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Thought Probes
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Moral Children: Does the fact that young children agree on their moral assessment of various situations lend credibility to the claim that there are universal moral standards?

Vision and Virtue
(http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0082.html)
Article by William Kirkpatrick from the Catholic Education Resource Center

Relativism
(http://www.friesian.com/relative.htm)
Detailed discussion by Kelley Ross (Friesian School Proceedings)

Ethical Relativism
(http://www.scu.edu/SCU/Centers/Ethics/publications/iie/v5n2/relativism.html)
Article by Claire Andre and Manuel Velasquez from Issues in Ethics, 1992; summarizes and criticizes ethical relativism

When in Rome: Can a person raised in another culture be faulted for not following the rules of the culture she now finds herself in?

Female Genital Mutilation: An Issue of Cultural Relativism or Human Rights?
(http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/jc.htm)
Article by Jacqueline Castledine (Mount Holyoke College)

Hands Off Clitoridectomy
(http://www.bostonreview.net/BR21.3/Tamir.html)
Article by Yael Tamir from the Boston Review

Moral Relativity is a Hot Topic? True. Absolutely.
(http://pascal.iseg.utl.pt/~ncrato/Recortes/EdRothstein_NYT_20020613.htm)
Article by Edward Rothstein for the New York Times

Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?
(http://bostonreview.net/BR22.5/okin.html)
Article by Susan Moller Okin for the Boston Review arguing that cultural relativism is inconsistent with feminism

Whose Culture?
(http://bostonreview.net/BR22.5/pollitt.html)
Article by Katha Pollitt for the Boston Review responding to Okin's article and addressing the issue of feminism and mutliculturalism

Commanded to Kill: Would you follow a command from God to perform an immoral act?

Moral Knowledge: Does the fact that we all agree that it would be wrong not to give a child an anesthetic before a painful operation show that we have moral knowledge? Why or why not?

Moral Epistemology
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-epistemology/)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article

Moral Skepticism
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-moral/)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article

Moral Skepticism
(http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9973.2005.00375.x?cookieSet=1)
Summary of different views of moral skepticism by Patrick Loobuyck (Flanders Funk for Scientific Research)

Animal Rights: Should animal suffering be taken into account when performing utilitarian calculations? If so, how much weight should animal suffering be given?

Jeremy Bentham on the suffering of non-human animals
(http://www.utilitarianism.com/jeremybentham.html)
Selection from Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.

The Moral Status of Animals
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on the moral status of animals

Singer's “Preference Utilitarianism”: Is Singer's “preference utilitarianism” more plausible than conventional act- or rule-utilitarianism? Do you agree with Singer's position on the permissibility of killing disabled infants?

Decisions about Death
(http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/200508--.htm)
Article by Peter Singer

Peter Singer
(http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/)
Regularly updated links to a plethora of Singer's articles and interviews

The Utility Machine: Is increasing utility by 1000% worth the price of 50,000 lives?

Pinto Madness
(http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/SO77/dowie.html)
Article by Mark Dowie of Mother Jones exposing Ford Motor Company's decision to pay death benefits rather than reposition the gas tank in the Ford Pinto

Utilitarianism
(http://anton_eclipse.tripod.com/utilitarianism.htm)
Article by Anthony Griffin discussing utilitarianism as it applies to the Ford Pinto case

Organ Transplants: Is it morally permissible to kill a comatose terminal patient to harvest her organs in order to save the lives of others?

What Drives Moral Decision Making?
(http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/01/1022/)
Article by Steven Schultz discussing the Princeton brain research into the nature of moral decision making

Medical Treatment: Do we have a moral obligation to pay the medical expenses of those who cannot afford to pay them?

Rights
(http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/rights.html)
Explication of the concept of rights by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics (Santa Clara University)

Wrong Rights
(http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0202c.asp)
Article by Sheldon Richman from the Future of Freedom Foundation on negative and positive rights

War: Which rationale for the Iraq War, Kantian or utilitarian, seems more plausible to you? Does any rationale seem plausible?

Desert Island Bequest: Are we morally obligated to honor a promise to a dying man if we can do more good by not honoring it?

