It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday

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System Justification Theory

NYU psychologist John Jost does a lot of work on something he calls system justification theory. This is our tendency to unconsciously rationalize the status quo, especially unjust social institutions. Scarily, his research suggests that those of us oppressed by such institutions have a stronger tendency to justify their existence.

Jost has a new book on this stuff. Here's a video dialogue about his research:

Your Inner Bigot

There's an insightful article called "Finding Your Inner Bigot" that relates to our discussion in class this week on racism and sexism: does prejudice have to be conscious, or can we unintentionally do something sexist or racist?

Psychological evidence suggests that unconscious prejudice is real, and often a bigger problem today than intentionally discriminatory behavior. As the article puts it,

"If you ask physicians whether all patients should be treated equally regardless of race, everyone says yes. But if you ask doctors how they will treat patients with chest pains who are named Michael Smith and Tyrone Smith, the doctors tend to be less aggressive in treating the patient with the black-sounding name. Such disparities in treatment are not predicted by the conscious attitudes that doctors profess, but by their unconscious attitudes—their hidden brains."

Counteracting these unintentional, hidden prejudices is pretty tough. They require a long-term approach of the kind discussed in Aristotle's virtue ethics: noticing your bad habits, then consciously trying to break them and replace them with better habits. The hardest part about unconscious biases, though, is how difficult they are to notice in the first place.

Does Death Harm Animals?

Here is a short post with some thoughtful analysis regarding the topic of our term paper on the moral status of animals (specifically, on non-persons and killing animals):

• Can Death Harm Non-Persons?

I recommend reading it to help you start developing your own arguments on these issues for your paper.

-via FailBlog

Moopheus

A related issue to the ethics of animal research is the ethics of eating animals. Here are some links on that:

• Vegetarians Still Love the Smell of Bacon
• David Foster Wallace: Consider the Lobster
• How to Cut Back on Meat Slowly
• What Is The Meatrix? (see video below)
  
• What If We Could Make Pain-Free Animals?
  
• Audio Interview: Jeff McMahan on Vegetarianism
  
• Huge List of Resources on the Moral Status of Animals

New Jersey's Own

We're reading an article by well-known philosopher, utilitarian, vegetarian, and New Jersey resident Peter Singer on animal ethics for class. Here's some interviews with him:

• Peter Singer on Michael Vick & Dog Fighting
  
• Audio Interview with Peter Singer
  
• Animal Research (Peter Singer's Sometimes OK with It!)

Assisted Dying

Here are a few links on euthanasia:

• Some related ethical issues--like suicide and advanced directives--get their own entries in my favorite free online philosophy encyclopedia.
• The active/passive distinction highlights broader ethical worries: the difference between doing and allowing harms, and the doctrine of double effect.
• Tons of articles, videos, and other resources on euthanasia are available here.
• Last year, a moral philosopher was diagnosed with a brain tumor and wrote an article titled "It is monstrously wrong that patients cannot ask for euthanasia."
• In 1997, some well-known philosophers filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing in favor of euthanasia. The court didn't listen: in two separate cases later that year, it decided in favor of upholding bans on euthanasia.

Youth in Asia

Ali G's Take on Euthanasia
[More on euthanasia]

The Ethics of Killing

I don't often recommend an entire book to students, but if you're interested in some thoughtful analysis of abortion, euthanasia, animals, killing, and personhood, among other things, you should check out Jeff McMahan's The Ethics of Killing. Here's a short description of the book:

"This magisterial work is the first comprehensive study of the ethics of killing, where the moral status of the individual killed is uncertain. Drawing on philosophical notions of personal identity and the immorality of killing, McMahan looks carefully at a host of practical issues, including abortion, infanticide, the killing of animals, assisted suicide, and euthanasia."

McMahan teaches philosophy at Rutgers. (We read his article on prenatal screening.)  He also just wrote a follow-up book called Killing in War (here's an audio interview with him on that book). This is exactly the kind of careful, thought-out approach that I think complicated, serious issues deserve.

Infants

Here are some links related to our class section on the ethics of treating infants with severe impairments:

• Disability rights attorney Harriet McBryde Johnson, who was born with a congenital muscular disease, wrote a fascinating account of meeting philosopher Peter Singer, who has argued that it is sometimes morally acceptable to withhold treatment from impaired infants.
• Singer's book on this topic (and others) is called Practical Ethics.
• McBryde Johnson's memoir is titled Too Late to Die Young.
• McBryde Johnson also argued to keep Terri Schiavo alive before the courts decided in favor of euthanasia. 
• Here's a lengthy TV interview with McBryde Johnson by a philosopher.

