because of the effects it has on people?

Third, imagine that you lie for what most would regard as lying for the greater good. For example, telling a white lie to avoid seriously hurting someone's feelings. Or protecting the person hiding in your attic by lying to the murderer at your front door who asks you if his intended victim is in your house. In cases like these, would you say the lie is completely justified and that you have done nothing wrong, or would you say that you've done a small wrong in order to prevent a larger wrong?

4) ANARCHY: is anarchy (AKA anarchism) a viable way to set up a society? What are the advantages and disadvantages of anarchy? Wikipedia defines anarchy as, “a form of society without rulers. As a type of stateless society, it is commonly contrasted with states, which are centralized polities that claim a monopoly on violence over a permanent territory. Beyond a lack of government, it can more precisely refer to societies that lack any form of authority or hierarchy.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Anarchism puts it this way, “Anarchism is a political theory that is skeptical of the justification of authority and power. Anarchism is usually grounded in moral claims about the importance of individual liberty, often conceived as freedom from domination. Anarchists also offer a positive theory of human flourishing, based upon an ideal of equality, community, and non-coercive consensus building.”

5) HUMAN/NON-HUMAN CHIMERAS: should society limit scientific research on human-animal hybrids? What would justify these limitations? The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on "Human/Non-Human Chimeras" goes over the five main arguments against human-animal mixtures, as well as objections to those arguments. The following is from the opening of the article:

"The Unnaturalness Argument explores the ethics of violating natural species boundaries. The Moral Confusion Argument alleges that the existence of entities that cannot be definitively classified as either human or non-human will cause moral confusion that will undermine valuable social and cultural practices. The Borderline-Personhood Argument focuses on great apes and concludes that their borderline-personhood confers a high enough degree of moral status to make most, if not all, chimeric research on them impermissible. The Human Dignity Argument claims that it is an affront to human dignity to give an individual “trapped” in the body of a non-human animal the capacities associated with human dignity. Finally, the Moral Status Framework maintains that research in which a non-human animal's moral status is enhanced to that of a normal adult human is impermissible unless reasonable assurances are in place that its new moral status will be respected, which is unlikely given the motivations for chimeric research and the oversight likely to be provided."
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