Mike O’Brien is a compulsive reader and thinker who is occasionally dragged, kicking and screaming, into writing things. Prior works include an MA thesis on democratic legitimacy and ecological stewardship, a theatrical pro-wrestling detective noir, and a stand-up show about knife sharpening and the philosophy of technology. He is a long-time staffer at Mainline Theatre and the St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival, and a collaborator with the Environmental and Animal Ethics Research Group at l’Université de Montréal. Email: mike [at] flowspace.org
by Mike O’Brien I heard a discussion about animal ethics recently, and the concept of “full moral standing” came up. The presumption was that we humans, certainly most of us and maybe even all of us, enjoyed this full moral standing, and the ethical quandary to be sorted was whether any other beings did as…
by Mike O’Brien They say that everyone’s a critic. Some more than others. I have a particularly critical streak, that occasionally strays into full-on curmudgeonry. I have a few excuses. First, the generally awful and worsening state of the world tends to put me into a bit of cranky mood. Second, I am lazy, and…
by Mike O’Brien I don’t always make great decisions, but swearing off political commentary two months ago was a really, really good one. Ahem. As I stated two columns ago, I’ve been wanting to write more about ecological ethics, and more specifically about ethical obligations across species. Last month I laid out my criticisms of…
by Mike O’Brien There’s a concept in education, particularly science education, called “lies-to-children”. It roughly means this: some matters are so complicated that they cannot be clearly understood when accurately presented. So, if you want a naive audience (“children”) to eventually understand how these complex matters actually work, you need to prepare their minds with…
by Mike O’Brien I’m disappointed in my columns so far. Not to say that they’ve been completely without value; I’ve managed to turn out some decent pieces and some kind readers have taken the time to tell me as much. But, taken together, my output exhibits a fault that I had sought to avoid from…
by Mike O’Brien This column is not about the American election. You’re welcome. Instead, I want to write about evidence, justification, and risk. This is partly a response to very recent events, and partly a regurgitation of some ideas I ruminated on years ago. First, the recent bits. I was listening to the Montreal branch…
by Mike O’Brien (Disclaimer: I have spent the last month in a cabin in the woods, and during that time the media has caught wind of TwinsTheNewTrend and spilled ink about their appeal and significance. What I have written below may therefore be redundant. But it’s still got a hep beat you can bug out…
by Mike O’Brien One of the greatest joys of my graduate studies was reading primary sources in full, rather than a mishmash of summaries and excerpts. I could have done this prior to graduate school, but I didn’t, because I was lazy. (I am still lazy.) Having to read and re-read the works of authors,…
by Mike O’Brien It’s a bountiful feast for discriminating worriers like myself. Every day brings a tantalizing re-ordering of fears and dangers; the mutation of reliable sources of doom, the emergence of new wild-card contenders. Like an improbably long-lived heroin addict, the solution is not to stop. That’s no longer an option, if it ever…