Philosopher David Enoch takes our ordinary ways of thinking about morality as providing significant support for the moral realist position. In his essay “Why I am an Objectivist About Ethics (and Why You Are Too)”, Enoch provides several relate

The Womb Transfer Procedure Case

Jun 4th, 2020 16m 10s

Philosopher Laurence Thomas developed a memorable thought experiment in his "Abortion and Moral Repugnance." It involves, as the title of this episode suggests, the possibility of womb transfer procedures (WTPs). Superficially, it might be thou

Death is Bad for Cows

May 28th, 2020 19m 37s

Ben Bradley's "Is Death Bad for a Cow" persuasively argues that death is bad for cows. Bradley uses a general and intuitive deprivation theory of the badness of death to establish that death is bad for cows. The basic idea is that death is bad

Weakening to Strengthen: Norcross' Puppy Argument

May 25th, 2020 27m 54s

Alistair Norcross' famous Puppy Argument from his 2004 paper "Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases" establishes that consuming factory-farmed food is immoral. His argumentative strategy is clear: establish that there is no

Moore's Open Question Argument

May 24th, 2020 13m 7s

Moore argued that any attempt to define the term 'good' (or the concept GOOD) in non-trivial terms fails. From the conclusion of this argument, famously known as the Open Question Argument (OQA), Moore went on to run an argument for the claim t

Building up to the Open Question Argument

May 21st, 2020 15m 30s

Early 20th century philosopher G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica laid an important foundation for ethics for the remainder of the century and beyond. Moore worked out a metaethical theory and then followed it with his preferred first-order conseque

*That* is an Admirable Person

May 14th, 2020 20m 3s

Linda Zagzebski 2017 Exemplarist Moral Theory works out a novel version of virtue ethics. She uses the concept of the exemplary--or admirable--person as the fundamental concept to define all other major ethical concepts, i.e., concepts of virtu

Licensing Parents Violates Rights

May 13th, 2020 15m 51s

Matthew Liao (The Right to be Loved, 2015) challenges Hugh Lafollette on licensing parents. In his 2010 "Licensing Parents Revisited" Lafollette developed a voluntary, tax-incentivized licensing program. In doing so, he backed off his classic 1

Child Abuse Must Stop

May 10th, 2020 18m 44s

Child abuse is a serious problem in our world. What should be done about it? How about something as serious a parenting license program--a state mandated one? Hugh Lafollette took this possibility very seriously in his classic 1980 "Licensing P

What Would Socrates Do?

May 8th, 2020 19m 25s

Virtue ethics has a venerable tradition. The philosophical giants Plato and Aristotle were both virtue ethicists, so it must have something going for it, right? (Don't accuse me of arguing by authority!) What, though, makes an ethical theory a

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