Circumcision

One of the topics in my book on parenthood (well, manuscript, so far) is circumcision--should we or shouldn't we?   To my mind, people circumcise for the same sort of reason they clip the tails off of some breeds of dogs.  Says a Jack Russell breeder: "Every Jack Russell
Terrier must have its tail docked and dew claws removed at an early
age. Three to five days of age

Dear Student

This Daily Campus editorial is getting attention all over the place. I suspect what's really going on is not so much misogyny and victim-blaming (as a change.org petition says) but sloppy thinking and bad writing.  Comments below.

"At the beginning of this school year, SMU students noticed a large number of alleged sexual assaults on campus, but is the blame being placed in the right place? Of

Having an Identity

Reading around in the philosophical literature about self and identity, it strikes me that one topic is very often left out.  The literature deals with quantitative identity, as in the relation between teenage me and adult me that makes "us" one and the same.  There's plenty of literature about the self--in the sense of my mind, in totality.  There's also literature about the self in the sense

Victim Blaming?

The New York Times has a "Room for Debate" feature today on whether young women should be advised against binge drinking at college parties, to reduce their risk of being raped.  In the introduction it says "studies have repeatedly found an association between binge drinking and rape on college campuses."  So of course women should be advised against binge drinking....?  No, half the debaters say

Speciesism, Malignant and Benign

There's a certain sort of bias against animals that seems clearly pernicious and bears a strong resemblance to racism and sexism.  This is the sort where animals are immediately dismissed because of surface characteristics--"They're just animals".  In contrast, there's the idea that humans should have some sort of priority in our decision-making, most of the time.  This sort of prioritizing is

Negotiation vs. Blackmail

If you read liberal editorials about the government shutdown, you're bound to run into words like "blackmail" and "extortion" and "hostage taking."  So many commentators (like Paul Krugman in today's New York Times) are saying that Boehner & Co. aren't just engaging in politics as usual by tying the budget to postponement of the mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act, they're being

A Puzzle about Parenthood

Here's something I'm mulling over and finding pretty perplexing.  To see the puzzle, you have to go along with me on some claims about the rights of biological parents.  To wit:  biological parents have very strong rights to take on the parenting role with respect to their children. If I give birth to Sally, I get to raise Sally, even if her prospects would be much better with someone else.  For

Killing to Survive

I've watched far too many episodes of "Breaking Bad" in the last few weeks, and just about my only defense is that the show does provide lots of food for thought about ethics.  Spoiler alert!  If you're trying to catch up before the season finale on Sunday, don't read this post.

Lots of people get killed in the show, and many of the killings are done for purposes of self-preservation.  The

Mini-problems: The case of the lost notebook

I am fond of using mini-problems in ethics classes--tiny little every day questions of not very great significance.  The point of discussing them is that they don't arouse any distracting emotionality, and people don't "identify" with particular solutions (like they do when it comes to matters like abortion and gay marriage).  So you can have a dispassionate, exploratory discussion.  What's more,

Parenthood's End

What's the job description of a parent?  I've been pondering an answer defended by William Irvine in the book Doing Right by Children.  The idea is that adults own themselves, but are essentially incapacitated during the years of childhood, so need parents to serve as their stewards.  In the future adult child's absence, the parent has to make various decisions, just as a land steward would, in

Rock is Dead?

So says Jerry Coyne, but I think he's listening to the wrong stuff.  Using the word "rock" loosely (he seems to be using it loosely too), I think there's plenty of awesome music out there.  Our house playlist (by which I mean, what all four of us enjoy) includes:  Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, Kanye West, Bjork, Sigur Ros, Wilco, PJ Harvey, Joanna Newsom, Grizzly Bear, Alabama Shakes, The

Is it Speciesist to Support Animal Welfare Regulations? (part 2)

As he promised to do a while back, Gary Francione has put an essay on his website about why (he thinks) it's speciesist to support animal welfare regulations.  In a nutshell, he says those who support animal welfare regulations must, to be consistent, also support campaigns for humane rape, humane child molestation, and humane chattel slavery.  If you support animal welfare regulations but not

