ethics & morality
the runaway trolley
five lives, one lever, and the small print of what you owe a stranger.
today’s leading problem
the drowning child
almost everyone would wreck an expensive pair of shoes to pull a drowning child from a pond. peter singer asks why the children you could save for the same money, further away, are any different.
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ethics & morality
the drowning child
a shallow pond, a ruined pair of shoes, and a line of reasoning that may follow you home.
ethics & morality
morality play
how few principles can your moral judgements be squeezed into?
ethics & morality
whose body is it anyway?
a famous violinist, your two kidneys, and the limits of what one body owes another.
ethics & morality · new
the veil of ignorance
design a society without knowing who in it you will turn out to be.
ethics & morality · new
would you eat your cat?
on the acts that feel wrong while harming no one, and the reasons we invent afterwards.
mind & identity
staying alive
a teleporter, a malfunction, and the question of what it would take for you to survive.
mind & identity
tortured in the morning
the same swap of mind and body, told two ways, and your fear changes sides.
mind & identity · new
the experience machine
a lifetime of any pleasure you choose, indistinguishable from the real thing. would you plug in?
mind & identity · new
the ship of theseus
replace every plank, one by one. is it the same ship? now rebuild it from the old planks.
mind & identity · new
the chinese room
a room that speaks fluent chinese, and a man inside it who understands not a word.
mind & identity · new
do you really know?
three pages of philosophy that demolished a definition twenty-three centuries old.
logic & reasoning
the wason selection task
four cards, one rule, and the test that nine in ten educated adults fail.
logic & reasoning
the monty hall problem
three doors, one car, and the most counter-intuitive switch in probability.
logic & reasoning
a million-dollar puzzle
an almost-infallible predictor, two boxes, and a clean split down the middle of rationality.
logic & reasoning
a red ball, an unknown urn
two pairs of bets that feel obvious, and cannot both be obeyed by any coherent belief.
logic & reasoning
framing the epidemic
the same numbers, the same lives, described two ways, and your preference flips.
belief & religion
battleground god
can your beliefs about god survive a walk across logical terrain?
belief & religion
talking with god
a single question plato asked in 399 bc that has unsettled divine morality ever since.
belief & religion
a philosophical health check
a quick examination for tensions in the body of your beliefs.