Call for Abstracts Alien and Philosophy Edited by Kevin S. Decker The Blackwell Philosophy and Popular Culture Series Please circulate and post widely. Apologies for cross posting. To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please contact the Series Editor, William Irwin, at williamirwin@kings.edu If you have comments or criticisms for the…
Going Where No One Has Gone Before, Gingerly? By Kevin S. Decker In a recent edition of Forbes, Janet Stemwedel, an ethics and science writer, asked the question, “Is Star Trek’s Prime Directive ethical?” Stemwedel considers two aspects of the Prime Directive’s moral dimensions (autonomy and consequences) and comes to the conclusion that the Prime…
High-Intensity, Functional Fitness (and Formation?) Crossfit and Philosophy By Zachary Mabee Those who have (philosophically inclined) interest in the world of popular culture probably ought to have something to say about the fitness world. After all, personal and group fitness command a great deal of time and money in many people’s lives. (Think, e.g., of how…
Mike Rowe and Ayn Rand Somebody’s Gotta Do It By Carrie-Ann Biondi Open any newspaper. Turn on any news channel. Politicians and many of their constituents clamor for government to “do something” about the latest so-called emergency. Whether it’s about the economy, education, or healthcare, they urge that “somebody’s gotta do it,” and by that…
Taking Ted Seriously By Ashley Whitaker According to existentialist philosophers like Simone de Beauvoir, human beings are free. But, Beauvoir argues, women are often treated like they are not free. Rather they are treated like objects with essential natures, that are not free. In fact, we all experience objectification to some degree with societal…
D-Fense for Fantasy Football By Myron Moses Jackson Fantasy football players are sometimes misperceived as parasitic fans who violate the ethical norms of spectatorship by watching for purposes that don’t depend on the actual outcome of the games. But this over-moralized critique misses what is inspiring about fantasy football as a second-order game. We all…
Slipknot Meets Camus By Ashley Whitaker In an interview concerning the motivation for creating .5: The Gray Chapter, singer Corey Taylor states: … [Slipknot] present reality the way it is, but we also try to put that positivity in … we are trying to free people’s mind and say, Look, this reality is only real…
What I would Like to Like, but don’t Like By William Irwin (Reposted from Psychology Today) I don’t like the Foo Fighters. But I would like to like them. Let me explain. Every time I see or read an interview with Dave Grohl (the band’s singer and guitar player), I think “he’s the greatest guy…
Soft Tyranny in Albuquerque The Politics of Better Call Saul! Paul Cantor says the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, is “the champion of the little guy against the establishment, and the poet of the shabbiness of ordinary existence in twenty-first-century America. He captures all the frustration, humiliation, and despair of living in the administered world of the…
Whiplash and Philosophy Does the Aesthetic End Justify the Immoral Means? By Douglas Groothuis Directed by Damien Chazelle, Whiplash is a film about jazz that is laden with moral theory enacted through drama. An aspiring 19-year old jazz drummer, Andrew (played by Miles Teller) attends a prestigious music school—on the order of Julliard—where he is…
The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series 