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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Climate Geoengineering And Iwu's Ethics Bowl, Jake K. Bates
Climate Geoengineering And Iwu's Ethics Bowl, Jake K. Bates
The Intellectual Standard
In its sophomore season of competition, Illinois Wesleyan's Ethics Bowl team qualified for the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl hosted in San Antonio, Texas on February 28. In spite of technical difficulties and flight delays, the team returned to campus having won the first annual Spirit of the Ethics Bowl award, an honor recognizing sportsmanship which was voted on by opposing teams. Ethics bowl competition centers around a set of cases featuring ethical dilemmas and quandaries published by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. It is structured so that a presenting team has ten minutes to answer a question regarding anyone …
Lessons In Injustice: Privilege Walks, Karen Silverman
Lessons In Injustice: Privilege Walks, Karen Silverman
The Intellectual Standard
If you are a white male take one step forward. If your parents did not grow up in the United States take a step back. If you were born in the United States take a step forward. These are some of the questions one might hear at a Privilege Walk, which is an activity held at many universities in order to "provide participants with an opportunity to understand the intricacies of privilege" (Young, 2006). Questions such as these are asked to participating students who stand shoulder to shoulder in a straight line. Students take steps forward when their answers to …
In Defense Of Technology, Mike Kelly
In Defense Of Technology, Mike Kelly
The Intellectual Standard
During the Middle Ages, i.e. the "Dark" Ages, man's worldview was largely dominated by mysticism, irrationality, and collectivism. The universe was widely perceived as epistemologically unknowable and metaphysically malevolent, dooming man to suffering and tragedy. Given the widespread political and social instability, as well as the ravages of unstoppable plagues and warmongering nations, such conclusions were not totally unreasonable. The Enlightenment and its corollary, the Scientific Revolution, delivered western civilization from the Dark Ages into an age of reason, science, and individualism. What was once perceived as unknowable, uncertain, and malevolent, became knowable, certain, and benevolent. The universe became a …
The Scorpion And The Frog: A False Narrative Of Human Nature, Karen Silverman, Jaret Kanarek
The Scorpion And The Frog: A False Narrative Of Human Nature, Karen Silverman, Jaret Kanarek
The Intellectual Standard
The Scorpion and the Frog is an age-old fable, having taken various forms over the past centuries.1 In the story, a scorpion asks a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is hesitant to agree because the scorpion might sting him on the trip. The scorpion assures the frog that he would not do that because it would cause himself to drown. The frog agrees, yet midway through the trip, the scorpion stings the frog anyway. When the frog asks the scorpion why, he replies that it is in his nature.
Critiquing Cultural Relativism, Jaret Kanarek
Critiquing Cultural Relativism, Jaret Kanarek
The Intellectual Standard
Cultural relativism is the ever-popular theory claiming that, “any set of customs and institutions, or way of life, is as valid as any other” (Hartung,1954). In its appeal to tolerance—the seemingly incontrovertible “virtue” of the modern era—it has gained wide appeal amongst myriad disciplines, most notably in the social sciences (UNESCO, 1995). However, the theory is destructive in both theory and practice. In theory, cultural relativism emphatically denies reason and objective reality (Zechenter, 1997). In practice, it sanctions the worst manifestations of violence and oppression.