David Benatar

Jan 16, 2025 | psyche.co | David Benatar

While honouring people’s preferred pronouns, we’ve begun to neglect forms of formal address. Perhaps we need a rethinkReferring to people by their preferred pronouns has come to be seen by many people, at least in Western societies, as mandated not merely by manners but also by morality. People include their pronoun preferences in their email footers and declare them on name badges. Those who do not announce their preferences often have these solicited.

Aug 2, 2024 | quillette.com | Benny Morris |Russell Blackford |Matt Johnson |David Benatar

Introduction: My guest today is the philosopher Oliver Traldi. Oliver is a postdoctoral fellow at the James Madison Program at Princeton University and an incoming professor at the Honors College of the University of Tulsa. I talked to Oliver about his recent book, Political Beliefs: A Philosophical Introduction, published by Routledge University Press. Oliver has chosen to forgo royalty payments in exchange for permission to make his book freely available online.

Aug 1, 2024 | quillette.com | Benny Morris |Russell Blackford |Matt Johnson |David Benatar

In around 538 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus the Great, who had just conquered Babylon (Mesopotamia), allowed the Jews to return to their homeland, the Land of Israel, and rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. Forty-eight years earlier, the Babylonians had conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and exiled many of the Jewish elite to Babylon. In 520–515 BCE, Darius I, Cyrus II’s son, promoted the completion of the temple, siphoning off taxes farmed in Syria for this purpose.

Jul 31, 2024 | quillette.com | Russell Blackford |Matt Johnson |David Benatar |Aaron Sarin

This year, Australia has witnessed a series of terrifying crimes, which gained widespread media attention. Most shocking, perhaps, was the killing spree by Joel Cauchi at a shopping mall in Sydney’s Bondi Junction on 13 April. Cauchi stabbed six people to death, five of them women, before he was fatally shot by female police officer Amy Scott, who has been commended for her bravery.

Jul 24, 2024 | jme.bmj.com | David Benatar

AnimalsGenetic EngineeringTissue and Organ ProcurementTransplantationRodger et al1 argue that ‘ethically defensible xenotransplantation should entail the use of genetic disenhancement if it is demonstrated that’ the pain and suffering of donor pigs ‘cannot be eliminated by other means’. The phrase ‘genetic disenhancement’ refers to genetic manipulation that would produce an animal that is either less able or entirely unable to experience pain and suffering.