For the Love of Wisdom

The logic of iambic half-lines.

by Jennifer Baker, Ph.D.

Mad Men and the Very Idea of Work Friendship

"This is an office. We are supposed to be friends." Read More

To Facebook or Not to Facebook: How Virtue Ethics Could Help Make Up Your Mind

What motivates you to log on to Facebook? Is it positive social connection that motivates you? Or are you going for something else? To feel bad about yourself, to laugh at others, to keep up? Read More

Goodfellas and Glamorous Bad Guys

I'm no expert in audiences, but I imagine portraying Henry Hill as the dad he really was would ruin some of the fun of watching such a well-constructed piece of art. Read More

Facebook Makes Us Less Happy?

Feeling better off than other people. Is this really happiness? Do you buy that? Read More

Life Lists and Happiness

Does pursuing a life list make you happy? Or does it make you a dilettante? Why have traditional ethicists held up the life of a dilettante as a formula for failure? Read More

Is Being Nice a Virtue?

Traditional virtue ethicists did not include simple "niceness" as a virtue. Could there be good reasons for this? Could our most common moral instruction be misleadingly vague? Read More

How (and hardly a word on why) to learn the ethical views of Aristotle and Plato

A prominent writer and opinion-maker told the following anecdote in a recent talk. He had ordered some take-out food, and the man delivering it saw books by Plato and Aristotle on his shelves and said "oh, we have the same interests." Read More

Do we have to be brave to be kind?

Aristotle suggests that there is "reciprocity" between the virtues: to have one, you need the others. This idea is roundly mocked. Surely, people say, we know people who are kind but not brave. But I am with Aristotle. Read More

Peter Singer: Espousing Lack of Human Diversity, 20 Years and Counting

Disability is socially constructed. The notion that the lives of people with disabilities are "worse off" is an example of social construction. Philosopher Peter Singer views the lives of people with physical and intellectual disabilities through the lens of stigma, which seems to make completely ambiguous, pliable, contextual concepts seem absolute and true. Read More

Philosopher Peter Singer, Ethical Theory, and Down Syndrome

Peter Singer, our best known ethicist, has outraged disability rights activists with his description of people with Down syndrome. Is Singer's approach at fault? Or did Singer fail to use the ethical theory he espouses? Read More

TV and Young Character

Is TV an impediment to children developing virtue? Would we do anything about it, even so? Should we? The ancient philosopher Seneca and the moral development researcher Thomas Likona each seem to suggest even a young Socrates couldn't resist Sponge Bob on his own. Read More

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the Poetry

Philosophers seek clarification. They are devoted to the tedious exploration and declaration of unstated assumptions. Poets, I have come to learn, are not keen to explain their poems. They even see an interest in interpretation as largely beside the point. We are to succumb to the poem, not the other way round. Read More

6-Year-Old Thinks She Is Fat

It looks as if younger and younger girls are professing a concern about body image. Which comes first, their concern or our concern about their concern- today's ABC news story certainly does nothing to answer that question. But what would classical ethics have to say about body image and our desire for physical perfection? Read More

Oprah as Emerson

Oprah was an optimist, but what does this mean? Was she reflecting common sense or changing it? What philosophical ideas were being invoked as she changed our culture? And why are her ideas so uncannily close to Ralph Waldo Emerson's? Read More

The Real Epicures

The Epicureans would not recommend that we be "Epicures", as we understand the term today. Why not? Read More

Who is worse off than I am? There, I feel better now.

Increasing one's gratitude is one of the most common recommendations of happiness researchers. How does one increase one's gratitude? We could use those gratitude journals, I suppose. Martin Seligman describes a type of "gratitude visit" we could make to friends and family we care deeply for. We could just become more conscious of the little things- nothing wrong with that. Read More

Aristotle and Camus walk into a bar...

I've posted on Camus and Aristotle before, but this is a special treat from a student who kindly responded to my expressed wish that someone, someday, let me know what it would be like if Aristotle and Camus met up. Read More

Why do we praise natural childbirth?

We are usually suspicious of pain-mongers. Think of the flinching reaction bringing up a "cutter" ensures. Sure, we are in awe of the guy who cut off his own arm to free himself from being trapped between two rocks. But if we found he had the choice of extricating himself in a painless way, we'd be turned off majorly. Why isn't this the case with childbirth? Read More

Happiness and the Real Housewives of Bravo

What would it take to convince you to talk about happiness as if it were a little more complex than we typically take it to be?

Philosopher Dan Haybron, in his wonderful and exciting new book The Pursuit of Unhappiness, makes quick work of assumptions about happiness that many of us, including researchers of happiness, have failed to question. Read More

Could life be absurd?

Our life situation may not pit us against the more stark evidence that life lacks coherence and meaning. We may escape the Holocaust. We may not get kidnapped by some dimwit, our loved ones may not die in a car accident when they could have safely taken the train. But some people are not so lucky. How do their experiences get integrated into the stories we tell ourselves? Read More

How Big a Deal Is Happiness? Not That Big a Deal

Happiness was not, for Kant, the big deal it was to the ancient Greek ethicists. Kant thought we could ponder happiness, its ingredients, its pathways, as long as we'd like. We are not apt to find any deep insights. We certainly won't find morality there. Read More

Can Bad People Be Happy?

Dan Gilbert thinks philosophers have distracted us from paying attention to what really counts as happiness. Is he right? Read More

Is Marriage a Necessary Part of The Good Life?

Would Socrates have been more moral if he had better attended to his wife? Read More

Is Marriage a Distraction from The Good Life?

Marriage, what's it good for? As far back as ancient times, some philosophers thought "not much" (and for reasons we can still recognize). With marriage comes a shared household, likely children, and the sort of domestic duties that are a drag on your time, your freedom, and more inspired thought. Read More