Nozick’s experience machine
Yesterday’s thought experiment was about identity—once all of its parts were replaced, was the Ship of Theseus still the same ship? Today, we consider value theory and whether happiness or pleasure is really the highest good. In his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, philosopher Robert Nozick famously posed the following thought experiment: A mad scientist invents […]
Can AI Make Us Virtuous?
One afternoon, a couple of months ago I came across an advertisement for a new school concept that uses AI-based education paired with practical life skills workshops – and have been thinking about it ever since. At the AI-based school students spend two hours a day working on content courses at their own pace on […]
The Ship of Theseus
This week, we’ll be considering some of the great thought experiments of philosophy. We begin with the Ship of Theseus. Plutarch, in his work The Life of Theseus, recounts a debate among the philosophers over whether or not a ship that has had all of its components replaced one by one would remain the same ship. Today, […]
But we have forgotten God
At the beginning of this week, I asked why we start each day honoring our country. We considered that America is only great if she is good, that our happiness depends on humility and our liberty upon personal virtue, and that true patriotism is to love our country like our family, even when she is […]
On patriotism
Benjamin Franklin is often credited with saying, “Where liberty dwells, there is my country.” Whether he said it or not, at first listen it would seem to be quite the patriotic sentiment of a great American. But is it? The origin of the English word patriot is the Greek, patris, which means “fatherland.” Patriotism, as originally […]
Political liberty, personal virtue
James Madison noted about the American founding that “[i]n Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example … of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history, and the […]
Proud to be a humble American
“An incident is told of the first American war, about an officer who set his men to fell some trees which were needed to make a bridge. There were not nearly enough men, and work was getting on very slowly. Up rode a commanding-looking man and spoke to the officer in charge, who was urging […]
What’s so great about America?
Every morning, we start the day with a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, and a song about our country. But why? What’s so great about America? And anyway, in a school concerned with knowledge and virtue, what does honoring our country have to do with it? We start this week with a quote by an […]
The virtue of boring
Well, apparently, today is no ordinary day. March 21, 2025, it turns out, is National Crunchy Taco Day, World Vermouth Day, World Puppetry Day, International Color Day, Slytherin Pride Day, Red Nose Day, Credit Card Reduction Day, and National Healthy Fats Day, just to name a few. Tomorrow, there will be another list just as […]
Gratitude for Winter
Today is the last day of Winter. For many, this is welcome news. In fact, for some, Winter itself is the cause of what mental health professionals now call Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. The disorder was first formally set forth in 1984 by Norman Rosenthal, who later wrote a book about it in 1993 […]
