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Showing posts from March, 2018

what this blog is for and how it is to be used (mechanics)

You should receive an invitation to join the blog, giving you the ability to post and comment.  If you don't receive, or have any other technical issues, let me know. You can easily subscribe to the blog, which I strongly recommend you do (click the "subscribe" button at the top).  It will send you updates when someone contributes to the blog, in the form of emails with the content of their contribution.  That's the only effect of subscribing.  You can unsubscribe whenever you like. If you're unsure whether something is appropriate, you can send it to the course email address and Matt or I will let you know.   

what this blog is for and how it is to be used (general)

The aim of this blog is to encourage discussion of ethical issues raised by the world as we find it.   As you know, our inquiries in class and in the readings occur at a rather high level of abstraction.   The natural move is from ethical understanding to its application to real-world issues.   I think that’s important, but it’s also important for ethics to be approached from the other direction: starting with awareness of some challenging real-world situation, and exploring it in hopes of finding ethical insight.   My aim in creating this blog, and opening it up for you to use as you like, is to encourage that sort of thinking.   So the idea is that you’ll start by describing some real-world situation about which guidance might be sought.   You might end there (perhaps with a word or two about why you think guidance is needed, if it isn’t obvious).   Or you might anticipate guidance which might be offered, or which you have in fact considered...