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Martin Carcieri

Physician-Assisted Suicide and Beyond: What Would Rawls Do?

Marty Carcieri

January 5, 2014

Physician-Assisted Suicide, even for the terminally ill, is legal in only four U.S. States. Yet there are now proposals in the U.S. and abroad to extend the right to die (i.e., to obtain and consume a reliable lethal dose of barbiturates) even further: 1) to those over 70 years of age, and 2) to those whose longtime spouses are near death and who wish to die with them. How would these proposals fare under the principles of justice articulated and defended by John Rawls, the most influential political theorist of our time? Friend of SVH Martin Carcieri will present his application of Rawlsian principles to one of the most urgent public policy issues of our time.

Martin Carcieri is an Associate Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, where he teaches courses and seminars on Constitutional Law and Political Theory. He holds a J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California, and has published twenty-five journal articles and book chapters.

To learn more before the presentation on Sunday, you can read the handout.

Annie Ashmore

Invisible Children

Annie Ashmore

December 29, 2013

Invisible Children (www.invisiblechildren.com) is an organization dedicated to ending, and helping people recover from, the extreme damage caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Led by Joseph Kony, the LRA has operated in Uganda and neighboring countries since 1986. Kony has been accused by government entities of ordering the abduction of children to become child-sex slaves and child soldiers (an estimated 66,000 children have become soldiers). He was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in 2005, but has evaded capture.

Annie Ashmore, a freshman in college who led her high school’s Invisible Children group for several years, will discuss the inspiring work of the many young people who volunteer for the Invisible Children group. She will be asking for donations for this project.

History of the LRA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrva2aKW1lU

Overview of flyer dropping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf9yiDWXaiU

Reintegration success: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3TiGPewgbM

Arthur Jackson

Human Nature: Genetic Propensities and Symbolic Language

Arthur Jackson

December 22, 2013

Drawing from his 2011 book, How to Live the Good Life: A User’s Guide for Modern Humans, author Arthur Jackson will discuss “human nature.” His work is considered seminal to understanding why people do what they do.

Jackson, a long-time Humanist activist, served as Assistant Director of the American Humanist Association (1965-69). Coordinated activities for Humanist Celebrants who serve as alternatives to Ministers, Priests, and Rabbis as well as AHA’s chapter program; was Editorial Associate The Humanistmagazine (1965-69); chaired the International Humanist & Ethical Union’s Working Party on Humanist Counseling (1968-78); developed a model AHA Humanist chapter and served as full time Executive Director of the Humanist Community of San Jose (HCSJ) (1969-76); and sponsored a humanist group at Soledad State Prison (1970-73).

Michelle Chappel

Feeling Stuck? Shake it Up!

Michelle Chappel

December 15, 2013

Do you long for a more creative, meaningful life? Although 87% of us believe that unleashing creativity is important to our personal and professional lives, only one in four people think they’re creative. This fun and inspiring talk discusses breakthroughs in psychology, art, science, and business to help shake up your self-limiting beliefs and spark creativity in all aspects of your life.

Dr. Michelle Chappel is an internationally acclaimed musician, businesswoman and keynote speaker who inspires us to be more creative in work, school and life. She has a BS from Georgetown and PhD from Princeton in psychology. After being voted “Most Inspirational Professor” at the University of California, Santa Cruz, she ditched academics to follow her childhood dream to be a singer-songwriter-producer.

View Michelle Chappel’s Feeling Stuck slides.

Daniel B. Miller

Free Will

Daniel B. Miller

December 8, 2013

Dan Miller will discuss the conundrum of free will versus determinism, with a focus on opposing viewpoints put forward by two of our country’s most distinguished freethinkers, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris.

In Elbow Room and Freedom Evolves, Dennett (author of Breaking The Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon) outlines his vision of “the kind of free will worth having,” and puts forward a compelling case that we do indeed possess this specific kind of freedom.

In “Free Will”, Sam Harris presents a contrasting view, arguing that free will is fundamentally an illusion. He makes his case in a spirit similar to his argument against religion in his most famous work, The End Of Faith.

So — is free will just another ghostly goblin of magical thinking? Or is it something we can define and observe critically, and put on a sound, logical, scientific basis? This question may be of more than rhetorical value to academics and armchair philosophers. The notion of free will, and the contrary opinion that it is but a phantom illusion, have both been used (and continue to be used today) to make fundamental arguments about ethics, personal responsibility, social justice and many important issues. How we define and explain (or explain away) free will can have a profound effect on our world view, politics, and the way we perceive and value the world around us.

Dan Miller of Palo Alto has been part of our Humanist Community for several years. He has been a musician, computer programmer, and entrepreneur. More on his background, including published papers and related work, can be found at http://www.squiggle.com/danbmil/