Nietzsche casts himself, quite provocatively, as an “immoralist”. In this post, I want to make clear what Nietzsche means by this term as a first step towards understanding the exact nature and scope of his hostility to morality. As should already be apparent to longtime Camels With Hammers readers, I am optimistic about philosophy’s possibilities [...]
In recent posts I have been arguing that there is one sense of the word “good” which can be analyzed in terms of facts and that this is the kind of “goodness” which we can consider a real part of the world. This real, intrinsic, factual sense of goodness is its meaning as “effectiveness”. We [...]
In this post, I explore the meanings and worths of two phenomena recognized by our language as of happiness, in reply to remarks by James Gray on my most recent post. For a little background for those joining late and who would like to catch up: I have been arguing in several posts now that goodness [...]
In a previous post, I discussed the intrinsic connection between being and goodness and between functional activity and being. I argued, for example that the various components of a heart need to function as a heart to be a heart and similarly that a human being must act morally to realize her humanity. Specifically, I [...]
Nietzsche’s writings on morality are famously provocative and controversial. His criticisms of morality in both theory and practice are so extensive and rhetorically scathing that many philosophers assume that he can offer little or nothing constructive to moral philosophy. Additionally, his glorification of the will to power sounds prima facie like a celebration of excessively [...]
In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices [...]
Before we get to the philosophy this time, let’s enjoy my favorite Flaming Lips song: In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or [...]
In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices [...]
In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices [...]
In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices [...]
In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices [...]
After this introductory paragraph, every sentence in this post will summarize and link a different post expressing my views, primarily on topics related to atheism, philosophy, and ethics—which are the primary preoccupations of this blog. I am organizing all of these links into this one summary statement of “Camels With Hammers’ Philosophy.” This post will [...]
In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices [...]
In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices [...]
As part of a 9 page critical review of Robert Wright’s The Evolution of God, Jerry Coyne levels more than a few incisive challenges countering Wright’s faith in religion as an indispensible aid to moral progress. Here are just a few of Coyne’s key points. First he enlists David Hume to challenge Wright’s assumption that [...]
Some day down the road, I hope to sift all my thoughts on empathy and “wise Latinas judges” in light of Nietzsche’s wealth of insights into perspectival knowledge as a more virile knowledge than the emasculation that comes through objectivity. (Genealogy of Morals III:12) But to hold us over in the meantime, here is Joseph [...]
(It should not be necessary for understanding this post, but for the full backstory to this debate see my series on Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals, parts 1, 2, 3, & 4 and my post “On Teleology and Intellectual Virtues and Vices”) Shane writes in reply to my post “On Teleology and Intellectual Virtues [...]
An important looking new collection of articles on a crucial topic (especially for my dissertation) called Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy is coming out July1. It is co-edited by Ken Gemes and Simon May (whose book, Nietzsche’s War on Morality is one of the very best, if not the very best, books on Nietzsche’s ethics [...]
Jürgen Habermas, whose powerful account of deliberative democracy every one should study at some point, turns 80 today. Here are some remarks they got from him about current events: ‘Politics ridicules itself if it moralizes, instead of basing itself on the coercive right of the democratic lawmaker” ‘In most countries of the continent there are [...]
Evangelos has asked and it’s a good question, so here’s a brief explanation: It’s a combination of two images in Nietzsche. The camel comes from “The Three Transformations,” a section of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He is there describing transformations that the “spirit” must undergo. First it must become a camel. The camel represents austere, ascetic, [...]
Yesterday, I excerpted from a blog post which discussed several books which make the case for an interpretation of biblical texts as not merely not homophobic but as positively homophilic. Granting for argument’s sake that this intriguing interpretation was a sound textual reading of the Bible, does that therefore make it the “best” way to [...]
Adam Kotsko writes that Theodore Jennings’s forthcoming book, Plato or Paul?: The Origins of Western Homophobia completes a kind of trilogy on homophobia, consisting also of The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives in the New Testament and Jacob’s Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel. The strategy here is clear, aggressive, and [...]