Young Philosophers in Elstree

(posted by Adam)

This Thursday four debate chamber tutors visited Habedashers’ Aske’s School for Girls in Elstree to deliver a half-day philosophy workshop for pupils in year 8.  The course was a basic introduction to epistemology and ethics. Students worked in groups, using thought experiments to bring the ideas alive. They put themselves in a wide range of imaginary situations: amnesiac castaways on a desert island, passengers on the Titanic fighting over lifeboats and government scientists trying to allocate research funds. We had a great time getting stuck into arguments ranging from whether we can know if we are all living in a dream to if we ever had a duty to sacrifice our lives for others. My group had a particularly impassioned discussion on the question of whether  it was ever right to experiment on monkeys for the sake of humans (consensus: no).

By the end of the morning students had a grasp of major arguments surrounding a number of topics including arguments for and against skepticism, moral realism versus anti-realism and deontology versus consequentialism. They had also concluded (after some reflection) that earthworms do not in fact have human rights.

Find out more about in-school philosophy workshops here.