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What makes a human being a rational animal? How did we become rational as a species? Kant’s account of autonomy marks a watershed moment in modern philosophy because it answers the first question in a novel way that makes the second appear unanswerable, possibly ill-formed. In Kant’s system, the capacity for autonomy as self-governed rationality […]

Should You Choose to Live Forever? is one of the newest entries in Routledge’s excellent “Little Debates about Big Questions” series, and it’s the best one I’ve read. Every book in the series has three parts. In the first, each author makes their positive arguments for their favored positions. Here Stephen Cave and John Martin Fischer

We delve into the brain to look for the mind this issue as Peter Stone agrees with Daniel Dennett that we don’t know our own minds (or brains). In 1997 the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera interviewed Tufts philosophy professor Daniel Dennett about his work. The paper published the interview under the title ‘ Si,

Lillian Wilde asks: is it beauty that needs saving, or is it us? Saving Beauty (2017) is a thrilling discussion of the concept of beauty in today’s consumer culture. Hyperbolic and discursive, it is a gripping read that doesn’t really set out to achieve what the title proposes. Rather, it leaves the reader with a

David McKay looks at arguments about when war might be justified. What are we to make of In Defence of War (2013) by Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford? The title itself is provocative: to the pacifist there is nothing significant to be said in defence of

Chad Trainer muses on A.C. Grayling’s modern perspective on war. “War is delightful to those who have no experience of it.”Erasmus The horror of war and its ever-increasing lethality are common knowledge, so I turn to A.C. Grayling’s War: An Enquiry (2018) with expectations of more than clichés and trite observations. What I find is

We search for freedom this issue, as Kevin Currie points out the many varieties of liberalism. “That’s because you’re a liberal!” my self-identified ‘progressive’ colleague said to me with slight contempt. We were talking about the importance of the right to conscience even when it means the right to hold noxious – maybe racist or sexist –

Artur Szutta explores inner space with James Tartaglia. There are books that captivate us: when we read them, hours pass like minutes. We immerse ourselves in them completely, and after reading them we’re different people. This is often the case with great literature, or even a good crime novel; but can it also happen when reading

Lucy Weir thinks about climate ethics with Robin Attfield. Robin Attfield, an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Cardiff University and a key figure in environmental ethics, begins The Ethics of the Climate Crisis (2024) by laying out in clear, quantitative detail why the climate, pollution, and biodiversity crises require our urgent attention. As he says,

Rachel R. Rosner responds to new concepts of exile. Since Hamas’s heinous attack on Israel on October 7th 2023 – what some are calling ‘Israel’s 9/11’ – the world has seen a frenzy of claims for and against Israel’s right to exist and the justness of its military response. As the months have gone by,