Philosophy and Social Norm Violation

Philosophers enjoy being weird.  My logic professor in graduate school taught in his bare feet.  I know faculty members who swear in class, ask students what they're listening to on their iPods, throw candy to students who make good points, indulge in frequent political diatribes, and wear converse sneakers despite being over the age of 50.  I personally don't act too too weird, though I'm

Frankenburgers

Last week's unveiling of the world's first cultured beef burger got everyone talking about "Frankenburgers".  The "Franken--" prefix is often used when scientists start concocting things that were once more or less natural.  Articles about genetically modified foods are always about "frankenfood".  People even talk about "frankenbabies", in connection with IVF.



This summer I decided it was

Some we love, some we eat, some we love and eat*

Update 8/13:  More buffalo pictures, sent by a reader.  This is what you get when you have a powerful camera and talent at photography!  These are calves in Custer State Park and/or Yellowstone.








***

I'm finally back from a long road trip through 8 states--Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado.

Starting at Badlands National Park in South Dakota, we

It's a Matter of Respect

I'm home from one trip and about to embark on another, so obviously I'm too busy for blogging--there's cleaning and packing to do, right?  Right, but that would be so boring....

Some long drives in the past week gave me time to think about animal welfare regulation just a little more.  In my past posts, I attempted to think about the ethics of welfare regulation "ad hominem" -- in the

Watch and Enjoy!

Fabulous take down of the Texas legislature. I love this woman!

Is it speciesist to support animal welfare regulations?

Over at this blog (see end of comments) Gary Francione has said he's writing an essay tentatively called "The Welfare/Regulationist Approach is Deeply Speciesist."  He says he will be done in a few days or next week, by which time I'm not going to be around to read or respond (real life responsibilities are going to get in the way).

The tentative title got me thinking though.  It's certainly

Dueling Analogies

Alright, one more post on animal welfare regulations (like Prop. 2 in California, which requires animal housing large enough so the animal can turn around).  In my last post I talked about five cases in which progressives have supported both "revolution" for victims of an injustice and reform.  I argued that victims want both and are entitled to both.  Animals are entitled to both too, if

Animal Rights Reading List

I've been blogging more about animal issues lately, though these days I'm mostly focused on working on my book (er, manuscript until it has a publisher) about parenthood.  One reason why: because I'm gearing up to teach my course on animal rights again in the fall.  The course is cross-listed as both an upper-level philosophy course and a "cultural formations" class, which means (basically) it's

Francione vs. Friedrich

Several years ago I wrote a series of posts countering Gary Francione's opposition to animal welfare legislation (Should Humane Farm Reform Be Opposed and The Thirsty Cow, for example).  The point I made, in various ways, is that someone who recognizes animals as having rights ought to support humane reforms.  Last week I made the argument again (The Rights Argument for Regulation) and now I see

The Rights Argument for Regulation

After recently having a lively debate with someone about the ethics of regulating the farm animal industry, I found myself trying to set up my argument formally (in my mind).  So why not share?

(1) Most farm animals live in abysmal conditions and die miserable deaths.

(2) Some regulations do/would offer significant improvement to the lives of farm animals (e.g. regulations that improve the

Judy Nicastro's Abortion at 23 Weeks

This past week democrats in Texas managed to stave off a bill that would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks, thanks to a filibuster by Wendy Davis and a noisy gallery of abortion rights advocates.  A few days earlier, there was an editorial in the New York Times week in review section called "My Abortion at 23 Weeks".  I thought Wendy Davis should have read it during her filibuster.  Rarely does

The Adoption Radicals

I've been reading (for the second time, actually), Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays (ed. by Sally Haslanger and Charlotte Witt).  I find myself in violent disagreement with practically every author in the volume.  The theme of one article after another is that to properly value and respect families created through adoption, we must reduce the significance of biological

Self Ownership

Do we own ourselves?  I'm thinking about the concept because it facilitates a certain model of the parent-child relationship.  On that model, parents hold their children in trust, readying them for the self-ownership they'll attain upon majority.  That's an attractive view in some ways, but ... self-ownership?  What?

