Vote now for the topic! The Philosophy Now Meetup, this Sunday Oct. 25 on Zoom
Details
Hey People!
Our monthly Meetup is on zoom this month: this Sunday, October 25 at 5 PM PT.
We're also voting now for the topic for this meeting – message me, email me ([angelonapinhead@gmail.com](mailto: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 few days.
Here are the topics to vote on, for this month's Meetup:
1) IS IT WRONG TO DO MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS (for the benefit of human medical research)? Or, is it permissible, or even obligatory? What justifies animal experimentation and what justifies restricting it? What are the arguments involved?
2) ARE PEOPLE ESSENTIALLY GOOD OR BAD? Or is human nature in between good and bad, or a mix of good and bad, or is it something outside of the good/bad continuum? And, in what specific ways is human nature good, bad or otherwise? What is meant by the terms "good" and "bad" in the context of human nature? Do you have any insights about the good or bad in humans that most people don't recognize?
3) 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.”
4) HELL: THE ETHICS AND PURPOSE OF HELL – AND INVENTED VERSIONS OF HELL. Regardless of whether you believe in God(s) or supernatural beings, try out this thought experiment. If you were to design your own version of Hell, what would it be? What would its goals and purposes be? How would you design it for maximum effectiveness? What lessons, if any, would you want to teach the denizens of your hell? Would you keep them there forever, or for a limited time? If your hell is not eternal, what exit criteria would you have for its denizens?
Is it ethical or unethical for a supernatural being to send humans to Hell? Would your answer change if we're not talking about a standard version of Hell, but your own, invented version of Hell? Would your answer change if we're talking about people being uploaded into a virtual Hell invented by humans instead of by a supernatural being?
5) DO YOU HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO STAY CIVIL IN THE FACE OF INCIVILITY? Suppose someone speaks to you with rudeness, or worse, with contempt, or someone attacks your character, or someone speaks to you in language that treats you or a group you belong to as less than fully human. In any or all these cases, are you obliged to respond with civility? When someone is uncivil to you, what do you owe them? Or, what do you owe to observers? The question can be usefully divided into several related parts.
First, does the social context matter? Compare, say, a family dinner, a workplace, an anonymous social media thread, and this discussion group. Do duties differ, or do only the practical consequences you get differ?
Second, what kind of obligation is at stake? Is civility a moral duty you owe to the speaker (and/or to observers), a duty to yourself and your own character, a social convention, a practical strategy, or is it in some other normative category? Does the type of obligation matter for how you respond to incivility?
Third, if you meet incivility with incivility, is that a fair response, an understandable weakness, or something else? Does dehumanizing language change your answer, compared with an insult or a slight to your character, or compared with mere rudeness?
Fourth, when confronted with incivility, what type of and degree of response is called for? Should you respond with calm civility? With intensified emotion? With a raised voice? With the same level and kind of incivility as the speaker? With an increased level of incivility that outdoes the speaker?
Fifth, before you respond to incivility, how should you weigh the chance that you’ve misread tone, intent, or the speaker’s point of view? And, should you always give a charitable interpretation to the speaker's words?
---------------
Send in a vote for your favorite topic(s) now!