First Person Plural

[From alyosha, alyosha@bostoncoop.net]
Here's something only somewhat related to liberalism, which i offer
mostly because i'm really into it -- and it's bristling with
philosophical implications. It also allows me to keep grinding my
naturalization ax, incl to point out that naturalization primarily
means philosophizing based on up-to-date info about the world (vs all
too much of academic philosophy), and doesn't necessarily mean
(radical) reductionism.

First Person Plural
An evolving approach to the science of pleasure suggests that each of
us contains multiple selves—all with different desires, and all
fighting for control. If this is right, the pursuit of happiness
becomes even trickier. Can one self bind” another self if the two want
different things? Are you always better off when a Good Self wins? And
should outsiders, such as employers and policy makers, get into the
fray?
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/multiple-personalities

12/2 Meeting: Liberalism

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) article on Liberalism - a good overview of the various issues and probably the best place to start.

Wikipedia articles on Liberalism and Classical Liberalism

Google Books of Rawls' Political Liberalism - the first lecture sets out his idea of a political conception of liberalism as opposed to a comprehensive conception; and Rawls' Justice as Fairness - the first section sets out some of the basics of his position.

Other SEP Articles: Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy, Distributive Justice, Positive and Negative Liberty, Rights, Limits of Law, Identity Politics, Coercion

More On Trolley Problems: Neuroethics

Here are some more links about Trolley Problems, especially concerning neuroethics, courtesy of Alyosha (alyosha@bostoncoop.net):

Here are annotated links to start you out on the neuroethics of the
trolley problems (plus a humor piece to reward you for reading to the
end!). I'm on a roll so there are several, not because i'm geeking out,
but.....to suit the taste of different readers; yeh, that's it! If you
get hooked and want even more, i've got em.

A teensy intro the to most-discussed research is here:
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/
The gist is that Greene et al find separate brain modules relating to
deontological and consequentialist approaches to ethics, and use fMRI
scans to watch them during trolley problems.

Right off the bat here are a couple of critiques:
http://kolber.typepad.com/ethics_law_blog/2007/11/trolley-problem.html
http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2008/01/cognitive_load_and_moral_judgm.php

But before i go too far with that, the other thing i wanted to bring up
is evidence from people with damage to the ventromedial frontal cortex
("VM patients"). These folks have been found to be lacking in the
deontological modules, and so act like pure(r) consequentialists.
Unfortunately, the best short treatments i found are in googlebooks. So
go to these:
http://books.google.com/books?id=m7USFu5Z0lQC
http://books.google.com/books?id=EHlPFgatpYoC\
, and search for "vm", and it'll take you there, right before the
trolley stuff. Nice short treatments.

And i can't resist this not-so-trolleyish but very trolley-applicable
famous theory of five moral modules, which have been assimilated to the
neuroethics / evoultionary psycholocgy frameworks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt

But you might want to back up. Here are two pieces on neuroethics more
generally. This one from Greene doesn't deal with trolleys but is a
nice intro:
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/GreeneWJH/Greene-NRN-Is-Ought-03.pdf
; while this much longer one from pinker does bring up trolley
problems, along with tons of other stuff:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html

Moving back to our focus, here's a nice accessible overview of the
Greene scene along with some others:
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2004.php?subaction=showfull&id=1177190275&archive=&start_from=&ucat=7&
And this one brings in virtue ethics:
http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v4/n10/full/nrn1223.html

And finally, here's a philosophical spoof of the trolley problems that
i find really funny:
http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/Tissues.htm
(If you don't get it (all), there's a link to annotations at the bottom.)