Picture the following situation: You are taking a freshman-level philosophy class in college, and your professor has just asked you to imagine a runaway trolley barreling down a track toward a group of five people. The only way to save them from being killed, the professor says, is to hit a switch that will turn the trolley onto an alternate set of tracks where it will kill one person instead of five. Now you must decide: Would the mulling over of this dilemma enlighten you in any way?
In the darkness of early morning, 16-year-old Bruce Staeger lay splayed across his mattress, sleeping soundly for once. Most nights, he would smoke a blunt and crash, but not this one. Lately, his mother had been watching him closely. She and Bruce’s stepdad had even installed a motion detector on the porch of their doublewide trailer to keep him from sneaking out at night. Around 4:30 a.m., his bedroom light suddenly flipped on. Bruce rolled over, blocking his eyes from the glare to find his mom sitting on the edge of the bed. “Bruce, do you remember what I told you a few days ago?” She said softly. “I would never make a decision that would hurt you.”
Eighty years ago today, a four-year-old girl vanished into the Pennsylvania woods. The search captivated people across the nation — and some have never stopped looking.
What do you do when a favored delicacy becomes an unchecked epidemic? We might have some ideas …
The reaction when two people lock eyes in a crowded room is a staple of romantic cinema. But the complex, unconscious reactions that take place are anything but make believe.
Children’s shows often use non-standard dialects to voice the “bad guys,” sending a dangerous message to kids about diversity.
Cats are notorious for their indifference to humans: almost any owner will testify to how readily these animals ignore us when we call them. But a new study indicates domestic cats do recognize their own names—even if they walk away when they hear them.
How to nurture a love that “would stand as a firm wall,” that “won’t let you fall, and it gives warmth.”
Flooding in the historic city is about more than climate change — bad engineering and corruption are also to blame.
Kathy and I were getting serious. We’d talked about everything — we wanted to get married. We wanted children. But we hadn’t yet had “The Talk.” I was nervous, but I knew it was time to come clean.