Deafness is generally treated and regarded as a disability, but could it be reasonable to regard it more like an ethnicity? That will probably sound intuitively false to most people, but there are a number of aspects of deaf "culture" which are surprisingly close to what we usually think of as being central to ethnicity. Even if deafness isn't really an ethnicity, it might be useful to think of it in those terms sometimes.

Why do we prefer some things rather than others? How exactly do we reason through our preferences and arrive at conclusions about what we should do? How do outside circumstances influence our preferences and why? These are all questions that have profound implications in religion, politics, philosophy, advertising, and more. Unfortunately, we don't know a lot about the logic behind preferences.

Much of what the Tea Party in America is doing is premised on a particular understanding of American history — and especially of the American Revolution. This sort of political movement and use of history is not new, though it may be uniquely American. The status of the American Revolution is such that it is almost begging to be used and misused for various ideological agendas. Sadly, the Tea Party's use of the American Revolution may be among the most egregious misuses yet.

The concept of dehumanization is something that can be found across all of human culture and throughout human history. It's so common that it's amazing no one has seriously studied and written about it, but apparently that's the case — at least until now. But it is definitely a subject that we all need to learn more about because it has played such a significant (albeit negative) role in human affairs.

We are living in what many are calling the "biotechnology" century and we are likely to face a host of ethical dilemmas that we are ill prepared for. In fact, the process is already happening because advances in so much medical care are creating difficult ethical decisions that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. Today, however, patients and professionals have to be better prepared.