New additions to the Heap of Links…

1. “People don’t want to associate with material things that are associated with evil” — there are irrational reasons for this, but also a rational one, writes James Harold (Mount Holyoke)
2. The collective project of building a comprehensive mathematical “proof assistant” is underway and will probably take decades — one wonders whether such a project would be possible, eventually, for parts of philosophy
3. “Philosophers are excellent candidates for the program” — Shane Wilkins on the Presidential Management Fellowship, a 2-year program to train recent graduate degree earners for positions in the US federal government
4. “Pregnancy is an epistemically transformative experience” — and, says Fiona Woollard (Southampton), “this matters because in order to think properly about the ethics of abortion we need to know what being pregnant is like”
5. Real life population ethics case — what’s better: fewer kids created, each with a lower chance of injury in a car crash, or more kids created, each with a higher chance of such injury? (via Robert Long)
6. More on publishing philosophy one doesn’t believe — Will Fleisher (Northeastern) responds to Alexandra Plakias (Hamilton)
7. If you’re a philosophy professor, you can nominate someone for the Nobel Peace Prize — professors in some other disciplines can, too

Mini-Heap posts appear when 7 or so new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, the ever-growing collection of items from around the web that may be of interest to philosophers. Discussion welcome.

The Heap of Links consists partly of suggestions from readers; if you find something online that you think would be of interest to the philosophical community, please send it in for consideration for the Heap. Thanks!