In online multiplayer games, players sometimes engage in “griefing”—deliberately harassing others without advancing any in-game objective. This paper argues that such virtual malice is morally wrong. Through philosophical analysis and empirical research, I argue that griefing causes real psychological distress for players, bridging the gap between virtual actions and real-world harm. A well-known World of Warcraft case—the “Serenity Now” funeral raid—illustrates the practice of griefing and its emotional impact on a gaming community. Applying multiple ethical frameworks (utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, and social contract theory) confirms that griefing is ethically indefensible under each. This convergence underscores that even in games, deliberately harming others for its own sake violates basic moral standards.
In 2020 Guy McPherson published an academic satire, Academic Pursuits, that was strikingly similar to Richard Russo’s acclaimed 1997 novel Straight Man. It is widely believed by philosophers who study comedy that when two humorous works closely resemble each other there is prima facie reason to believe that the producer of the later work has done something wrong. But while this general view of the wrong of apparently derivative humour is widespread no argument has yet been offered for it. This paper will rectify this omission. After developing a novel account of why plagiarism is wrongful that explains the distinctive wrong of the plagiarism of humorous works it will draw on this account to explain why the production and publication of both derivative and apparently derivative works of humor is wrong.
This article is a critique of the method of mental experimentation as it is employed within possible world metaphysics. Modal metaphysics is thoroughly used as a framework for the interpretation, the defense, and the justification of thought experiments. It is not only employed by the defenders of the method of mental experimentation, but also by those who oppose it. I argue instead for a pragmatic and common-sense approach on assessing real-world plausibility. By adopting plausibility assessment, outlandish thought experiments lose their credibility; what is gained is a robust defense against thought experiment counterexamples. These counterexamples, designed to discredit rival theories, draw inferences from biasedly constructed possible worlds, easily manipulated to favor the experimenter, and thus, they represent instances of confirmation bias. When thought experiment counterexamples present scenarios that pose challenges to a specific theory, it is pertinent to assess whether such scenarios hold any plausible likelihood of materializing. I posit that highly implausible counterexamples can be promptly dismissed due to their exceedingly low chances of manifesting in the real world. Hence, I maintain that assessing real-world plausibility offers a significantly superior approach for the analysis of thought experiments compared to possible world metaphysics. Within this context, I provide a critical evaluation of several cases of thought experiments primarily drawn from ethics.
The Stoics viewed animals as remarkable creations of God and, in particular, believed they should be treated as sensible and rational beings. Although Stoics philosophy emphasizes justice for all rational entities, it offers no explicit defense of justice for animals. While acknowledging animal intelligence, the Stoics nevertheless deny them any rights. This principle is clearly expressed by the later Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry in his treatise On Abstaining from Animal Flesh. Aristotle, in his early works, similarly rejects the idea of animal rights, arguing that animals are incapable of rational comprehension. This paper explores the notion that animal rights need not depend on human perception, empathy, or relational concern, but may instead be grounded in the concept of natural rights. It critically examines the extent to which animal rights may be defended from the perspectives of ancient Greek thinkers and modern philosophers—such as Singer, Regan, Nussbaum, and Rowlands—based on the quasi-rights of animals, even when arguments rest on empathy and recognition of their biological and psychological characteristics.
While there are numerous house renovation shows on several television networks, the practice of “house flipping” in real life is not glamorous. At times, remodeling specialists engage in unethical business practices to cut corners to make a quick buck, prompting legal action and reform efforts. Although these issues are of concern, other worries are lurking behind the scenes, encompassing a wide range of topics. Some problems can affect a neighborhood’s aesthetics, history, and culture. More serious matters like lead paint, asbestos, and radon can gravely impact human health. Some cities and states have proactive safety measures, but they are often ignored or overlooked. This article examines these notions, gesturing towards mitigatory avenues for relief to prevent additional harm in some instances and preserving neighborhood values in others.
In this paper, we argue that an MMA competition is a discretionary zone. Two premises support the argument. First, different rules regarding MMA competition are rights-respecting. Second, if different rules regarding MMA competition are rights-respecting, then an MMA competition is a discretionary zone. We then considered the following objections: some MMA competition rules infringe rights, some non-consequentialist wrong-makers are not right-based, and sometimes consequences trump rights. The objections fail. We then applied our theory to the issue of whether MMA competitions should exclude transgender women. We find the people who own such competitions have moral discretion regarding whether to exclude them.