Lesbian Parenting

Since donor insemination first became popular in the U.S. in the 1980's, there was a bit of a baby boom among lesbian parents at that time. As a result, there are some long-term studies that have been wrapping up lately on the effects of being raised by parents who are lesbians. For instance, it seems that child abuse is much less likely to occur in a lesbian household. Other studies can be found here and here.

Also, one of my favorite movies of last year, The Kids Are All Right, is a comedy about a lesbian couple with two children who seek out their sperm-donating biological father. Here's the trailer:

The Wisdom of Kass

The Leon Kass reading on cloning that we studied in class was part of a longer article that is available in its entirety here.

Many critics take issue with Kass's claim that there is a wisdom to repugnance.  Here is a typical objection to Kass's view:

"Anyone who as ever taken an introductory anthropology course, or read Herodotus -- or gone to a different part of town -- will have learned that different groups feel disgust at different things. The affect seems to be hard-wired into us, but the occasions provoking it are varied.
...
"In short, disgust is not quite so unambiguous and inarguable an expression of timeless values as [Kass] has advertised. Given a choice between 'deep wisdom' and 'reason’s power fully to articulate,' we might do best to leave the ineffable to Oprah."

Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that one big difference between politically conservative and liberal people is the willingness to consider disgust as a morally relevant factor.  Here's his TED talk on this:

What do you think?  Feel free to let us know in the comments of this post.

Clone Wars

Here are some links on cloning:

• The Ethics of Cloning (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
  
• Overview of Cloning Debate
• Science of Cloning (Human Genome Project)
• Email Debate on Cloning (Slate)
• Human Clones: Why Not? (Slate)
• UN Urges Ban on Cloning (Weekly Review)
• Confusion over Cloning (New York Review of Books)

The Hard Sell, The Stem Cell

Here are some links on the ethics of stem-cell research:

• Ethics of Stem-Cell Research (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• A Moral Defense of Stem-Cell Research (Boston Review)
• New Extraction Technique that Doesn't Destroy Embryos? (New York Times)
  [Clarification (New York Times); Quelling the Hype (National Review)]
• Even Newer Technique That We're Studying (New York Times)
• Will Stem-Cell Research Help? (National Review)
• Selling Alternatives Short (National Review)
• What About Adult Stem Cells? (Weekly Standard)
• What Pro-Lifers are Missing in the Stem-Cell Debate (Slate)
• Embryo Ethics (Boston Globe)

Abortion

Here are some links related to our class discussions on the ethics of abortion:

• Recent scientific research suggests that the earliest fetuses can feel pain is about 24 weeks into a pregnancy.  
• One philosopher argues that even if you think abortion is morally acceptable, it's controversial and morally risky enough for you to lower your confidence in your own moral judgment.  
• Here are two articles debunking the myth of the Mozart Effect that we discussed in one of our classes. 

Delusions of Gender

Psychologist Cordelia Fine has a great new book out called Delusions of Gender. In it, she debunks a lot of the myths about so-called 'hard-wired' gender differences between boys and girls. Our brains are much more malleable than these myths suggest, and such perceived gender differences are likely either non-existent or the result of social pressures.

Fine wrote a nice summary of her book here, and there are two good reviews of her book here and here.  Below is an excerpt from a talk Fine recently gave.



Cordelia Fine: Discovering Sexism in Neuroscience

Learning Your Gender

Here's a comparison of the different words used in ads for boys’ toys and ads for girls’ toys.

(hat tip: Feminist Philosophers blog)

Moral Psych Out

Here are some links loosely related to moral psychology:

• Here's a decent explanation of Lawrence Kohlberg's psychological theory of moral development that we mentioned in class.
  
• Psychological research on our moral judgments is a lot wackier today. For instance, clean smells make us behave better, while smelling farts makes us judge more harshly.
  
• There's some great new research on moral development in children, too. Here's Rebecca Saxe's TED Talk:
  
  
• One large strand of psychological research is on the impact of emotions on our moral reasoning. Here's Jonathan Haidt's TED Talk on the emotional difference between conservatives and liberals:
  

Ethics of Care

Here's some stuff related to the ethics of care:

• Here's an excerpt from a video of Carol Gilligan explaining her work (the entire video is available here):
  
  
• For stuff on feminism in general, I highly recommend one of my favorite blogs: Feminist Philosophers.
• There's also a great new blog called What Is It Like to Be a Woman in Philosophy? It's devoted to short accounts from women of their experiences while pursuing a career in philosophy.
  
• The cartoon Rose Is Rose offers a funny-ish critique of reason-centered approaches to ethics:

Just Right

Here is a trio of short audio interviews with philosophers talking about Aristotle's virtue ethics. All three interviews come from the "Philosophy Bites" podcast.

• Aristotle's ethics
  
  
• Aristotle on happiness
  
  
• Virtues
  

And here's a great overview on the current science of self-improvement: when trying to change something about yourself, which techniques work and which don't?