Human Impacts on Ecosystems and Environmental Ethics
Ocean Stressors & Marine Protection
Industrial, Petroleum & Coastal Impacts
- Industrial Growth: Toxic chemicals introduced into water systems.
- Petroleum Industry: Potential to contaminate habitats.
- Coastal Development: Leads to water pollution and issues with waste disposal.
Tourism’s Toll on Coral Reefs
- Direct Impacts: Anchors damaging reefs, harm from snorkeling activities.
- Indirect Impacts: Waste generated by resorts, increased demand for seafood.
Consequences of Ocean Stressors
- Pollution: Contributes
Descartes: Method, Certainty, and Radical Doubt
Descartes’ Quest for Certainty
Descartes’ Four Rules for True Knowledge
Descartes proceeds to develop a method with rules designed to ensure that nothing false is accepted as true. He formulated four rules summarizing his analysis and reflections on the mathematical method and its applicability to philosophy.
Rule 1: The Rule of Evidence
This rule has two important elements. First, one must avoid precipitation and prevention. Precipitation is accepting as obvious that which is confusing and obscure.
Read MoreAncient & Medieval Philosophy: Thinkers & Concepts
Ancient Philosophy
The first philosophers, who appeared in Greece in the sixth century BC, tried to establish a principle (archē) from which all reality originates. The archē is singular for monists and multiple for pluralists.
Philosophy from the colonies moved to Athens in the mid-fifth century BC. Here, the Sophists and Socrates focused on humanity and the city (polis), including concepts like liberty, political equality, and law.
The Sophists believed that both moral and legal standards of the
Read MoreLogical Fallacies and Core Legal Principles
Understanding Logical Fallacies
Fallacy of Composition
The Fallacy of Composition occurs when it is incorrectly assumed that what is true for individual parts of a whole is also true for the whole itself. For example:
The numbers 2 and 5 are components of the number 7.
The number 2 is even, and the number 5 is odd.
Therefore, the number 7 is both even and odd.
(This illustrates applying properties of parts—evenness of 2, oddness of 5—incorrectly to the whole, 7.)
Fallacy of Division
The Fallacy of Division
Read MoreNietzsche’s Radical Philosophy: Values, Reality, Becoming
Unnatural Morality
Nietzsche believes morality is unnatural because it opposes life and its inherent nature. He equates the strength of life with the strength of instincts, which are manifested as passions. This natural morality is healthy, yet we are taught an alternative, unnatural morality. This unnatural morality often conceives God as a condemnation or criticism of life itself. Nietzsche critiques Platonism for positing ideas in a separate realm, detached from this world. For Nietzsche, life
Read MoreNietzsche: Truth, Morality, and the Death of God
Nietzsche on Truth and Knowledge
The classical conception of truth claims that the world has a fixed structure and that its objective truth is the correspondence of a proposition with reality. Nietzsche rejects this conception. According to him, there is no truth, only different interpretations. The unique and objective truth is an invention of the past. The language used to express thought is a convention invented by humankind. Therefore, objective truth does not exist. The knowledge we call true
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