Introduction to Ethical Studies: An Open Source Reader
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Topics Worth Investigating

  1. What are some of the advantages of a philosophy of mechanistic materialism?[1]. What are some disadvantages?

  2. What are the implications of the unification of the sciences for the possibility of a theory of ethics? Is political science reducible to psychology, psychology reducible to biology, biology reducible to biochemistry, and chemistry reducible to physics? Are all human achievements, then, ultimately just patterns of matter and motion?

  3. Has life been chemically created from "non-living" molecules in the laboratory? How precise can the distinction between living things and non-living things be made? How is it made by contemporary science?

  4. If science were to develop "a theory of everything," would religion still be an essential part of the human experience? First explain and then justify your position.

Electromagnetic Spectrum, NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Notes

[1]

The term "dialectical materialism" was not originally used by either Marx or Engels. "Historical materialism" is essentially an economic thesis. Ed.

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Related IdeasUp"A Science of Human Nature" by John Stuart Mill