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Category Archives: Ethics
“Let’s make a (marijuana) deal …”
Check out this Bloomberg Business video “Why Peter Thiel’s fund is investing in marijuana” and Andrew Ross Sorkin’s thoughtful essay in The New York Times exploring the ethics of investing in the marijuana industry. Sorkin reports that “legal marijuana businesses raised $104 million in … Continue reading
“Google’s Philosopher”
That is the title of this intriguing essay by Robert Herritt in the Pacific Standard — our favorite e-mag, by the way — summarizing the “philosophy of information” as well as the original work of Luciano Floridi, an Oxford philosopher who is inventing “entirely new ways … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Law, Philosophy, Property Rights, Questions Rarely Asked
Tagged Coase, Facebook, Google+, Information Markets, Privacy, Right to be forgotten
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Gaming the peer review system
Check out this exposé of peer review scams. Among other things, Cat Ferguson, Adam Marcus, and Ivan Oransky write: In the past 2 years, journals have been forced to retract more than 110 papers in at least 6 instances of peer-review rigging. What all these … Continue reading
The Kobayashi Maru
“No one passes this test.” Here is more, from Wikipedia: The Kobayashi Maru is a test in the fictional Star Trek universe. It is a Starfleet training exercise designed to test the character of cadets in the command track at Starfleet Academy … The notional primary goal of the exercise … Continue reading
Testing the test
This semester (Fall 2014), we have been teaching two graduate sections of “Law & Ethics.” This is a broad survey course, and in addition to the close relation between law and ethics and the poker-like decision of whether one should settle or go to trial, my … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Ethics, Law
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“Grow the brain before the beard”
The Tunisian protestor in this picture is holding a sign that reads “Grow the beard before the brain.” This is the best critique of ethical fundamentalism that we have seen in a long time. Hat tip to Strum-Me for the pointer.
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Ethics, Philosophy
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The paradox of “assholism”
This is Professor Geoffrey Nunberg’s crude neologism, not ours. Dr Nunberg, a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley, delves into “the moral logic of assholism” in his 2012 book Ascent of the a-word: assholism, the first sixty years. (We spent the better part of yesterday afternoon … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Language, Paradoxes
Tagged Assholism, Bill Belichick, Geoffrey Nunberg, Self-Contradiction
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Fair or foul?
Was the Facebook mood experiment “fair” or “foul” from an ethical perspective? Is it even possible for ethics to produce a determinate or “right” answer to this question? Several armchair philosophers, for example, have concluded that Facebook’s recent study of user behavior is … Continue reading
Posted in Current Affairs, Ethics, Philosophy, Science, Web/Tech
Tagged Experiments, Facebook, Michelle Meyer, Research Ethics
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Annals of self-refutation
From Chuck Klosterman’s (a/k/a “The Ethicist”) smug response to an ethical question posed by “K.M.” of Holden, Massachusetts: I don’t think voicing your opinion falls anywhere on the ethical continuum … Ask [your two sons] if they’ve seriously considered the consequences of … Continue reading
The science of aircraft boarding
Roya Wolverson explains in this short essay why boarding a commercial airplane “feels unfair and chaotic”: If your aircraft boarding experience feels totally random, that may be because it is. Random boarding is a scientific method (pdf) invented in 2008 by a frustrated Illinois-based astrophysicist named Jason Steffen who, … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Ethics, Game Theory, Justice
Tagged Administrative Costs, Airline Boarding Procedures, Efficiency
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prior probability 