Ethical Philosophy Selector

A fun little Ethics quiz for those of you avoiding relatives today.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kreyol Film Festival on Nov 28th!

 (photo from personal collection)

Followers of this blog may recall that I used to work at a Haitian restaurant, almost ten years ago, when I first lived in Miami.  Ever since then I have been on the lookout for Haitian food and culture, wherever I live and visit.

This morning as I was looking over an issue of EU Jacksonville, I spotted notice of an upcoming Haitian film festival, right here in Jacksonville!   I would love to check this out, maybe other attendees can tell me if/where I can get good Haitian food in this city?

From EU's online calendar:

Saturday, November 28, 2009

The Top Kreyol Haitian Film Festival at Jacksonville was created with the goal of opening up to a new world and offer opportunities and new discoveries with the creativity of the Haitian cinema. There are no categories and no prizes awarded for the first edition of the festival which will include shorts films, features and documentaries from the Haitian cinema industry all over the world. The films will come mainly from Haiti, Canada, United States and France.

The festival will take place from 3 to 11 pm at the Springfield Woman's Club, 210 West 7th St.  For more information call 887-5927

Wednesday!!! The Fall of the Berlin Wall @ 5 Points Theatre!

See previous post here.

See you there, Jacksonville!

I feel you should never say "I feel" again.

Nothing drives me more nuts than when I hear someone begin or end an argument, especially a moral argument, with "I feel" or "we feel".

Why?  Let me explain (my students and fellow critical thinkers will understand what I am about to say).

To begin or end an argument with "I feel" is to imply (or worse, demonstrate) that your argument is based on feelings.  Which begs the question, "What's so bad about basing an argument on feelings?"

Let me start by asking readers a couple questions:

• Ever felt good doing something bad?
• Ever felt bad doing something good?
• How often do your feelings change?
• Are everyone's feelings the same?

One reason then, in support of my conclusion, is that feelings are unreliable indicators of what is right and wrong, or true or false.  Take those first two questions.  Surely most of you answered yes.  If feelings were the basis for ethical decision making, I surely would not have stayed home all night last night and all day today responding to discussion board posts, since I did not feel like doing so.  Especially given that what I really felt like doing was...ah, never mind.  You get the point.

Another reason I would argue that "I feel" is a bad way of ending or beginning arguments, thereby implying (or worse, demonstrating) that your argument is based on feelings, is because feelings change.  Sometimes by the minute.  I know mine do.  Sometimes they do.  I'm not proud of this...but hey, I'm willing to throw myself under the bus for the sake of YOUR higher learning. 

One last reason for now: feelings differ from person to person.  How many times have you felt you had a great connection with someone, and they felt you did not?  Or the other way around?  You get my point.

So if not "I feel" or "we feel", how should one start or end arguments, especially arguments about important matters like moral issues, policy issues, or disputes over air quality rankings (keep reading, you'll see) even? 

The answer: "I would argue that" or "I argue that" or "we argue that" is MUCH better.

Yes, it is that simple.  This little 'ole turn of phrase goes a long way towards implying (or better yet, demonstrating) that the speaker is at least basically aware of three very important things (assuming thinking critically is important to the speaker):

• Arguments (logical arguments) are NOT bickering brawls that consist of shouting, insulting, spitting antagonists.
  

• Arguments DO consist of a conclusion (what some call an "opinion") and premises (reasons given in support or defense of the conclusion).  
  

• Good premises (reasons) consist of evidence, facts, and sound principles.  Not feelings. 
  

Now that you've had your lesson dear reader, review the article published in today's Times Union, about Jacksonville's recent rankings on Forbes' air quality list.  I'll submit the last couple paragraphs below.

Check out that last paragraph.  Are you as unnerved by her phrasing as I am?  No?!  Well I feel would argue that you should be.  Not would...I just did.

A year ago, Forbes said Jacksonville and Florida were comparatively clean. Its pitch was unambiguous: “Want to live where the air is sweet, the water is pure and the streets are clean?” the magazine asked then. “Try the country. But what if you don’t like the sticks? Then try Florida. Led by Miami, the Sunshine State dominates our 2008 list of America’s Cleanest Cities with four metro areas in the top 10 — Jacksonville (No. 3), Orlando (No. 4) and Tampa-St. Petersburg (No. 8) all make appearances.”

That struck Lyndsay Rossman, a spokeswoman for Visit Jacksonville, as odd.
 

“We were really confused by the [new] Forbes ranking,” Rossman said. “We still feel that we are one of the cleanest cities in America.” >>>

Photos from the Beer Brewing Demo

I went to the Beer Brewing Demo (see previous post) just a couple hours ago, I tried:

- A red ale
- An IPA
- Something that had been brewed with Jalapeños
- Something else, but I don't remember what

All good stuff; the Jalapeno beer was tasty too, the flavor of the peppers was very subtle.

The brewers were all very friendly, happy to talk about what they were doing, and about brewing in general.  Several of them were boiling and "cooking" today (see below).

As I explained to them, I brewed my first batch ever earlier this last summer (see this blog's "beer" post category).  Actually, a friend showed me how, while I mostly watched.  The flavor turned out well, but the carbonation didn't.  The brew club folks today told me I could get the carbonation back by adding a little sugar and yeast to the bottles, recapping them, and then waiting a couple weeks.

Hurray!  I was wondering what I was going to do with all those bottles of flat beer! 

If you would like to learn more about brewing, and meet the friendly peeps of the C.A.S.K. club, check out their next "brew off", next Saturday, November 16th, at Bold City Brewery.

Check out this article if you want to learn more about the about the club, and homebrewing in general. It was written by Ed Stansel, one of the brewers there today, who also writes for the Times Union.

