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Whatever your life plan is, being able to use English smoothly will offer you many practical benefits, such as studying abroad, travelling around the world, making friends from another country, etc. But more importantly, it opens up an intellectual gateway which, if you choose to take it, will profoundly change how you see the world. Learning English is one of the best ways that you can invest in yourself. How I learned English When I moved to Canada, my English was so bad that I had trouble to order food in restaurants....

Some students asked me why I decided to leave IT industry and become an academic. I think the real question is whether I think it is a good idea to try to become a professor. And the answer is a firm no. I must emphasize that I am not advocating for abolishing PhD programs. It is important for a society to push for advancement in science and humanity. What I meant is that for the vast majority of people, a career in academic is not a good choice....

A Reckoning In recent years, plastic waste has got some of my attention. BBC’s hit documentary Blue Planet II (2017) shows me the horrific plastic pollution in our oceans. From another documentary The Story of Stuff, I learned how how the oil and plastic industry intentionally made us addicted to plastics. I also learned from a podcast by NPR (National Public Radio) that plastic recycling is more or less scam to keep us feeling OK about keep using plastics because they cannot really be recycled on a large scale....

When I read the book Strangers Drowning, I was very much impressed by the work of Ittetsu Nemoto, a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk, who dedicated his life to helping suicidal people. The book also briefly described his four-year extremely harsh ascetic training in an especially strict monastery. My interest was aroused. “Why does someone willingly go through such unimaginable hardship willingly?” This is why I picked up Eat Sleep Sit: My Year at Japan’s Most Rigorous Zen Temple by Kaoru Nonomura....

I’d like to thank Dr. Gregory Sadler for helpful comments on this post. \toc Who is Peter Singer? <center> Peter Singer at The College of New Jersey, Oct 2009.<br/> Bbsrock, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons. </center> I consider myself a follower of Stoicism philosophy. In recent years, I have read attentively ancient Roman Stoics as well as modern Stoic writers. Their inspiring words have helped me tremendously in dealing with everyday challenges....

A summary of Chapter 11 Objectivity Virtue ethics rejects the sort moral objectivity which Kant aspires to. The naturalism describe in the last three chapters also rejects the type of objectivity based on empirical facts accessible from a neutral point of view. However, it also does not assume our standard list of virtues is correct without need of validation. This is the type of objectivity naturalism can offer. But the study of objectivity should also give an account of ethical disagreement....

A summary of Chapter 10 Naturalism for Rational Animals. What Difference Does Our Rationality Make? Unlike animals, it is primarily our actions from reason that we are ethically good or bad human beings. In ethical naturalism, rationality makes a big difference. And adding rationality does not need to add the fifth end to the four other describe in the previous chapter. What characteristics do human have? Comparing to animals, it is hard to summarize....

A summary of Chapter 08 The Virtues Benefit Their Possessor. Can we objectively justify which character traits are the virtues? We can only do this from some already acquired ethical framework, instead from some external neutral point of view. Doing so risk just rationalize what we already believe. But if we think critically, little by little we many radically change our entire ethical outlook. The philosopher’s task was well compared by Neurath to that of a mariner who must rebuild his ship on the open sea....

A summary of Chapter 09 Naturalism. This chapter is about the 2nd Plato’s requirements of virtue in the last chapter – The virtues make their possessor a good human being. Virtue ethics is a type of ethical naturalism, i.e., basing ethics on considerations of human nature, or on what is involved in being a good human. The objective of such an approach is that an account of human nature may be too broad for making moral judgement, or too strong to the extend that it is just a restatement of our ethics....