When Ethics and Autonomous Cars Collide

Will You Be Able to Trust Your Self-Driving Vehicle to Make the Right Choice in a Crash?

Imagine the beginning of what promises to be an awesome afternoon: You’re cruising along in your car and the sun is shining. The windows are down, and your favorite song is playing on the radio. Suddenly, the truck in front of you stops without warning. As a result, you are faced with three, and only three, zero-sum options.

In your first option, you can rear-end the truck. You’re driving a big car with high safety ratings so you’ll only be slightly injured, and the truck’s driver will be fine.

Alternatively, you …

California Needs to Embrace the Apocalypse

Why Gov. Jerry Brown Is Practicing ‘Enlightened Doomsaying’ to Save the State—and the World

Is California being governed by apocalyptic French philosophy?

Oui. But it’s not the end of the world.

Indeed, apocalyptic French philosophy may finally provide clarity for those of us long puzzled …

Who Needs Religion When You Have a Camera?

I Was Looking for Spiritual Transformation. Instead I Found the Work of Minor White.

Minor White believed that photography has the potential to spiritually transform the viewer as well as the practitioner. I can attest to that because it happened to me a long, …

Philosopher Alain de Botton

He Crawled Off to Think in the Bath

Alain de Botton is a philosopher and critic who is the founder of “Living Architecture” and “The School of Life”; his most recent books are The News: A User’s Manual …

News Is the New Religion

Philosopher Alain de Botton Wants News Junkies to Consider What Their Fix Is Doing to Them

We’re obsessed with the news. Most of us check the headlines on our mobile devices up to eight times a day. But at a Zócalo/Getty Center event, philosopher Alain de …

Settle Up, Settle In, Settle For—Just Settle!

Political Philosopher Robert E. Goodin Says It’s Time for Us to Temper Our Striving

In Squaring Off, Zócalo invites authors into the public square to answer five questions about the essence of their books. For this round, we pose questions to Australia National University …