JUDAS: A Modern Journal

The Encyclopædia Britannica, the oldest English-language encyclopaedia, defines the social and philosophical movement of Transhumanism as: A philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition. To help us grasp the ideas and ethics of Transhumanist ideology, I'll use an example from David DeGrazia, a Bioethicist and Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University. Professor DeGrazia imagines a woman called Marina, who has insecurities and anxieties and is generally unhappy with herself. Marina wants to take Prozac (Fluoxetine) because she's heard that it can make people more confident. Marina, essentially, wants to use a drug (biotechnology) to go beyond her limitations. DeGrazia asks if this is okay, if she's still the same person, is this acceptable, but what he's really trying to ask is  what defines ...

Remy, the main character in Pixar's Ratatouille, is a metaphor for the literally starving, poor artist, who feels resentment towards a capitalist society whilst trying to climb its ranks and escape poverty. My mind simply shall not be changed. In the film, Remy's family exist purely to survive, and his dad has evolved to ignore Remy's love of his art - cooking - and dismiss his passions because passions are for the rich. His father only starts to care about Remy's talents when they become economically viable, and therefore beneficial to their survival as the poor.  When you start to think of the rats as the poor, and the humans as the rich, it starts to make much more sense. Remy yearns for the human (rich) experience because they have the ability to create art and pursue their passions with no care for material expense or wasted time. This is true in our society. Whilst the rich are free to pursue passions on a whim, able to purchase expensive materials easily, the poo...

Sitting at my desk, checking emails, waiting for a pot noodle that just won't cool down fast enough, the faint sound of Lady Gaga's Artpop  filling the air, I come across an email from the Jehovah's Witnesses. I signed up for their mailing list along with a couple others - The LDS, The Messianic Jews, and The Quakers. I just like to keep up with what the smaller denominations are doing. I think their whole sitch is really quite cute, and I love an underdog. I opened up this email from the Jehovah's Witnesses, and it had a link to an article on their website. It was really a very generic blog promotion email, that I doubt was even authored by a human, but I clicked on it anyway as the article's title hooked me, it was titled "Why Did the Holocaust Happen? Why Didn’t God Stop It?" I must admit, I was rather curious as to what spiel of apologetics the Jehovah's Witnesses were going to spin around this, and I wasn't pleasantly surprised in the slightes...

In philosophy, Utilitarianism is a group of beliefs within normative (behavioural) ethics that, very basically, attempts to maximize utility - often defined as well-being, or the abstract 'greater good.' To give an example, Jeremy Bentham - often regarded as the father of utilitarianism - described Utilitarianism as  "that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness … to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered."  Utilitarianism is a form of  consequentialism , which is another group of philosophical beliefs that argues the consequences of any action are the only means of describing morality - for this argument: right and wrong.  Utilitarianism.net is a site run by utilitarians and furthers their argument that utilitarianism is the only morally correct ideology on the matter because 's uffering is bad, and happiness is good. What could be...

Decisions concerning only oneself are not arguments, but simple decisions. Often framed in terms of pros and cons, this simple debate is one where either answer is valid and acceptable. You shouldn't be forced to get vaccinated just because it's good for you. As an autonomous individual, you get to decide when to take risks, when to go against statistics, and when to engage in a little recreational danger. This kind of risk is something we do a lot of as a species: motorcycling because it's fun even though cars are safer; base jumping from the Burj Khalifa when it's much safer to just not ; dodging essential vaccines even though that's really stupid (whatever gets you that adrenaline rush, I guess.) I would have no objection to people opting out of vaccination if it only affected them, but it doesn't, it affects everyone, like all 7.97 billion of us. Because it affects more people than just yourself, it's a moral question.  So, let's talk about how your ...