The Drowning Child Thought Experiment PDF

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These lectures will help you ace the midterm and final exams, I got an A as the final grade...

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The Drowning Child Thought Experiment

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You are walking to St. John’s from off campus, on the way to class to take a mid-term exam

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You pass by a pond and see a 6-year old girl trying to swim

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She appears to be drowning

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What do you do?

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Does it make a difference if the child is far away, in Somalia?

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Children there in danger of death by starvation or disease

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No great cost to you—and no danger—to save one of them

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What would you do?

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If you gave money to the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders, maybe you could save a child in Somalia

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Would you do it?

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Do we have a global responsibility to help those in need in distant countries?

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Do we have a global responsibility to avoid ruining the planet by causing pollution, deforestation, extermination of other species, global warming,or overpopulation?

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Collapse of traditional religion and socialism in most advanced countries has left us with one reigning ideology:

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Consumer Capitalism

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Consume, work hard, earn more money to consume more—driven by greed

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But does such a life lead to happiness?

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Ivan Boesky, Wall Street trader

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Worked 7 days a week—never took time off

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Convicted of massive insider trading

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“Greed is good” (Gordon Gecko character in the movie “Wall Street”)

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Greed= Pursuit of self-interest beyond any other values

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A life without meaning beyond our own pleasure or self-satisfaction—satisfying only our greed for more

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The paradox of hedonism—the more we pursue pleasure or self-satisfaction, the less satisfying it is...