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Issue 73, 2nd Quarter 2016 3 From the Editor James Garvey 4 News Kerrie Grain 8 Uncomfortable Viewing A M Ferner Opinions 14 The Five Perameters Rupert Read 22 Want to Be Good at Philosophy? Peter Boghossian and James A. Lindsay 28 The Skeptic Wendy M. Grossman Thoughts 30 Remebering Hilary Putnam Lindsay Waters 33 Is Whiteness Really Real? Linda Martín Alcoff 41 Making Sense of Smell Ann-Sophie Barwich 48 When is it OK to Compromise? Mark D. White 54 Nicolas Malebranche Lawrence Harvey The Forum: Effective Altruism 58 Introduction James Garvey 60 From “Famine, Affluence and Morality” to Effective Altruism Peter Singer 62 Risky Giving Theron Pummer 71 Being Right on the Money Hilary Greaves 77 From Charity to Justice Rachelle Bascara 84 Should it be More Affective? Samantha Earle and Rupert Read 92 Philosophical Critiques Jeff McMahan Reviews 100 Can’t Everyone Just Comb Down? Jean Kazez 103 Teaching Plato in Palestine Taneli Kukkonen 105 Beyond the Abortion Wars Travis Timmerman 108 Transformative Experience Rachel McKinnon 110 Freedom Regained Tamler Sommers 112 The Stone Reader David Edmonds 119 What the Critics Said A. M. Ferner
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From the Editor James Garvey Editorial Like the philosophical equivalent of Madonna or Jack White, The Philosophers’ Magazine is not above a little reinvention every few years. We keep pace with the times, and as we are now on final approach to our twentieth year, shaking up the look of the magazine seems entirely appropriate. Many thanks to the remarkable efforts of Esther McManus, who has attempted to save us, as she put it, from “looking like an economics magazine”. The content will change too. We’re still aiming to publish the best, thought-provoking writing from the largest names in philosophy, but we’re going to hang looser when it comes to both format and content. We’ll try new things. Watch this space. But we’ll always have a symposium in the middle of the magazine, and this issue is no exception. We’ve asked philosophers to take up the demands of morality, writing around the issues raised by Peter Singer in his famous paper “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”. In terms of real action on the philosophical ground, it would difficult to think of a more influential contemporary paper. Indeed, The Open Syllabus Project (opensyllabusproject. org) has collated one million syllabi from university and departmental websites and ranked the works that appear most often on them. Singer’s paper checks in at 30, beaten out by the likes of Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy and Plato’s Republic, but among living authors the article ranks first. Part of the reason has to be that, like the problem of evil, you can get the argument up and running quickly, and the conclusion gets you where you live. Here it is in half a paragraph. Suffering from a lack of food, shelter and medical care is bad. If you can do something about suffering without sacrificing much, you ought to do it. If you saw a child drowning in a pond you ought to wade in and help, even if it means some small cost to you, like ruining your shoes. Right? Well, a lot of people, right now, are without food, shelter and medical care, and you could do something about it without sacrificing much, say giving the cost of a new pair of shoes to charity. The fact that the people in trouble are not right in front of you seems irrelevant. So you ought to do something, but what? That and more is the subject of this issue’s forum, introduced, I’m pleased to say, by Peter Singer himself. 3

Issue 73, 2nd Quarter 2016

3 From the Editor James Garvey

4 News Kerrie Grain

8 Uncomfortable Viewing A M Ferner

Opinions 14 The Five Perameters Rupert Read

22 Want to Be Good at Philosophy? Peter Boghossian and James A. Lindsay

28 The Skeptic Wendy M. Grossman

Thoughts 30 Remebering Hilary Putnam Lindsay Waters

33 Is Whiteness Really Real? Linda Martín Alcoff

41 Making Sense of Smell Ann-Sophie Barwich

48 When is it OK to Compromise? Mark D. White

54 Nicolas Malebranche Lawrence Harvey

The Forum: Effective Altruism 58 Introduction James Garvey

60 From “Famine, Affluence and Morality” to Effective Altruism Peter Singer

62 Risky Giving Theron Pummer

71 Being Right on the Money Hilary Greaves

77 From Charity to Justice Rachelle Bascara

84 Should it be More Affective? Samantha Earle and Rupert Read

92 Philosophical Critiques Jeff McMahan

Reviews 100 Can’t Everyone Just Comb Down? Jean Kazez

103 Teaching Plato in Palestine Taneli Kukkonen

105 Beyond the Abortion Wars Travis Timmerman

108 Transformative Experience Rachel McKinnon

110 Freedom Regained Tamler Sommers

112 The Stone Reader David Edmonds

119 What the Critics Said A. M. Ferner

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