Philosophy Now Forum

Congratulations, Rick Lewis and the team for delivering issue 79!

I've already taken an interest in A Kripkean Argument For Goatism here: http://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4470.

It's theme this time is not exactly my street, but it looks very nice like the previous issues!
I also like to advise people to log in and have the reading online as it's now THERE! Perhaps, it's more practical too, browsing through the articles while surfing other interests on the net and also doing background checking!

Cheers!

When I find an article difficult to read, like this one on goatism, I start at the bottom, reading the last paragraph first and so on until I get to the top. However, this did not make the article or the goatism argument any better.

For this issue, 79, how about calling the law a goat and not an ass like Mark Twain called it.

Thanks - I'm glad you like Issue 79!

One of the articles from it - by Emrys Westacott, on whether being under surveillance can make you a morally better person - has been picked up by quite a few bloggers already. Here it is:

http://philosophynow.org/issue79/79westacott.htm

Been getting the most comments about the goat article, however!

Certainly Emrys Westacott's article on surveillance and its potential to make us morally better people is the more poignant and salient read.

I like the idea that God wanted us to act morally of our own fruition instead of acting on dictates. However, volunteerism and doing the right thing as God would have liked has never came naturally to us. Even God didn't have the power to instill in us the ability to firstly do the right thing. We've had to learn that on our own, through trial and error. But I am thinking that was God's real plan, that we learn our ethics and morality by going through the motion and being self-taught.

Nevertheless, our ethics and morality has come more by way of human oversight and surveillance. We have relearned this from two recent event that lacked both oversight and surveillance but were granted a self-policing instead, which didn't work, the financial crisis and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"good" (ethically or morally correct) people act "good" when no one is watching...

coercion through the eyes of another takes the freedom of action out of the equation

a society of slaves under the eyes of big brother are not acting "good," they are acting as they are forced to act...

yet even the best security and monitoring of society does not ensure peace and perfection...

prison riots are fun...

-Imp

In the same issue there is an article about Truth and the Client's Interest by Frederick Ochieng'-Odhiamdo. My first impression is that he doesn't like lawyers very much. And I think that since this issue is also about tolerance the author is implying that society has learned to tolerate and accept these scoundrels in their midst. In other words, I think Ochieng'-Odhiamdo is talking about societies tolerance for lawyers and not the fact that they have helped to make society more tolerant.

One thing Ochieng'-Odhiamdo doesn't discuss is the client's right not to incriminate him or herself. This can further put a lawyer in a bind, perhaps knowing of the client's guilt but also having to defend and support the client's right to remain silent.