Note: This Sunday is the first “Philosophy in Action” Webcast. It’s the same great content, but with a new name and web site. Alas, the web site isn’t quit ready yet… but it will be by Sunday! So expect some of the links below to be broken, at least for another day or two. I’m so excited for this change, particularly in light of the months of work that I’ve put into it!

In my live “Philosophy in Action” Webcast on Sunday morning, I’ll answer questions on the morality of working for a minister, giving away unhealthy food, voting for horrible politicians, celebrating holidays, and more. Please join us for this hour of lively discussion, where we’ll apply rational principles to the challenges of living virtuous, happy, and free lives!

• What: Live “Philosophy in Action” Webcast
• Who: Diana Hsieh (Ph.D, Philosophy) and Greg Perkins
• When: Sunday, 6 November 2011 at 8 am PT / 9 am MT / 10 am CT / 11 am ET
• Where: www.PhilosophyInAction.com/live

Here are the questions that I’ll answer this week:

• Question 1: The Morality of Working for a Minister: Is working for a minister giving religion moral sanction? As an atheist, I once worked for an ordained minster who was the owner of a gallery. I became his manager when I made it clear that I was an atheist, but that I was a good framing manager. I don’t think I gave him a moral sanction for his irrationality by working for him under those terms. What do you think?
• Question 2: Giving Away Unhealthy Food: Is it immoral to give away food that you regard as unhealthy? Assuming that one believes (as I do) that candy and sweets are harmful to health (especially in quantity), is it immoral to participate in trick-or-treat by giving children candy when they come to your door? Or, is it immoral to “dispose” of an unwanted gift of, say, a rich chocolate cake by leaving it by the coffee machine at work to be quickly scarfed up by one’s co-workers (as an alternative to simply discarding it)? Is the morality of these two cases different because in one case the recipients are children while in the other case they are adults?
• Question 3: Voting for Horrible Politicians: All the candidates are nearly perfectly horrid, just in different ways. Why should I even bother to vote?
• Question 4: Celebrating Holidays: What is the value of celebrating holidays? How do you think holidays should or should not be celebrated? Also, what is your favorite holiday and how do you like to celebrate it?

After that, we’ll do a round of totally impromptu “Rapid Fire Questions.”

If you can’t attend the live webcast, you can listen to these webcasts later as audio-only podcasts by subscribing to the NoodleCast RSS feed:

• Enhanced M4A Feed: Subscribe in iTunes or your RSS reader
• Standard MP3 Feed: Subscribe in iTunes or your RSS reader

You can also listen to full episodes or just selected questions from any past episode in the Webcast Archive. Also, don’t forget to submit and vote on the questions that you’d most like me to answer from the ongoing Question Queue.

I hope to see you on Sunday morning!