Students in the Communication Law and Ethics course at Fitchburg State University created this one-sheet for the Worcester County (MA) SOPHIA Chapter. Dr. J.J. Sylvia IV and Dr. Kyle Moody edited it. Its creation was supported by SOPHIA and the Douglas and Isabelle Crocker Center for Civic Engagement.
Over the course of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, then-candidate Donald J. Trump popularized the term “Fake News.” Although politicians and the media now frequently use the term, much confusion remains over the meaning of the term and what actually “counts” as fake news.
Click here, on the image above, or on the Adobe PDF link on right to open a printable, Adobe PDF version of the one-sheet, which, if printed, is intended to be printed front and back.
SOPHIA is grateful to the students in the Communication Law and Ethics course at Fitchburg State University, as well as to Drs. Sylvia and Moody and to the Crocker Center for Civic Engagement.
The Lexington SOPHIA Chapter is meeting at 6pm on Tues, Nov 13 @ the Northside Branch of the Lexington Public Library
The Lexington SOPHIA Chapter is meeting on Tuesday, November 13th at 6pm at the Northside Branch of the Lexington Public Library to talk about “The Ethics of Dentistry,” which was the subject of Episode 2 of Philosophy Bakes Bread with Dr. Bill Myers. Listen if you wish and can, but we will have an “Ethics of Dentistry” SOPHIA One-Sheet document ready for the event, which people can read at the meeting to be up to speed and on the same page. At the same time, for those of you with little time and a little more curiosity about what this is about, chapter members and leaders Derek Daskalakes and Erik Jarvis put together this little video to tell you about the event, only 1m23s:
What: Lexington SOPHIA Chapter Meeting on “The Ethics of Dentistry”
In this 73rd episode of the Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show and podcast, Eric Thomas Weber and Anthony Cashio interview Christian Miller on “The Character Gap,” the title of his recent book.
Christian is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University, where he has been the recipient of grant support from the John Templeton Foundation and the Templeton World Charity Foundation for both The Character Project and The Beacon Project. In addition to his books on moral character and 85 academic articles, Christian has written for The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Slate, and The Dallas Morning News.
Listen for our “You Tell Me!” questions and for some jokes in one of our concluding segments, called “Philosophunnies.” Reach out to us on Facebook @PhilosophyBakesBread and on Twitter @PhilosophyBB; email us at philosophybakesbread@gmail.com; or call and record a voicemail that we play on the show, at 859.257.1849. Philosophy Bakes Bread is a production of the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA). Check us out online at PhilosophyBakesBread.com and check out SOPHIA at PhilosophersInAmerica.com.
Suppose you are a white bus rider in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. You look up from your newspaper to see Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. She is expelled from the bus. What should you do?
On the one hand, you have paid your fare for a public service and are entitled to receive it. Justice supports your claim to remain on the bus until you reach your destination. A “Good Samaritan” might take an interest, but if you are on your way to work and need the job to pay the bills, you might look at your shoes and mind your own business. It’s not as though standing up for Mrs. Parks will enable her to keep her seat, it will only cause the bus to be late and might just get you ejected, as well – or worse.
Anyway, how sure can you be that she is telling the truth when she says she is tired and just wants to rest her legs? Perhaps the people accusing her of being ornery – people who are in your social stratum, people you know and like and trust – are right. So what should you do?
I submit that there is a single right answer to this question, and that, at least from our vantage point today, it is obvious to all decent people: you must not stand for this. You should insist that Mrs. Parks be allowed to keep her seat, and if she is ejected from the bus you should walk off alongside her. If her community then boycotts the bus company, you should boycott too.
Admittedly, it might be exceedingly difficult to make yourself do this.
Fast-forward to today. You reside in a neighborhood in which there is a monument to some minor Confederate figure. Local African American activists demand that the statue be removed, perhaps replaced by a statue of Rosa Parks. You might wonder whether it matters all that much; he was after all a minor figure and was rehabilitated into a philanthropist of sorts after the war. And the statue is quite lovely. Your neighbors, whom you know and like, view the statue as a landmark in a neighborhood that, though mostly white, is completely lacking in “Southern sympathizers.” They just like their statue.
It is not completely clear to you why the activists have descended on your neighborhood. This is hardly the most important issue in the world. Most people don’t even realize who the guy in the statue was. Why make such a big deal of it?
In this fiftieth episode of the Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show and podcast, we interview Dr. Colleen Murphy of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign about her recent book on “Transitional Justice.”
Colleen’s recent book is titled The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice. This project is an extension of her work from a prior book, A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation. Colleen is a Professor in the College of Law and the Departments of Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is also the Director of the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program in International Programs and Studies, and Affiliate Faculty of the Beckman Institute. She is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of Moral Philosophy.
Listen for our “You Tell Me!” questions and for some jokes in one of our concluding segments, called “Philosophunnies.” Reach out to us on Facebook @PhilosophyBakesBread and on Twitter @PhilosophyBB; email us at philosophybakesbread@gmail.com; or call and record a voicemail that we play on the show, at 859.257.1849. Philosophy Bakes Bread is a production of the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA). Check us out online at PhilosophyBakesBread.com and check out SOPHIA at PhilosophersInAmerica.com.
