Also, another difference with academic papers is that they’re often upfront about their intentions to defend a particular position, so readers don’t get the impression that a paper gives a balanced or fair treatment of the relevant issues. Utilitarianism.net is not upfront about this, and also makes some attempt to cover each side, but does so selectively and with dismissive language, so it may give a false impression of fairness.
That’s fair. Although on the point of covering both sides to a degree that at least seems typical of works of this genre. The Very Short Introduction series is the closest I have ever gotten to being assigned a textbook in a philosophy class, and usually they read about like this. Singer and de Lazari Radek’s Utilitarianism Very Short Introduction seems very stylistically similar in certain ways for instance. But I do think it makes sense that they should be more upfront about the scope at least.
Also, another difference with academic papers is that they’re often upfront about their intentions to defend a particular position, so readers don’t get the impression that a paper gives a balanced or fair treatment of the relevant issues. Utilitarianism.net is not upfront about this, and also makes some attempt to cover each side, but does so selectively and with dismissive language, so it may give a false impression of fairness.
That’s fair. Although on the point of covering both sides to a degree that at least seems typical of works of this genre. The Very Short Introduction series is the closest I have ever gotten to being assigned a textbook in a philosophy class, and usually they read about like this. Singer and de Lazari Radek’s Utilitarianism Very Short Introduction seems very stylistically similar in certain ways for instance. But I do think it makes sense that they should be more upfront about the scope at least.