(Follow-up to How Surprised and How Upset?) (Cross-posted here.) It can be useful to try to gauge how surprised you would be by some...

Despite what the numerous Kant jokes would lead you to believe, deontology is persuasive. It was my favorite normative philosophy when I...

Once upon a time, the prosperous kingdom of Kingdomia sprawled out over a vast countryside. The people were happy. Their Queen was...

Erwin Schrödinger, one of the fathers of modern physics as we know it, was an eminently brilliant man and a clever scientist. The...

We all want to know what’s right, and to remove from our minds whatever is wrong. You might think that “wrong” is the worst thing to be,...

(Content warning: the worst things in the world, including murder, rape, genocide, and people who do these things on purpose with smiles...

(Or, "Bad Idea Radiation") Scott Alexander tells the parable of Murder-Ghandi, who starts out as regular Pacifist-Ghandi, thinks war is...

Every conversation is a Prisoner's Dilemma scenario. "Cooperate" is to treat your conversation partner as acting in good faith, seeking...

Meritocracy is under fire. Michael Sandel wrote a whole book about why it's bad. Freddy DeBoer, Daniel Markovits, and Helen Andrews all...

I’ve been playing a little game for the last few years, which I call “How Surprised and How Upset.” The game begins with me asking the...