The idea that persons are self-owners is a cornerstone of libertarian

The Predation Defense

Lately I've been torturing my family with the question: what would the world be like if all animals were herbivores?  I'm pretty sure the answer is: not as good.  Evolving to hunt makes a species develop all sorts of perceptual and cognitive strengths, and likewise, evolving as another species' prey.  I can't see how a world filled with herbivores, and only herbivores, could have minds as

Why aren't you a vegan? (results)

HERE are the results of my survey.  88 people took the survey.  I asked--

This survey is aimed at people who are not vegans. You qualify as "not
a vegan" if you deliberately consume some or all animal products (meat,
eggs, milk, cheese, fish, oysters, clams, etc.)

Which of the following statements capture your reason(s) for not being a
vegan? Select ALL of the answers that express your

Why aren't you a vegan?

Perhaps you are! But if not, please take this survey and disseminate.  I will share the results here in a week.  SURVEY

The Missing Posts

I've made six trips since February to visit my father in Pennsylvania. This means my thoughts have been interrupted a lot.  I get on the plane, read a book about something I'm working on, keep the topic on my mind for several days, and by the time I'm on the return flight, I've lost the thread.  Blogging is further down the list of my priorities, so it's even more difficult to hang on to

The Badness of Death

What makes death bad for someone who dies?  This is on my mind for lots of different reasons--so here goes, some thinking aloud.

The question is puzzling if you even just think about the death of one individual, of one age and species, but let's be masochists and thinking about lots of deaths.

Death of a zygote after 2 days development
Death of a newborn baby
Death of a healthy young adult

Selling Justice

Via Leiter, I see the San Jose philosophy department is complaining in an open letter to Michael Sandel that an MIT/Harvard-affiliated company proposed that the department pilot Sandel's "blended online" course, Justice.  I'm intrigued, since I used his book, Justice, to teach Contemporary Moral Problems this semester.  I had to miss several classes, so I also had my class watch one of his

Interrupting and Depriving

A murderer who can foresee the future concocts two nefarious plans.

Plan A:  he will murder Natasha in 2025, just as she's about to embark on a trip to Alaska that she's been planning and looking forward to since 2020. 

Plan B: he will interfere with events in 2020, so Natasha doesn't develop her hankering to go to Alaska.  This will actually be very simple, because it all started when she

Can men be feminists?

Different factions of the abolitionist community are arguing about this question (here and here), which surprises me.  You'd think the answer was obvious: of course men can be feminists. In fact, you'd think advocates for animals would reach that conclusion especially quickly, and in unison.

Background: I like to use the word "animalist" as a term for animal advocates who challenge traditional

Was I once an egg?

Short recap of the Marquis argument I was responding to in my last post: Marquis says killing one of us is wrong because it takes away a FLO (future like ours). But abortion takes a FLO from a fetus.  So abortion is wrong too.

Here's a response to Marquis I find intriguing/bewildering.  Eugene Mills says if I was once a zygote, I was also once an egg.  I wasn't also once a sperm. No, I was just

Is it wrong to take the future from a fetus?

Don Marquis's argument against abortion (in "Why Abortion is Immoral") is pleasingly simple.  He says the wrongness of killing one of us (folks like you and me who are obvious members of the "moral community") is due to the fact that killing deprives an individual of their entire future, a valuable "Future Like Ours" (FLO) in most cases.  But abortion deprives a fetus of a FLO as well.  So

How to argue against gay marriage (part III)

And now for the rebuttal.  In the last post I said that if I had to make an argument against gay marriage--in a debate club setting, or some such--then perhaps I'd say this:

There's a great deal of value in knowing both of your biological
parents and being raised by them (other things being equal--of course
there are exceptions).
The normal way of procreating for same sex couples involves a

How to argue against gay marriage (part II)

This is certainly a diabolical exercise. I am for marriage equality, and I think most reasonable people are for marriage equality. But what if a college debate society were staging a debate, and you got assigned the "against" side?  What could you say?  Most of the stuff normally said on that side is extremely silly.  Is there anything even half-way reasonable to say against gay marriage?  In

