Very Bad Wizards

Do you think dogs make proto-moral judgments based on the actions of others? How do you think dogs would act when put through the moral psychology experiments Paul Bloom describes in his book Just Babies?

"I have long entertained a suspicion, with regard to the decisions of philosophers upon all subjects, and found in myself a greater inclination to dispute, than assent to their conclusions. There is one mistake, to which they seem liable, almost without exception; they confine too much their principles, and make no account of that vast variety, which nature has so much affected in all her operations. When a philosopher has once laid hold of a favourite principle, which perhaps accounts for many natural effects, he extends the same principle over the whole creation, and reduces to it every phænomenon, though by the most violent and absurd reasoning. Our own mind being narrow and contracted, we cannot extend our conception to the variety and extent of nature; but imagine, that she is as much bounded in her operations, as we are in our speculation." --David Hume, "The Skeptic"

—Sam Harris, “The Marionette’s Lament: A Response to Dan Dennett”

It is also valuable…as a veritable museum of mistakes, none of them new and all of them seductive—alluring enough to lull the critical faculties of…brilliant thinkers who do not make a profession of thinking about free will. And, to be sure, these mistakes have also been made, sometimes for centuries, by philosophers themselves. But I think we have made some progress in philosophy of late, and Harris and others need to do their homework if they want to engage with the best thought on the topic.

― Sam Harris, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.” ― Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals

Nina Strohminger, "The Self is Moral"

—John Locke

“To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.” ―Peter Singer, Animal Liberation

― Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen

—Aaron Duke and Laurent Begun, “The drunk utilitarian: Blood alcohol concentration predicts utilitarian responses in moral dilemmas”

—Sharon Krause, Liberalism With Honor

                                    --Susan Wolf, "Moral Saints"

— Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, Utopia

—Kurt Gray, Peter Schmitt, Nina Strohminger, and Karim S. Kassam, “The Science of Style: In Fashion, Colors Should Match Only Moderately”

What accounts for the vast gender disparities in certain occupations? Is it mostly the result of pervasive gender bias, or merely distinct gender preferences?  Which explanation has the most persuasive evidence to support its claim?

“Resentment would prompt us to desire, not only that he should be punished, but that he should be punished by our means, and upon account of that particular injury which he had done to us. Resentment cannot be fully gratified, unless the offender is not only made to grieve in his turn, but to grieve for that particular wrong which we have suffered from him.”