Philosophy and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

ANDREW ABERDEIN Associate Professor of Humanities and Communication at Florida Institute of Technology, USA TIMOTHY CHAPPELL Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Ethics Centre at The Open University and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Moral Philosophy in The University of St Andrews, UK BARRY DAINTON Professor of Philosophy, University of Liverpool, UK MICHÈLE FRIEND Assistant Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University, USA JERRY GOODENOUGH Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and an Associate Lecturer of the Open University, UK ELOISE HARDING Teaching assistant in the Philosophy Department at the University of Stirling, UK AMY KIND Associate Professor of Philosophy and Chair, Department of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College, California, USA ALEXANDER PAWLAK BEN SAUNDERS Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Stirling, UK

Preface Acknowledgements ('thanks for all the fish') Introduction Nicholas Joll Notes on Contributors PART I: ETHICS 'Eat Me': Vegetarianism and Consenting Animals; B.Saunders & E.Harding Mostly Harmless? Hitchhiker's and the Ethics of Entertainment; N.Joll PART II: THE MEANING OF LIFE Life, the Universe, and Absurdity; A.Kind The Wowbagger Case: Immortality and What Makes Life Meaningful; T.Chappell PART III: METAPHYSICS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 'I Think You Ought To Know I'm Feeling Very Depressed': Marvin and Artificial Intelligence; J.Goodenough From Deep Thought to Digital Metaphysics; B.Dainton PART IV: LOGIC, METHOD, AND SATIRE 'God . . Promptly Vanishes in a Puff of Logic'; M.Friend The Judo Principle, Philosophical Method, and the Logic of Jokes; A.Aberdein The Funniest of All Improbable Worlds Hitchhiker's as Philosophical Satire; A.Pawlak & N.Joll Glossary Bibliography (of Adams, Philosophy, and Everything) Indexes