UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Philosophy Through Fiction

I often assign short fiction in my undergraduate philosophy classes. For the benefit of other instructors, below is a very abridged list of some of my favorite readings for use in the classroom, organized by topic. Where the texts are freely available online, I have linked them directly.

Aesthetics

Effinger, "The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything" (aesthetic judgment)
Gilman, "Exile's End" (the value of art)

Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind

Bisson, "They're Made Out of Meat" (artificial intelligence, multiple realizability, cognition)
Chiang, "Understand" (intelligence, communication)
Egan, "Learning To Be Me" (personal identity)
Egan, "Reasons To Be Cheerful" (skepticism, authenticity of our emotions and preferences)
De Cruz, "Mathematical Revelations" (skepticism, simulation theory)
qntm, "I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God is a Big Responsibility" (skepticism, simulation theory)
qntm, "Lena" (personal identity, artificial intelligence, ethics of brain uploads)
Vonnegut, "EPICAC" (artificial intelligence, consciousness)

Ethics (Normative)

Card, "Kingsmeat" (consequentialism and other moral theories)
Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" (consequentialism and other moral theories)
Resnick, "Kirinyaga" (cultural relativism)

Ethics (Applied)

Ackerman, "Applicants" (allocation, organ donation)
Butler, "Bloodchild" (bodily autonomy, colonialism, gender, pregnancy)
Butler, "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" (disability, eugenics, gender, free will)
Egan, "Blood Sisters" (medical research)
Godwin, "The Cold Equations" (allocation); pairs well with Sakers' "The Cold Solution"
Hass, "Paschal Lamb" (collective action problems)
Huang, "As the Last I May Know" (philosophy of war, weapons of mass destruction)
Larson, "LOL, Said the Scorpion" (tourism, colonialism, inequality, perceptual filtering)
Liu, "Thoughts and Prayers" (deepfakes, perceptual filtering, trolling)
McIntosh, "Dancing with Death in the Land of Nod" (pandemic ethics, euthanasia)
Scalzi, "Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome" (pandemic ethics, medical research, disability)
Selzer, "Whither Thou Go'est" (organ donation)
Williams, "The Use of Force" (the principles of medical ethics)

Metaphysics

Bradbury, "A Sound of Thunder" (time travel)
Chiang, "What's Expected of Us" (free will)
Egan, "The Hundred-Light-Year Diary" (causation, free will, time travel)
Heinlein, "All You Zombies" (time travel)
Harrison, "The Secret of Stonehenge" (time travel, causation, causal loops)
Tiptree, "Love is the Plan the Plan is Death" (free will)

Philosophy of Religion

Chiang, "Hell is the Absence of God" (divine purpose, the problem of evil)
Clarke, "The Star" (divine purpose, the problem of evil)
Clarke, "The Nine Billion Names of God" (divine purpose, the meaning of life)
Peck, "A Short Stay in Hell" (divine purpose, the afterlife, Pascal's wager, infinity, existentialism)

Feel free to write to me ([email protected]) with your own experiences teaching or learning philosophy through fiction.

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