Wednesday, July 23, 2014

How to Become a Philosopher


From Bookforum's Omnivore blog, another cool collection of links related to philosophy and philosophers. One of the cool papers is by Marc Fleurbaey (Princeton) and Alex Voorhoeve (LSE): On the Social and Personal Value of Existence - here is the abstract.
If a potential person would have a good life if he were to come into existence, can we coherently regard his coming into existence as better for him than his never coming into existence? And can we regard the situation in which he never comes into existence as worse for him? In this paper, we argue that both questions should be answered affirmatively. We also explain where prominent arguments to differing conclusions go wrong. Finally, we explore the relevance of our answers to issues in population ethics.
Regardless of the kind of life a person may have, I know a LOT of people who, given the choice, would choose to never have been born.

How to become a philosopher

Jul 21 2014
9:00AM

No comments: