PEA Soup

Velleman publishes open access book

You can get the book for free here.

Hat tip: Ethics Etc. for the idea of publicizing this more widely.

 

Philosophy in Novels

I know that a lot philosophers I have met and a lot of you who read this blog are avid readers of novels. Because of this, I wanted to post a 'bleg' ('an entry on a blog requesting information or contributions' according to Wiktionary...). I'd like to know of novels that feature philosophers (fictional or actual), philosophical texts and books, or philosophical theories in them. If these are moral philosophers or texts or theories in moral philosophy, even better. You can also post good examples from novels as illustrations of philosophical views if you have come across cool ones recently, or cases in which philosophical views have influenced novels too. I'm more interested in more direct connections however. I'm just going start this off with one example I recently happened to come across. This is Justin Cartwright's 2004 novel The Promise of Happiness in which one of the central characters picks up in the middle of the novel Bernard Williams' Morality: an Introduction to Ethics. After this, he considers events in the novel through discussions of reasons-internalism and utilitarianism. Anyway, I would very interested to hear about other novels like this.

Silence as a virtue?

Hello all. In the spirit of more spontaneous posts on PEA Soup, I'd like to share some thoughts and ask some questions about virtue ethics, an area in which I have little expertise but which I've been wanting to get to know better, and ancient philosophy, also not an area of specialization but one which I've just now dabbled in (but not in the way or in the area most would expect).

Upcoming Featured Philosophers

Hi all,

I wanted to take a minute to provide a brief overview and rough schedule for the new "Featured Philosophers" section of PEASoup.  The Daves (or, as I like to refer to them, Dave, or D.A.V.E.) have put together a really nice lineup so far, which I know will generate a lot of interesting discussion.  So, without further ado, here is the rough schedule as it appears now.  (We also have a few other people lined up but not firmly scheduled yet.)

Welcome, Avia Pasternak!

So pleased to be welcoming Avia Pasternak officially as a contributor (and associate editor) to PEA Soup!  Avia is a lecturer in political theory in the Department of Government at University of Essex, working on, among other things, collective responsibility and the relation between global justice and democratic theory.

PEA Soup's New Associate Editors

We at PEA Soup are tremendously happy with the group of Associate Editors who have recently signed on. PEA Soup's Associate Editors are:

Dale Dorsey (Kansas) will be the Associate Editor for our Featured Philosophers series.

Hille Paakkunainen (Syracuse) and Kate Manne (Cornell) will be the Associate Editors overseeing our partnership with Ethics.

Zosia Stemplowska (Oxford) and Avia Pasternak (Essex) will be the Associate Editors overseeing our partnership with PPE.

Jussi Suikkanen (Birmingham) will be the Associate Editor that oversees our partnership with Philosophy and Public Affairs, Philosophers' Imprint, and JESP.

Ethics Discussions at PEA Soup: Leif Wenar's "The Nature of Claim-Rights" with Critical Precis by Arthur Ripstein

We are pleased to present the next Ethics discussion, on Leif Wenar's new article, "The Nature of Claim Rights."  The article has been made open access here.  Arthur Ripstein, professor of law and philosophy at U. Toronto, kicks off the discussion with a critical precis of Wenar's article below the fold.

Exciting Changes at PEA Soup! (Part Two)

Gimme' that old time blogigion!

In our last post, we mentioned our partnerships with a variety of excellent journals publishing new work in ethics and political philosophy.  In this post, we want to explain ways in which we will try to push the blog to expand in a more informal direction as well, capturing again some of that old time bloggy fun we used to have.  We have two proposals.

Sartorio's Intuition Pumps about Responsibility

On behalf of Carolina Sartorio, who's writing a paper on a new kind of luck, I'm posting, with her permission, her core motivating cases in order to see what people's intuitions are.  In each case, I am giving Carolina's report of what our intuitions likely are, but I do not include her analyses.  Do you share the basic intuitions?  Why or why not?

Welcome to Sepielli and Stemplowska!

It's my pleasure to welcome Andrew Sepielli and Zofia Stemplowska as contributors to PEA Soup.  Andrew is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto working primarily on moral uncertainty.  Zofia is a University Lecturer in Political Theory, Asa Briggs Fellow, at Worcester College at Oxford working on global and political justice.

Great to have you both here!