An introduction to the Doctrine of Double Effect, which claims that it is permissible to harm someone if it will also result in good consequences that outweigh the harm and the harm is just a “side-effect” of your action, rather than something you intend to make happen.
Category: Ethics
The Meaning of Life: What’s the Point?
Does life’s having meaning depend on a supernatural reality? Is death a threat to life’s meaning? Is life the sort of thing that can have a “meaning”? In what sense? Here we will consider some approaches to questions about the meaning of life.
Philosophy of Humor: What Makes Something Funny?
What makes something funny? This essay reviews some theories of what it is for something to be funny.
Meaning in Life: What Makes Our Lives Meaningful?
What is a meaningful life? This essay reviews some influential answers to this question.
Saving the Many or the Few: The Moral Relevance of Numbers
Many claim that, when those you can help are innocent strangers with similar interests at stake, you’re required to save the greater number. Is this claim justified? This essay reviews some doubts.
The Ethics of Mozi: Social Organization and Impartial Care
An introduction to the ethics of Mo Di, or Mozi, (墨子, c. 470 – c. 391 BCE), the founding figure of Mohism, a philosophical, social, and self-defense movement during the Warring States era (479–221 BCE) in China.
What Is Misogyny?
"Misogyny" refers to systems that uphold gender-based oppression against women and girls. What those systems are, and how they operate, is a subject of philosophical debate. Here we explain two prominent accounts of these systems and discuss whether misogyny can be understood independently of broader systems of oppression.
Philosophy and Race: An Introduction to Philosophy of Race
An introduction to philosophy and race.
Praise and Blame
We praise people for morally good things: giving to charity, being generous, having compassion for the needy. We blame for morally bad things: cheating on one’s spouse, being selfish, harboring ill will towards others. What are praise and blame, though? When are they appropriate? This essay reviews influential answers to these questions.
G. E. M. Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy”
An introduction to Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe's famous 1958 article "Modern Moral Philosophy."