philosophy

Is it a privilege or a right to be treated as you deserve to be?

How do today's best TV shows explore questions about identity, morality, and the human condition?

What exactly is existentialism? How are we condemned to be free? And what’s so hellish about other people?   

Are people cruel to others despite or because of their victims' humanity?

How should psychological science be used to improve our criminal justice system? 

Can we still lead productive, meaningful lives if the demand for human labor disappears?

Are sports a way to cultivate virtues like loyalty, collaboration, and discipline, or to indulge feelings of rivalry, tribalism, and obsession?

What have you read this summer that challenged your assumptions and made you think about things in new ways?

Can algorithms be truly objective decision-makers, or do they necessarily pick up the biases of their human programmers?

Can we ever escape the innovation loop? Should we try before it kills us?

What are some recent movies that challenged our assumptions and made us think about things in new ways? 

Are there questions that science is powerless to answer?

What would happen if instead of being privately owned, productive goods were continually put up for auction?

What made Baruch Spinoza one of the most influential and beguiling thinkers of all time?

If life on Earth were coming to an end in, say, thirty years, would the life of the last person alive be meaningful?

Can we regret the sin but love the result of the sin?

How do notions like care, compassion, and empathy change the way we view our obligations to others?

Do drones herald a more sanitized and efficient form of war, or do they represent the dystopian reign of uncaring technologies? 

Plato’s Symposium is arguably the most memorable philosophical work ever written on the subject of love. It is also the inspiration for Leonard Bernstein’s gorgeous violin concerto, the Serenade. 

If there is intelligent life beyond Earth, how would that change life ON Earth?

Martin Heidegger has been hailed by many as the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century. He has also been criticized for being both nearly unreadable and a Nazi.

Does the internet necessarily make people nastier and more arrogant?

How do we ensure that the Victor Frankensteins of the future unleash no new monsters on the world?

Is whistleblowing a matter of duty, or a matter of choice?

Is truly great art possible under a capitalist system, or is capitalism destined to produce cultural crap?

Does freedom of speech guarantee the right to poke fun at anyone and anything we want?

If someone disagrees with you, does it mean you should reconsider your position, or does it just mean that person is wrong?

Is there such a thing as objective, value-neutral science, or is science always infused with values?

With all the advances women have made, why does gender inequality still persist? 

What movies of the past year challenged our assumptions and made us think about things in new ways?