How to argue against same sex marriage (part I)

In my contemporary moral problems class this semester we've been discussing same sex marriage.  We paid close attention to the Supreme Court oral arguments on Prop. 8 and DOMA last week.  We've been reading articles "pro" and "con"...and, honestly, it seems to me that all the best arguments are "pro".  I'm definitely in favor of legalizing gay marriage.  That said, lately I keep wondering: what

Old, Old Age

I've been spending a lot of time in the land of the very, very old lately--my father has just recently been admitted to a "senior center".  Perhaps soon I'll have a chance to write more about these things, but at the moment I just have one observation to make: it's really hard to see how best to manage old age (duh). If you arrest one aging process with drugs or technology, you open the door to

Meat, Meat, Meat

Last night at SMU I was part of a panel discussion following a screening of the new movie American Meat.  What a meaty movie!  You see meat cooking, meat sitting in grocery stores, meat being eaten, live animals being turned into meat, meat on the hoof... Lots and lots of meat.  Not really enjoyable viewing, I have to say, for a vegetarian.

The movie's message is that the US should transform

Intergenerational Amnesia

Suppose a 10 year old child had a life-threatening illness that could only be cured at the cost of amnesia. She would lose all memory of her first 10 years, but go on living. It would be bad to forget her early years, but surely worth it to stay alive.  I think we should say roughly the same thing about the practice of saving babies' lives by placing "baby boxes" hear hospitals. When a desperate

The Right to Self Defense

This semester I'm teaching an introductory course on contemporary moral problems, and this past week has been gun control week.  It's an exhausting subject, since emotions run high in the aftermath of Newtown and Aurora.  Phew!

When all is said and done, what seems interesting in the ethical debate about gun control is the right to self defense. What is it, and what does it encompass?  This

"Life begins at conception"

 
Mary Elizabeth Williams declares herself a pro-choice liberal, but wants to concede that "life begins at conception". To her, this is undeniable common sense. But in fact, there is actually a very solid reason to doubt that any human's lifespan starts as early as conception.  At conception, what exists is a single-celled zygote.  That zygote contains the makings of not just the embryo (fetus

Beyonce Lip Synced Anthem?

Uh oh, it seems Beyonce lip-synced the national anthem yesterday.  Here's what USA Today is reporting--

Master Sgt. Kristin DuBois, spokeswoman for the President's Own
United States Marine Band, confirms to USA TODAY's Maria Puente that
Beyoncé was lip-syncing.
It's standard operating procedure for musicians to pre-record crucial music such as Hail to the Chief and The Star-Spangled Banner

50 Years Later

50 years ago I went to the March on Washington with my family. I am told I was there for Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. So when my son said he should get to see Barack Obama inaugurated on Martin Luther King day, I could see his point.

Standing for hours in the cold with a million Obamaphiles turned out to be wildly fun. Who knew? What exultation and camaraderie! Here are some

What is a placenta? (And why does it matter?)

credit: www.birthingfromwithin.com

Norman Ford's book When Did I Begin? is a treasure trove of information about fetal development, plus some very interesting reflections on how the biological facts bear on whether each of us was once a zygote or once a fetus. This is a matter of pure metaphysical interest but also with possible ethical implications.  Ford offers several reasons to doubt that

Big Exit

Ironically, it happens my current favorite song sounds like what must be playing in Sam Harris's head this week. Wish I had time to say more about his gun screed, but I don't.  Suffice it to say, I actually think the New York Times is quite a bit more "enlightened" than the NRA on the topic of guns. Funny that he thinks otherwise, and yet further proof (as if more was needed) that just because

Life Extension? No Thanks

Would it be good if the average human life-span were not 75 to 80, but 150? 500? 1000?  Peter Singer raises the question in this online editorial. To get the ball rolling, let's ponder three mini-worlds.  The first world is more or less like ours, while the second and third involve longer life-spans.  In "30-90" people on average have a child at 30 and die at 90 (couples have two children).  So,

Chinese Lanterns

At Fair Park until Jan. 6, fun for the whole family!