Stoicism offers an account of virtue ethics that grants individual’s agency over their dispositions and their actions. This makes virtue independent of other factors which distinguishes the Stoics from Aristotle, who is the most commonly referenced source for virtue ethicists. This paper accordingly uses Cicero to articulate a Stoic version of virtue ethics within the business context. The paper argues that the Stoic account, by acknowledging individual agency, offers a more actionable and instructive form of virtue ethics. To develop the Stoic account of virtue ethics the paper examines the Stoic’s use of reason, intentions, indifferents, and sociability. Throughout the paper comparisons are made to Aristotle to demonstrate areas of overlap and divergence. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research as well as the limitations within this paper’s examination of Stoic virtue ethics.
The evolutionary perspective on happiness can be an effective way to convey the message that psychotropic drugs cannot enhance happiness in the long term. The reward system of the brain evolved to promote adaptive behavior through positive feelings such as eating healthy food, socializing with friends, etc. It also generates negative feelings like fear, agony, detachment, etc., in appropriate situations to deter harmful and risky behavior. Sometimes people consciously attempt to manipulate their feelings through chemical substances, but the feedback loops of the reward system do not allow for any net increase in positive feelings; rather, drugs disrupt the adaptive role of the reward system. Cultural memes and capitalist forces also spread misinformation that can distort an individual’s concept of emotions, leading them to experiment with drugs. We show how Logic-Based Therapy, an approach to philosophical counseling, can be applied to help clients overcome misconceptions by embracing the evolutionary perspective.
Western Philosophy has mostly focused its interest in a detailed analysis of the spoken word, relegating to a lesser importance the receptive disposition and listening in dialogue. Some philosophy schools and authors, as well as the eastern wisdom traditions, understand that listening is an inner state indispensable for true dialogue to happen as a genuine encounter between people. The quality and depth that we reach in a philosophical dialogue will be conditioned by how and from what inner disposition we listen to each other. Education in silence has been considered from the ancient times, as a philosophical practice relevant for listening growth, and an essential learning prior to speech.
The debate in psychotherapy over the primacy of reason versus emotion has led to a climate of controversy based largely on equivocation and oversimplification of the different senses of reason and emotion. This paper analyzes the treatment of reason and emotion in Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), a prominent modality of philosophical counseling and psychotherapy that maintains that people make themselves depressed, anxious, guilty, angry, etc. when they logically deduce self-defeating conclusions from irrational premises. According to LBT, such practical reasoning and the emotions we experience, when we engage in it, are not causally related; nor are they distinct processes. Instead, the practical reasoning is one aspect, among others, of the same psychophysical process we call an emotion. More specifically, drawing out the implications of LBT’s theory, this paper argues that practical reasoning, in the form of an embodied practical syllogism chain, constitutes the logico-linguistic aspect of a cognitive emotion, whereas a sequence of associated images and interoceptive feelings constitutes a phenomenological aspect of the emotion. Further, there are also ontologically co-equal neurological processes and behavioral dispositions that are aspects of the same psychophysical process. Hence, the approach presented here unifies reasoning, feelings, images, brain processes, and behavioral dispositions under one multi-aspect process of emotion. This multimodal emotion theory has important implications for the practice of psychotherapy among cognitive, humanistic, and behavioral therapists, and psychiatrists. Each utilizes a respectable epistemic access window from which to view cognitive emotions. However, a broader understanding of the multimodal aspects of these emotions eliminates tunnel vision and opens more options for treatment of clients who have emotional problems. Further, a reductive materialist analysis loses its persuasiveness, wherein the primacy of medical interventions to treat brain dysfunctions (e.g., use of psychoactive drugs) is claimed. This is because the latter medical treatments are perceived as one among several treatments for addressing ontologically co-equal aspects of cognitive-emotive health.
This article addresses the suggestion that people who inquire into Conspiracy Theories are doing something morally repugnant. Namely, they are supporting right-wing racism and/or anti-Semitism, wittingly or not. This view has been articulated most extensively by the philosopher Quassim Cassam, who describes Conspiracy Theories as having several features that render them unlikely to be true. Rather than being genuine attempts to tell the truth, Cassam argues, the fundamental function of Conspiracy Theories is to advance an ideological or political agenda. Cassam stresses the association of Conspiracy Theories with right-wing, racist and anti-Semitic agendas. He proposes responding to Conspiracy Theories by exposing their “real function” and thereby embarrassing potential supporters, causing them to refrain from “flirting with” such theories. I maintain that his proposal is ill-advised, as his argument is tenuous, at best, at every step. And, further, his proposal encourages a prima facie inappropriate way of treating people, and it would likely backfire.
