Arguments against Performance-Enhancing Technologies

On my blog, I've posted a work in progress for a sports ethics presentation I am working on. The post is an analysis of the arguments against performance enhancing technologies/drugs. I'd be interested in getting some feedback, either here or on my blog.

www.philosophyblog.com/2008/06/arguments-against-performance-enhancing.html

(Usual caveats: this is more of a rough outline rather than coherently written article)

What Is It Like to Be a Bird?

Birds "see" the magnetic field. How? I like Professor Hore's theory, but just because his name is cooler.

Philosophy majors increasing

This is a repost of a post from my blog. Has ASU seen an increase in majors/minors?

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This New York Times article is making the rounds among those in the philosophy profession. Nationally, enrollments in philosophy are increasing. This is good news for the profession. I hope it translates into increased enrollments at Rockford College as well.

The article speculates that the increase is in large part due to students' increasing awareness and curiosity with the ethics involved in things like the Iraq war, political scandals, technological advances, and the environment. No doubt that's a factor, but I am skeptical if this is what it is really about. Maybe these things get the students initial attention, but I think there are other important factors. Of course this is purely anecdotal and speculation.

Some of this might just be a pendulum swing from more trendy and career-focused majors to the broader, more traditional majors in humanities. Students wanted very specific majors that tied directly to a job/career upon graduating. Possibly, now they are looking for majors that teach broad-based, more universal intellectual skills: critical thinking and writing, effective communication, and the ability to understand and deal with ideas in general. These skills give one wider opportunities in the future; as opposed to the training in a specific skill that may become obsolete or outsourced.

One factor in this might be the realization that what is needed in the student's search for a career is adaptability and flexibility. This requires a more broad-based ability to think and reason; not just some particular job skills. Philosophy teaches one how to critically and analytically read a text; how to pick out the important ideas; how to understand the ways these ideas connect; and how to communicate this. These skills are effective if you are reading Aristotle or the CEO's annual corporate plan.

Philosophy, of course, is not the only major to teach these skills. Ideally, all BA majors do this, but specifically humanities majors are good at this. I think philosophy does this the best because it is often primarily focused on doing just this. You don't read Descartes to find out about how the mind actually works. You read it to understand what Descartes is doing; how does he get from point A and to point B. As such, philosophy is focused on the process; not so much the results. (This is not to say the results aren't important: they are the goal, the point of all the work, but philosophy as a discipline is focused on the question and the how of answering it. The answer is left for the philosopher himself to figure out.)

In my experience, the students who become philosophy majors fall into three groups (these are not mutually exclusive nor jointly exhaustive). The first group are the geeks--like myself--who just love to discuss ideas no matter the context. They will gravitate to a philosophy major because in philosophy there are really no restrictions about what can be talked about. (The restrictions are in the manner--reason and logic, not in the content.).

The second group are those that see philosophy as great training for law school. Philosophy majors, as a group, are almost always near the top of the listing of majors that do the best on the LSAT (and other standardized tests).

The third group are late-comers to philosophy. They've tried other majors--this might even be there second BA--and are dissatisfied. The other majors were filled with classes that involved just memorization or the uncritical employment of formulas. These courses usually just required them to return back to the professor what was said in class or the text. Now this might have been just bad teaching and not the disciplines themselves, but for these students, philosophy was like a breathe of fresh air. It challenged them, for the first time, to think about the world, about themselves, and about their ideas. It is as if they have been using a computer for years just as a word processor, but suddenly discover that it can connect to the internet.

I think it is the latter group that might be a large factor in the swelling of philosophy enrollments. Most students come out of 12 years of school that is more and more just about standardized exams. There are force-fed all kinds of content, with little in the way of integration or explanation of the importance of the content. They are largely not taught to think as such, just to absorb the content and then provide that content on the exams. This in reinforced by a wide-spread cultural relativism that views anything other than brute facts as one's opinion and not subject to evaluation or criticism.

Then they take a philosophy course. The teacher, annoyingly I'm sure, keeps asking them "Why do you believe that?" or "Why do you think that is the case?" Their usual responses of "That's just my opinion" or "That's the way I was brought up to believe" are no longer enough. Many don't care. Others suddenly start to wonder, why do I believe that? And a philosopher is born.

Intuition and Psychology

Here is an interesting article that just came out in the British Journal of Psychology. It's about various psychologists' conceptions of intuition and how research about intuition might be fruitful. The article also has an extensive bibliography. It's a good starting point for further studies into the psychology of intuition. (Note: You will need your asurite to access the article. If you don't have one, the article is the first in the Feb. 2008 issue of BJPsych.)

-Steve

Ten Dimensions of Fun

Here is a nifty video that helps explain the idea of ten dimensions.

New twist on the old trolley

Cow and Boy offer a new twist on the standard trolley thought experiment in moral philosophy.

My New Canadian Hero

I don't often cross post between SUPHI and my blog, but this seemed important enough to post here as well. It might spark some discussion as well.

Courage. Integrity. Principled. Passioned defense of freedom.

This video is the opening statement of Ezra Levant's defense of free speech before the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission. It's a remarkable and inspiring demonstration. There are other clips of the hearing--all of which have Levant never wavering from his courageous stand against government censorship and violations of liberty.





(Hat tips to: Megan McArdle and Timothy Sandefur)

Getting going again

Happy New Year everyone!

Let's get the blog going again in the new year. What have people been working on? Comments on the fall seminars? Hopes for spring seminars? Conferences attended? Job market updates? Seminar papers you want to submit but want some feedback first?

Over the winter break, I am working on dissertation material. Mainly trying to get back into the flow of dissertating, but also trying to get up to speed on various viewpoints in practical reason--to better differentiate my project. To that end, I've been reading Millgram's Varieties of Practical Reason and his collection of essays Ethics Done Right. Also, I'm reading relevant parts of Nozick's Nature of Rationality, Searle's Rationality in Action, and Schmidtz Rational Choice and Moral Agency.

Other than that, I am prepping my spring courses. Rockford starts up again on the 14th, so I don't have much time.