Here are more pictures from today's event, held outside the "Just Brew It" store on Cassatt...

Beer brewing demo today! Go!

(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

I was at Cool Moose yesterday morning, in for my usual half-way-through-my-walk coffee. While browsing through the Times Union I found this:

The Cowford Ale Sharing Klub, or CASK, will have a beer brewing demo from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Just Brew It, 1855 Cassat Ave. The event marks the 11th annual Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. CASK expects at least 10 brewers making five- to 10-gallon batches.

(The above passage is from the Times Union "Sips" section)

On a side note: I wish Cool Moose was open at night.  I would frequent that place in the evenings in a heart beat, since it is so close to my apartment, and since I like it there so much.

Chiaroscuro Baby! Tomorrow! Go!

From www.chiaroscurobaby.com:

The lavish world premiere of Chiaroscuro, Baby will take place on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009, at the prestigious Florida Theatre.

Tickets are on sale now through KillaCozzy Productions, the Florida Theatre box office, and Ticketmaster. Due to strong content, audiences are restricted to adults age 18 and up only.

The $38.50 admission price includes free parking, as well as free drinks during the pre-show reception, featuring live jazz. The reception begins at 6pm, while the screening of the film will start at 8pm.

This black tie, red carpet premiere is expected to be among the biggest film events in Jacksonville history. Seats are going fast, so get yours soon.

See you there!!!!! 

Added Saturday, November 7: Chiaroscuro Baby photos on Jacksonville.com

Philosophy Slam tonight at London Bridge, downtown

Screen shot of website taken: 11/3/09

JU Philosophy Club

7:30 PM

Tuesday night

November 3, 2009

London Bridge pub

100 East Adams Street

Jacksonville, Florida

Did you know that Jax has a Marina Mile?

I just found this post about Jacksonville's Marina Mile, while scrolling through articles and responses over on MetroJacksonville.com, one of my very favorite websites for local Jacksonville news and views.

Speaking of boats, there's a cool article about Steamships in Jacksonville on MetroJacksonville.com too.

My first website was a Geocities site

Interesting article here about the death of Geocities.

I used to host Purplebike on Geocities back in the day.  I wonder if it's still around somewhere?

Goodness gracious, I hope not. 

The Best.

...And an interesting cover, too:

Enter your zip, find FREE Wi Fi!

Screenshot of jiwire on 10/27/09

Cool! This just came across in one of my Google Reader items:

http://www.jiwire.com/

I entered my zip, and found 44 locations nearby that offer Wi Fi.

Some are free, some are not.

At any rate, this is mighty handy!

Concept Map: Justice

Various philosophical conceptions of Justice.

In concept map form.

If this image is useful to you, feel free to link to it, copy it, print it, or distribute it; whatever you want.

- For a web page version, click here.

- For a large jpeg version, click here.

Constructive feedback and/or constructive suggestions always welcome.

FREE: The Fall of the Berlin Wall @ 5 Points Theatre!

On Wednesday, November 11th, 2009, Florida State College at Jacksonville will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall at the 5 Points Theatre, with a showing of:

Floridan Henckel von Donnersmarck's
"Das Leben der Anderen"

("The Lives of Others")

5 - 9 pm
Wednesday, Nov 11th, 2009
5 Points Theatre
Jacksonville, Florida

A brief introduction to events revolving around, and resulting from, the fall of the Iron Curtain will be followed by a screening of the film.

This event is FREE!

For more information, contact Dr. Dirk Wendtorf, professor of German and Humanities, Florida State College at Jacksonville.

See you there!

Conversation Starters: Ethics @ The Consumerist

(Screen shot taken 10/19/09 from: http://consumerist.com/tag/ethics)

Someone emailed me a link to this article today. Good conversation starter...I think I'll use it in class this week.

Who knew The Consumerist had such a wide variety of articles categorized under their Ethics tag?

I didn't. But now I do.

(Thanks, J!)

Concept Map: Moral Philosophy

My Moral Philosophy concept map.

If this is useful to you, feel free to link to it, copy it, print it, or distribute it; whatever you want to do. I am all about sharing teaching resources.

For a web page version, click here.

Concept Map: Relevant Difference Reasoning

A concept map I made tonight, for the Informal Logic class I teach for Ashford University.

To see a large version, click here.

The Orange Grove: Florida's Digital Repository

From the site:

It’s an online system to store and manage digital resources.

• Content is created once, stored once, and then can be used an infinite number of times
• The system facilitates discovery of resources
• Users can link to or download resources
• Users can contribute resources

The Skeptic's Field Guide to Spotting Fallacies in Thinking

(Image linked to from site)

From Skeptic's Field Guide:

"A site for skeptics and critical thinkers. Hundreds of real life examples of fallacies, updated regularly...weekly podcast on each fallacy: Hunting Humbug 101 – a crash course in shooting down bad arguments. We take fallacies seriously, but not ourselves."

Take Applied Ethics with me @ FSCJ this Spring!

If you like lots of personal interaction with your instructors and classmates... AND if you learn concepts and theoretical information best when you are face to face, with an instructor who frequently draws on the board for visual learners (and because she simply loves drawing crazy stick figures)... AND if you are not very self-disciplined when it comes to time management... AND if you have the option of taking this class on campus instead of online... PLEASE do not take this class online.  You may very well feel like you are missing out.  

How do I know?  Because I have had students drop the online course and sign up for the campus class instead.  Because I have had students enrolled in my online classes ask to come visit a campus session or two.  

To see what I mean, check out the Ratemyprofessor ratings for my classes, they will definitely help you understand the difference between my online and campus classes at FSCJ.

To see which textbooks are required, click here.

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