Pigs with human kidneys? Brain-powered computer chips? Science is creating new kinds of living things – and our moral understanding needs to catch up fast.
Humility doesn’t get the fanfare of virtues like courage, compassion or generosity. But without humility, those other virtues won’t get much traction in the quest to live a good life.
The science of human consciousness offers new ways of gauging machine minds – and suggests there’s no obvious reason computers can’t develop awareness.
Simone Weil is one of the 20th century’s most remarkable, paradoxical figures. The Need for Roots, published in the year she died at just 34, is a tour de force of ethics and political philosophy.
Aristotle believed that the biggest and most widespread source of political tension is the struggle between the haves and the have-nots. More than 2,000 years later, he’s got a point.
Being minimally Buddhist requires a practitioner to abstain from destroying any breathing beings. So how is it ok for some Buddhists to eat meat? Two philosophers explain.
First published in 1975, Animal Liberation opened our eyes to the exploitation of animals. At a time of ‘ag-gag’ laws and ‘skyscraper’ farms, a new edition assesses the state of animal rights today.
Ryan Leack, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Ancient Greek philosophers despised the Sophists’ rhetoric because it searched for relative truth, not absolutes. But learning how to do that thoughtfully can help constructive debates.