ethics & morality
the runaway trolley
five lives, one lever, and the small print of what you owe a stranger.
today’s leading problem
whose body is it anyway?
you wake in a hospital bed, plugged into a stranger who will die if you unplug. judith jarvis thomson’s thought experiment asks how far a right to life can reach into someone else’s body.
more from the paper
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.
ethics & morality · new
the repugnant conclusion
four small steps that each seem fine, and a destination almost nobody wants.
ethics & morality · new
the luck of the road
two people do exactly the same thing. one of them gets unlucky. do they deserve different blame?
ethics & morality · new
the ring of gyges
if no one could ever find out, would you still be just? and if you would, why?
ethics & morality · new
the murderer at the door
a killer asks where your friend is hiding. kant said you may not lie to him. find out which rule you are really following when you do.
ethics & morality · new
the utility monster
one being gets more out of everything than the rest of us combined. nozick thought that should embarrass the utilitarian. find out whether it should embarrass you.
ethics & morality · new
the ticking time bomb
a bomb is hidden somewhere in the city and the man who hid it is in your custody. find out what your answer depends on, and whether it survives the real world.
ethics & morality · new
the lifeboat
fifty people in a boat built for sixty, and a hundred in the water. decide who comes aboard, then find out what the boat was meant to stand for.
ethics & morality · new
the self-driving car
write the rule every car must follow when a crash cannot be avoided, then go and buy one for your family.
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.
mind & identity · new
mary’s room
a woman who knows every physical fact about colour, and has never seen any.
mind & identity · new
is anyone home?
a perfect physical copy of you, behaving identically, with nothing it is like to be it.
mind & identity · new
swampman
a bolt of lightning, a dead tree, and a perfect copy of a philosopher who may never have had a thought.
mind & identity · new
the divided brain
surgeons cut the bridge between the two halves of a brain. one mouth says one thing, one hand writes another. how many people are in the room?
mind & identity · new
the brain in a vat
a brain kept alive in a tank, fed a perfect imitation of the world. hilary putnam argued that you can know you are not one. the argument works best against the version you should fear least.
mind & identity · new
what is it like to be a bat?
a bat finds a moth in the dark by listening to its own echoes. thomas nagel argued that you will never know what that is like, and that no science yet conceived could tell you.
mind & identity · new
twin earth
a planet exactly like ours, except that the stuff in its rivers is not water. hilary putnam used it to argue that what you mean is not settled by anything inside your head. the bill for that conclusion arrives later.
mind & identity · new
the device that never fired
a man tells a lie he could not have avoided telling. he would have told it anyway. harry frankfurt asked whether that gets him off the hook.
mind & identity · new
half a second early
you decide to move your wrist. an electrode on your scalp saw it coming before you did. benjamin libet asked who made the decision.
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.
logic & reasoning · new
the surprise exam
a teacher promises an exam you will not see coming, and a student proves it cannot happen.
logic & reasoning · new
the heap
remove one grain at a time from a heap of sand. when does it stop being a heap?
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.
belief & religion · new
pascal’s wager
a bet on God that costs almost nothing to win and everything to lose.
psychology & decision · new
the prisoner’s dilemma
ten rounds against a stranger who may be generous, vengeful, or just flipping a coin.
psychology & decision · new
the ultimatum game
someone offers you a share of ten pounds. you can take it, or burn the lot.
psychology & decision · new
how sure are you?
ten facts, and a range for each that you are 90 percent sure contains the truth.