If a lump of clay is shaped into a statue, is there one thing or are there two? That is: are the lump and the statue two distinct things? This dialogue introduces some reasons to think they are two different things and then discusses the issues involved.

The definition of consumerism is multifaceted, extending from the consumption of goods and services (which may be perceived as advantageous to the growth of the economy, both localized and global) to its more negative connotations: the obsessive consumption of goods, exploitation of the people who create them and greed. In a society heavily influenced by consumerism, we find ourselves manipulated by social media and targeted advertising to buy goods or to cultivate a certain lifestyle, raising important ethical questions about responsibility and our autonomy to make decisions. How has the nature of how we create and consume goods evolved and how is this linked to moral responsibility and autonomy? Can it also be argued that there is aesthetic appreciation to be gained from some of the items that we create and consume?

Feelings of awe can generate well-being. The typical explanation of this is that an otherwise self-absorbed individual now experiences something so vast that it forges a humble new perspective of self. Self-absorption is replaced by altruistic characteristics that result in a sense of well-being. However, the observations of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Carl Rogers provide an existential framework for understanding the human being in relation to the world and well-being within that framework. And such a framework offers a different perspective on how the experience of awe produces well-being. Existentially understood, incongruence is the anti-thesis of well-being. Incongruence is developed by a hyper-focus on external conditions of worth. Rather than a remedy to self-absorption, the experience of awe offers the remedy of self-absorption, towards congruence. This article will explore key observations by each existentially principled thinker to display this framework in order to comprehend how awe produces well-being within it.

In this article, classic game theory and evolutionary game theory are used to explain how social norms might come into existence. The norm of distributive fairness is taken as a case in point, and illustrated by a simple example of dividing a cake.

This article provides a reflection on how Aristotle's virtue ethics can be applied to matters of human life and death.

Suppose that it was possible to teletransport. The teletransporter would destroy your old brain and body and construct an identical brain and body at a new location. Would you survive teletransportation? Many people think that teletransportation would kill you. On their view, the person that emerges from the teletransporter would be a replica of you, but it wouldn't be you. In contrast, I argue that there's no relevant difference between teletransportation and ordinary survival. So, if you survive ordinary life, then you survive teletransportation. Yet my argument may also show that we have little prudential reason to care about our survival in general.

Facing a recent surge in anti-natalist arguments saying that human procreation is immoral, some defend human procreation by saying that procreative parenting adds meaning to parents’ life. This article examines one such defence, and argues that it does not suffice to rescue human procreation from the challenges to procreation.

For many years, philosophers have argued about the Trolley Problem – but they've also argued about whether the problem ought to interest us. According to some, the artificiality of the situations means that they involve no complicating factors – and so we ought to take our intuitions about them especially seriously. According to others, though, the artificiality of the situations means that our intuitions about them are meaningless. I hereby name the puzzle of why our intuitions about this differ the ‘Trolley Meta-Problem’. The story that follows illustrates this problem – and the Trolley Problem itself – in a humorous way.

What would a romantic relationship between a biological human and an artificial intelligence system look like? The question is explored through a fictional correspondence between Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace.

A prominent Christian apologist suggests it is inconsistent for an atheist to have a favourable attitude towards procreating while maintaining that a loving God would not place vulnerable beings in such a harmful world. I put this analogy to the test with a series of thought experiments, revealing crucial disanalogies between God and procreators that absolve the atheist from the charge of inconsistency and draw the reader's attention to the central issues on the problem of evil as debated by contemporary philosophers.

One might think at first glance that naturalism excludes any form of theism by definition. This article argues to the contrary that proper scientificity requires that a naturalist remain open to the possibility of the truth of the classical theistic conception of God in particular. The only alternative is for naturalism to devolve into an anti-theistic bias and ideology, forsaking the claim to being properly scientific.

The search for common ground is hugely important and it depends on understanding in as fair a way as possible how words are being used by opponents in debate – in this case naturalism and theism.

Starting from the case of insurance claims, I investigate the dynamics of acceptance, rejection and denial. I show that disagreement can be more varied than one might think. I illustrate this by looking at the Warren/Sanders controversy in the 2020 democratic primaries and at religious agnosticism.

This article explores arguments from ‘the right side of history’. These arguments are often interpreted as making an appeal to a trajectory which independently guides history. These arguments are often criticized on the grounds that history simply doesn't work that way. I offer an interpretation of right side of history arguments that does not rely on this sort of historical trajectory, and argue that even this version of the argument fails.

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, many states in the United States issued stay-at-home orders that prohibited people from leaving their homes except to access essential services. Upon reopening, a number of those states passed mask mandates requiring people to wear face coverings while in public, but as I write this, in October of 2020, there remain a substantial number of states that have not outlawed what I'll call ‘mask-less shopping’. This is a mistake. After describing the standard, public health argument for outlawing mask-less shopping and explaining why it fails, I give a better argument for outlawing mask-less shopping that depends on the claim that mask-less shopping is analogous to drunk driving. It follows that every state should outlaw it.