A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Misadventures

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MIT Press, 10. nóv. 2020 - 384 síður
A collection of quirky, entertaining, and reader-friendly short pieces on philosophical topics that range from a theory of jerks to the ethics of ethicists.

Have you ever wondered about why some people are jerks? Asked whether your driverless car should kill you so that others may live? Found a robot adorable? Considered the ethics of professional ethicists? Reflected on the philosophy of hair? In this engaging, entertaining, and enlightening book, Eric Schwitzgebel turns a philosopher's eye on these and other burning questions. In a series of quirky and accessible short pieces that cover a mind-boggling variety of philosophical topics, Schwitzgebel offers incisive takes on matters both small (the consciousness of garden snails) and large (time, space, and causation).

A common theme might be the ragged edge of the human intellect, where moral or philosophical reflection begins to turn against itself, lost among doubts and improbable conclusions. The history of philosophy is humbling when we see how badly wrong previous thinkers have been, despite their intellectual skills and confidence. (See, for example, “Kant on Killing Bastards, Masturbation, Organ Donation, Homosexuality, Tyrants, Wives, and Servants.”) Some of the texts resist thematic categorization—thoughts on the philosophical implications of dreidels, the diminishing offensiveness of the most profane profanity, and fatherly optimism—but are no less interesting.

Schwitzgebel has selected these pieces from the more than one thousand that have appeared since 2006 in various publications and on his popular blog, The Splintered Mind, revising and updating them for this book. Philosophy has never been this much fun.

 

Efni

Forgetting as an Unwitting Confession
15
Cheeseburger Ethics or How Often Do Ethicists
21
On Not Seeking Pleasure Much
33
Imagining Yourself in Anothers Shoes versus
39
A Theory of Hypocrisy
49
The Moral Compass and the Liberal Ideal in Moral Education
69
Cute Al and Zombie Robots
73
Should Your Driverless Car Kill You So Others May Live?
75
What Happens to Democracy When the Experts
167
Birthday Cake and a Chapel
175
Possible Psychology of a Matrioshka Brain
181
A TwoSeater Homunculus
189
Is the United States Literally Conscious?
195
Might You Be a Cosmic Freak?
201
Voluntarism
207
How Everything You Do Might Have Huge Cosmic
213

Cute Al and the ASIMO Problem
79
My Daughters Rented Eyes
85
Someday Your Employer Will Technologically Control Your Moods
89
Cheerfully Suicidal Al Slaves
93
We Would Have Greater Moral Obligations to Conscious Robots than to Otherwise Similar Humans
97
How Robots and Monsters Might Destroy Human Moral Systems
101
Our Possible Imminent Divinity
107
Skepticism Godzilla and the Artificial Computerized ManyBranching You
111
How to Accidentally Become a Zombie Robot
117
Regrets and Birthday Cake
127
A Seemingly Foolish Game That Contains the Moral World in Miniature
129
Does It Matter If the Passover Story Is Literally True?
133
Memories of My Father
137
Flying Free of the Deathbed with Technological Help
141
Thoughts on Conjugal Love
145
Knowing What You Love
149
Profanity Inflation Profanity Migration and
161
GoldfishPool Immortality
223
Are Garden Snails Conscious? Yes
229
Truth Dare and Wonder
239
Whats in Peoples Stream of Experience during
247
Why Metaphysics Is Always Bizarre
253
The Philosopher of Hair
259
Kant on Killing Bastards Masturbation
267
Nazi Philosophers World War I and the Grand
273
Against Charity in the History of Philosophy
283
Invisible Revisions
289
Blogging and Philosophical Cognition
295
Will Future Generations Find
305
Acknowledgments
311
References
335
Index
363
Höfundarréttur

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Um höfundinn (2020)

Eric Schwitzgebel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of Perplexities of Consciousness (MIT Press). His short, accessible essays on philosophical topics have appeared in a range of publications and on his popular blog, The Splintered Mind.

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