Syracuse Philosophy Meetup

Do ethics apply to the entire animal kingdom? What kind of ethical principles should exist for animals in the wild and for animals bred for slaughter? Join the Syracuse Philosophy Meetup as we discuss engaging ideas from two essays on animal ethics taken from the book Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments.

The first essay, The Meat Eaters by Jeff McMahan, asks whether animals in the wild commit evil through making each other suffer. Is there something morally wrong when a carnivore tears its prey to pieces?

The second essay, The Enigma of Animal Suffering by Rhys Southan, addresses the problem of animal farming. He questions assumptions animal activists make when they draw analogies between humans and animals, and proposes three premises that might make animal farming ethically acceptable.

Note: Final Location To Be Determined, we're experimenting with different libraries. I'll finalize the location at least one week in advance.

You can find the two essays in the book Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments (which is filled with other fascinating essays), or online here:

Ever dream about a world where no one tells you what to do? A world without oppression, laws, or even government? How about a world with no wealth inequality, a world that doesn’t even have the notion of property itself?

Ursula K. Le Guinn imagined such a world when she wrote the science-fiction novel The Dispossessed. In this novel, she describes a group of colonists who escaped a world much like Earth and settled on a deserted, habitable moon. On that moon they created an anarchist utopia, a world with no government, no laws, and no property. In that society people naturally work together as equals for the common weal.

But is such a society possible, or even desirable?

Join the Syracuse Philosophy Meetup as we discuss Ursula K. Le Guin’s award-winning novel The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. We’ll talk about the story, but more importantly we’ll ask critical questions about the society portrayed:

• Is a world without government or laws possible?
• What is property? Could our society function without it?
• To what extent would humans work together if they didn’t have rules to compel them to?
• Is Anarchism a dead political philosophy? Or does it contain important philosophical insights?

Reading the book is NOT necessary - all the ideas will be explained during the meetup and Hersh’s “spark” notes will be provided. You may also read the plot on wikipedia or other sites. Reading up on anarchism may also be useful: