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Articles

Big Ears, Meat and Morals

by Liz Mabbott

How big are your ears? This is a serious philosophical inquiry so don’t tell me to mind my own business. Furthermore, not only is this a philosophical inquiry in general, it is a philosophical inquiry from a specifically moral point of view. The size of your ears could also drastically improve your chances of your having the right to life recognised – or it could result in an untimely death – it all depends. Depends on what? Well, on your philosophical position of course. Contrary to what you might be thinking, I haven’t overdosed an obscure form of moral relativism which sees morality as confined to those with ears of a precise size, nor have I identified a previously unheard-of gene which extends the life-span of the small-eared, and mistakenly announced my findings in a philosophical publication.

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