Three of Patricia Williams’s essays in The Rooster’s Egg are examined for their relevance to contemporary issues, and for the style in which they are written. It is concluded that Williams does an admirable job, despite writing in a vein that might be thought to be somewhat less than jurisprudential.
Keith Dromm has argued that the makers of historical films have a moral duty to be accurate in their depictions of the past due to the principle that it is wrong to lie. In this essay, I contend that contractarianism provides a more comprehensive basis upon which to ground such an obligation. While Dromm’s treatment takes into consideration key historical facts, such as names and dates, it fails to properly account for the role played by causal interpretation in historical understanding. I argue that his recommended guidelines for filmmakers should be supplemented by an additional one that urges them to respect the conventional scholarly explanation of the circumstances which led to the events that they have chosen to depict.
This work attempts to deconstruct Jair Bolsonaro’s hostile policy vis-à-vis the Brazilian media during his presidency by applying Zygmunt Bauman’s description of “liquid modernity” and its aversion to “strangeness” as the sociological-philosophical apparatus combined with the presidential-press relationship and the enemy construction dynamics of the communication research. The explorative qualitative empirical analysis of three-dimensional anti-media categories traditionally associated with right-wing populists—the discrediting and blaming of the press and detaching it from the people—throughout the “honeymoon” period of Bolsonaro’s presidency confirmed the decoupling of the traditional presidential-press and media-public relationships. Besides validating the primacy of the logic of consumption over morality, it further corroborated the fiercely adversarial populist policy designed for strangeness rhetoric construction of the media as distrusted “outsider” and “enemy.”
The Aristotelian virtue of magnificence involves the spending of large amounts of money, for civic projects which benefit a large number of people. I offer an account of magnificence as a virtue which is relevant to varied historical and cultural societies, and which is able to respond appropriately to different civic needs. I draw attention to two aspects of magnificence: the special status of the magnificent and how this is displayed through the exercise of the virtue, as well as the magnificent agent’s ability to see fittingness in expenditure. Because of its discriminating and contextualised nature, magnificence is a relevant virtue for the twenty-first century, one which can cast a light on the civic obligations of (ultra) high net worth individuals. To make this point, I will discuss two examples of magnificent individuals, one from the seventeenth century and one from the twenty-first century.
We often speak of our own “best friends” and those of other people. But what does it mean for someone to be a best friend? While there is a large empirical literature studying the antecedents and consequences of best friendships and a small body of philosophical research on this topic, this question has not been addressed in detail. In this article, my aim is to fill this lacuna by distinguishing three different conceptions of best friends based on the semantic properties of the term and the ways in which it is used in both academic discourse and ordinary parlance. They include those of a (i) comparatively best friend; (ii) comparatively best close/good friend; and (iii) institutional best friend. I conclude by drawing out the implications of this typology for empirical and philosophical work on best friendship and by identifying several avenues for future research.
We challenge the popular classification of the trolley problem as a series of thought experiments in possible worlds. The trolley world is, in fact, impossible. It is, rather, a fantasy world of role-playing language game within a graphic narrative. The trolley world has all the characteristics of a game that game designers seek to reproduce. Thus, the following paper is a spoilsport, revealing the playful aspects of the trolley problem. Historically, the trolley problem substantially contributed to ethical discourse. Nowadays, attempts to resolve it generate few applications and weigh down the theoretical discourse. We argue that it makes less sense to view the trolley problem as a flawed problem-solving, probative, or heuristic tool, than to view it as a strong intuition pump, well suited to teach fundamental ethical issues. While the process of engaging with the trolley problem may be prolific, the problem itself is not of our world.
In this paper we distinguish, from other sanctions, specific targeted sanctions—namely those imposed on particular individuals and sanctions on goods that facilitate the violation of human rights. We ask if these sanctions satisfy the three of the principles of Just War Theory (JWT): chance of success, proportionality and discrimination. We argue that while there is not enough empirical evidence to make a claim about specific targeted sanctions and chance of success, these sanctions do meet the principles of proportionality and discrimination, which are not met by other sanctions. Our ultimate conclusion is that comprehensive sanctions, and some types of targeted sanctions—e.g., those that target sectors of the economy or dual-goods such as oil—cannot be justified, since there is another type of sanctions, namely specific targeted sanctions, that meet the principles of JWT, and hence, are fairer.
