Author: Huenemann

Curious about the ways humans use their minds and hearts to distract themselves from the meaninglessness of life.

Medical ethics quandary

Consider this case:

At 50, younger-Meredith (YM), just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, signs an advance directive (AD) expressing her preference that her doctors do not give her extraordinary treatment to keep her alive if she gets ill after having become demented. Meredith is an intellectual, someone who values the life of the mind, and she feels that to be kept alive when demented would make of her life a cruel joke. At 60, older-Meredith (OM) is demented but seemingly quite content with her life when she contracts pneumonia. When asked if she wants to be kept alive via extraordinary treatment, OM says yes. Whose preferences are morally authoritative, YM’s or OM’s?

Read more reflections on the case here.

Philosopher gets $4m to figure out free will

More details here. Alfred Mele, the philosopher in question, has a very solid reputation, and has published interesting and important theories about agents and actions. I’m sure anything he comes up with will be worth studying. But it is funny to read how his university has tried to spin this news — they are working like mad to get him to say he’ll solve the free will problem, and he keeps cautioning that he doesn’t expect to do quite that.

The givers of the award, the Templeton foundation, have very deep pockets, but as we’ve discussed before, not everyone thinks it’s right to accept their money.

Student Symposium

Sponsored by the Department of Languages, Philosophy, and Speech Communication. This is just for students who have taken courses in the department. You should send in a 150-200 word abstract of your presentation by March 11th. Download the pdf with more submission details here:

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS-2010

I will add that last year this was a lost of fun. We had enough students for a special philosophy session, where discussion was freeflowing and good-natured. I strongly encourage philosophy students to submit an abstract of a paper they wrote for class last term, or one they are working on now.