Armchair philosophers seek the truth, but may prefer the truth be presented in bite-size nuggets of meditation. In The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten (paperback), Julian Baggini offers 100 provocative thought experiments that cover a few pages each, inspired by everyone from Friedrich Nietzsche to Steven Spielberg. Here's a sampler.
ABOUT A BOYCOTT
By boycotting companies that exploit employees, are people encouraging
better working conditions or simply putting underpaid workers out of a
job?
CRIME OR REASON
In Philip K. Dick's The Minority Report and Spielberg's 2002 film adaptation, a pre-crime system convicts people predisposed to break the law even before they've done the deed. Can human behavior be predicted
with 100 percent accuracy?
MAY I BE ON THE MENU?
Vegetarians argue against killing animals for consumption, but what if
livestock were engineered with the desire to be eaten, as in Douglas
Adams' novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe?
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