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 [...]
It’s time for another award for a commenter who says something that needs no further commentary. This time the award goes to James Sweet who offered this response to the post about hate messages against an atheist on Facebook: This is probably a minority of Christians who are like this. A significant minority, mind you, [...]
In response to my earlier post praising a young Christian man who reached out with love to what he thought was a lesbian couple being berated by a cruel and judgmental waitress, Justin writes: Not to point out the obvious, but homosexuality is a sin, You have indeed not pointed out anything obvious. Homosexuality is [...]
In four previous posts, I have discussed with the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, the problems with forming one’s identity based on one’s beliefs (or non-beliefs), and how atheists should respond to the possibly religious dimensions of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the installment of [...]
One of the very best atheist YouTube video makers now weighs in on morality: Your Thoughts?
Jean Kazez argues that the public square is not the place for atheists to be arguing that science and religion are incompatible. I strongly reject her position on this point because not only do I believe that ordinary people are quite capable of handling a vigorous, no-holds-barred debate about religion but because I believe the [...]
Kwame Anthony Appiah explores a thesis I’ve never heard before in his new book, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen summarized by Matthew Pianalto: Judged by contemporary Western standards, honour has a mixed moral record. On the one hand, a sense of gentlemanly honour underwrote the practice of duelling, long after it had been [...]
In an e-mail to me, Caroline proposes thought provoking reasons for non-believers to encourage (or at least to not actively discourage) religious beliefs: It would also be nice if people would carry out actions in good conscience of just being decent human beings rather than in fear of reprisal in the afterlife, but as there [...]
In “The Three Transformations of the Spirit” in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and Nobody, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra describes the human spirit as successively taking three different forms: the camel, the lion, and the child. The transformations begin with the spirit of the camel, which Nietzsche characterizes as consisting of obedient, self-sacrificing, reverential, [...]
Earlier today, I argued that atheists can vigorously and outspokenly oppose bad faith-based ideas, values, and behaviors, but still love other aspects of the religiosity of their religious friends (and of religious people in general). I argued that religion can be as central to personal identity formation as sexuality is and that to indiscriminately hate [...]
Atheists do not exactly claim to “love sinners but hate sins” (if for no other reason than that most, if not all, of us reject the category of “sin” as a meaningful or valuable way to talk about ethical failure). Also, atheists may be more realistic than to think that we really do, or feasibly [...]
Many a homophobic religious person has infamously claimed that when it comes to gays he “loves the sinner but hates the sin” and many a defender of the full dignity and ethical lives of gay people has judged such a compromised offer of love inadequate (if not insincere). This cannot be because it is impossible [...]
This is a renamed repost of July 24, 2009 post called “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways”: In the first part of this series, I explored the reasons for rejecting “unconditional” love as a candidate for the ideal essence of love since as a concept it is riddled with numerous problems [...]
The moral philosopher Jonathan Glover interviewed a number of anti-social people, including psychopaths, who have committed serious crimes and live in secure hospitals in order to investigate how they think about right and wrong and what sort of conscience they have. He thinks they have a conscience, but one unlike others’. They have strong feelings [...]
Drew Dyck has written a book called Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Faith. . .and How to Bring Them Back. I want to focus on just a few passages from his interesting five page article from last fall in last November’s Christianity Today. Unlike many Christians who, despite living in a culture [...]
In his book Moral Status and Human Life: The Case for Children’s Superiority, law professor James Dwyer argues that children are not merely equal to adults in moral status but actually have a higher moral status than adults. Below is a brief video in which he sketches out the broad contours of his thought on moral [...]
In reply to my post, Against Moral Intuitionism, James Gray defended his moral intuitionist leanings against my attacks on them. He starts by quoting me: But many people can be and have been persuaded that goodness is not a property of things but rather of people’s attitudes towards them. The very existence of anti-realists about the existence [...]
In reply to my post, Pleasure And Pain As Intrinsic Instrumental Goods, James objects: You are defining pleasure as intrinsic instrumental good. This is obviously not intrinsic goodness as I define it at all. Instrumental goodness is not intrinsic goodness. A successful pleasure instance is an intrinsically good instance of pleasure in-itself and for-itself, just for being [...]
In a recent post I distinguished numerous times between moral and non-moral values and between different sorts of intrinsic and instrumental goods. James Gray asks for clarifications about how I use these terms: First, I don’t know that it matters to call something a “moral value.” Of course, there are instrumental values concerning morally neutral [...]
In the series of posts I began on Sunday and which has continued through this morning, I have developed and defended my naturalistic approach to understanding value as a realist. James Gray, despite being a moral realist, has balked at much in my attempts to do this and it has become increasingly clear that the [...]
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 [...]
I have recently been arguing that the term good: must be cashed out in fact terms lest it just be a projection of our preferences and nothing more. [And] if it means anything objective, it means effectiveness. In reply, James Gray accuses me of reductionism: One, “good” does not have be defined in non-good terms. [...]
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 recent post I argued that goodness, objectively speaking, means effectiveness. Of course we use the word “good” for numerous purposes, to express that we find something pleasant, desirable, useful, advantageous to our interests, etc. But I want to argue that when it comes to the facts of reality, goodness has only this one essential [...]
In my most recent philosophical post, I have finally explained one of the most fundamental premises necessary for explaining and justifying my overall views on ethics. I explained my view that goodness objectively means effectiveness and that all further true ideas of “good” should be understood only as derivative from the basic good of effectiveness. Also [...]