Two Objections to Utilitarianism
(http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/cduncan/f01-101/utility2.doc)
Notes by Craig Duncan (Ithaca College) on the utilitarianism and promise making

Against Utilitarianism; or, Why Not Violate Rights If It'd Do Good?
(http://www.mises.org/asc/2002/ASC8-Machan.pdf)
Article by Tibor Machan offering various objections to utilitarianism (Adobe File)

Just Policies: According to Rawls, would the following policies be just: entitlement programs such as welfare, medicare, and Medicaid; an inheritance tax of over 75% the right to an easy rescue; homosexual marriage; legalized euthanasia?

John Rawls Resource Page
(http://www.policylibrary.com/rawls/index.htm)
Set of links maintained by the Policy Library

Original Position
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article

Distributive Justice
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-distributive/)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article

Rawls and Machievelli: The Dream Team?
(http://www.etes.ucl.ac.be/DOCH/DOCH%2042%20(VanParijs).pdf)
Article by Philip Van Parijs advocating the use of Rawls's principles in framing public policy (Adobe File)

Assisted Suicide: The Philosophers' Brief
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1237)
Brief submitted by leading philosophers to the Supreme Court in favor of physician assisted suicide

Legalizing No-Victim Crimes: Should no-victim crimes be legalized?

Property Rights: Do we have a right to do anything we want with our property?

Property Rights Research
(http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org/)
Collection of articles relating to government laws regarding property rights

Property Rights, Regulatory Takings, and Environmental Protection
(http://www.cei.org/gencon/025,01452.cfm)
Article by Richard H. Adler summarizing the arguments for and against government seizure of private property

American Land Rights Organization
(http://www.landrights.org/)
Home page of a grass roots organization dedicated to preserving land rights

Libertarian Government: Would America be a better place if it were ruled by libertarians?

Libertarian Party
(http://www.lp.org/)
Home page of the libertarian party.

Critiques of Libertarianism
(http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html)
Bibliography of critiques of libertarianism compiled by Mike Huben.

Libertarianism
(http://www.libertarianism.com/)
A short introduction to libertarianism.

Preemptive Incarceration: If we knew that someone had a high likelihood of committing a violent crime, would we be justified in preemptively locking them up? If we're not justified in doing that, are we justified in preemptively going to war?

"Preemptive" war, "preemptive" incarceration
(http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2006/03/preemptive_war_.html)
Blog entry about prisoners at Guantanamo Bay

Lying with Care: Do we have a duty to lie to protect those who have cared for us?

Lying
(http://www.scu.edu/Ethics/publications/iie/v6n1/lying.html)
Article by Tim C. Mazur for the Markkula Center for Aplied Ethics identifying different ethical perspectives on lyng

Feminist Ethics
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-ethics/)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article

Feminist Approaches to Bioethics
(http://www.lahey.org/PDF/Ethics/Winter_1999.pdf)
Article by Rosemarie Tong (University of North Carolina at Charlotte – Adobe File)

Jillian's Choice: According to utilitarianism, did Jillian do the right thing? According to Kantianism, did she do the right thing?

Jillian Searle
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Jillian%20Searle
Description and evaluation of the choice made by Jillian Searle.

Tsunami Mother's Terrible Choice
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4137053.stm
Report of the situation faced by Jillian Searle.

Utilitarianism
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism)
Wikipedia entry on Utilitarianism

The Zygmanic Brothers: Did Lester Zygmanic do the right thing in killing his brother George?

International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
(http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/)
FAQs, information about advanced directives, the situation in the Netherlands, etc. from a perspective that opposes legalization

Assisted Suicide: The Philosophers' Brief
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1237)
Brief submitted by leading philosophers to the Supreme Court in favor of physician assisted suicide

Empathy and Agency: Can someone without a conscience--without the ability to empathize with others--act morally?

The Biology and Psychology of Moral Agency
(http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/agency.html)
Review by Neil Levy (University of Melbourne)

On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion
(http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/warren_article.html)
Article by Mary Anne Warren (San Francisco State University)

The Ring of Gyges: Would the behavior of a virtuous person with the power of invisibility be no different from that of an outlaw?

The Ring of Gyges
(http://webs.wofford.edu/kaycd/ethics/gyges.htm)
Excerpt from Plato's Republic

Justice as a Virtue
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-virtue/)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article

The Ring of Gyges
(http://www.plato-dialogues.org/tetra_4/republic/gyges.htm)
Discussion of the relation of this story to Plato's Allegory of the Cave by Bernard Suzanne (Plato and his Dialogues)

The Ring of Gyges
(http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ap85/051/lec3.html)
Lecture notes by Alexander R. Pruss (Georgetown University)








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