Department Blog

Military recruitment is a moral minefield

6 March 2024|

The head of the British army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, recently raised concerns over poor recruitment in the military. But as Jonathan Parry from LSE Philosophy and Christina Easton from Warwick University argue, there are deeper, moral concerns with military recruitment. Campaigning at schools, glamourising the work of the army in advertising, and drawing largely from a pool […]

Dementia and its handmaids

29 February 2024|

Many people have a period of dementia before they die. Indeed, dementia has been identified as the leading cause of death in the UK. The diseases that cause dementia are often described as cruel: typically they slowly erode a person’s memories, knowledge, understanding, and eventually the ability to talk, walk and swallow. LSE Philosophy […]

The Euclidean Programme

31 January 2024|

Mathematical knowledge has puzzled philosophers for millennia. The LSE’s own Imre Lakatos coined the term “Euclidean Programme” for the historically dominant way of thinking about this phenomenon. In a new volume published in the Elements in the Philosophy of Mathematics series by Cambridge University Press, Alexander Paseau (Oxford) and Wesley Wrigley (LSE) trace the history of the Euclidean […]

Dementia, decision-making, and changing selves

5 December 2023|

Philosopher Richard Pettigrew (University of Bristol) shares his personal thoughts on changing selves and reflects on our latest Philosophy Live event ‘Dementia and decision-making: How should we make decisions with – or on behalf of – those with dementia?’

Ten years ago, I was trying to decide whether or not to adopt a child and become a parent. I […]

The Epistemology of Peace

17 November 2023|

We are happy to share a very special blog post by Ariana Razavi, winner of our LSE Philosophy Peace Prize 2023.

Introduction by Professor Jonathan Birch: It’s a pleasure to introduce winner of the LSE Philosophy Peace Prize, Ariana Razavi. The aim of the competition was to encourage students to reflect, in the form of a blog post, on […]

Should the House of Lords be more democratic?

10 November 2023|

One of the key arguments in favour of an elected second chamber is that it would make the UK’s political system more democratic overall. However, an examination of the principles of representative democracy suggests that this is neither a necessary nor desirable reform for the House of Lords to fulfil its purpose, argues LSE Philosophy Fellow Adam Lovett.

What Ought to Be Our Response to Moral Uncertainty?

21 August 2023|

Rational agents can be uncertain about what is objectively valuable. Former CPNSS visitor Luca Zanetti shows how the debate on model uncertainty in science is relevant to the debate on moral uncertainty in normative ethics. This offers new ways of managing moral uncertainty.

We can be uncertain not only about natural and social phenomena, or because our […]

Invertebrate Sentience, Welfare, & Policy

24 July 2023|

If an animal is sentient, we have an ethical obligation to consider its welfare. But, when it comes to invertebrate animals, there is no consensus about whether they are sentient. What can the scientific evidence tell us? And what does it mean for animal welfare policy? Andrew Crump discusses the implications of animal sentience on policy making.

The Significance […]

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    Happy to be a woman. Just don’t need to attend to it so much.

Happy to be a woman. Just don’t need to attend to it so much.

3 July 2023|

A common complaint from those who are minoritised in certain domains of life, such as work, feel that their minoritised identity receives too much emphasis. Philosophers who are women might complain that they are seen as women before they are seen as philosophers. Artists who are Black might object to being called ‘Black artists’ in reviews of their […]

Daniel Ellsberg: Real Life Decision Theory

27 June 2023|

The world recently lost Daniel Ellsberg, famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Ellsberg will be remembered within philosophy for a paradox in decision theory. Nikhil Venkatesh explores the connection between this paradox and his momentous decision to leak the Papers.

Ellsberg’s Life

Many philosophers have put themselves on the wrong side of the authorities. At the birth of […]