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 [...]
I wrote my doctoral dissertation primarily on Nietzsche’s philosophy. In the first four chapters, I developed a textual, systematic reading of Nietzsche’s views on metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, and in the fifth chapter I gave my own account of metaethics which attempted, on the one hand, to further develop, supplement, and systematize Nietzsche’s best ideas, [...]
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 [...]
Ophelia Benson, PZ Myers, and Jerry Coyne are dismissing the bizarre notion that lacking the New Atheists somehow lack credibility for lacking martyrs. On this topic, Nietzsche has already far more eloquently said far more than I ever could: Zealously and with much shouting they drove their herd over their bridge: as if to the [...]
Buy one from the Unemployed Philosophers Guild (whose proceeds go to support unemployed philosophers. A most worthy cause). And via Malcolm, here’s an avatar version for your use on your Facebook (or other) profile! Your Thoughts?
In a recent post, I wrote the following: Changing people’s minds to make them stop holding positions dogmatically and instead hold them tentatively is still a change of mind one may zealously pursue. On Facebook, Greg writes in reply: I want to address the peculiarity of this statement. One may passionately pursue such a change [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Through Facebook, I was recently contacted by an old friend from high school (who was actually the first girl to go on a date with me). She is working on her Master’s in nursing and has an assignment which involves interviewing people about their views on religion and spirituality, for the purpose of thinking about approaches [...]
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, [...]
From ages 5-21, my entire time as part of the Protestant Christian Church, I was more specifically a member of the “non-denominational” Church of Christ which arose out of the “Restoration Movement” of America’s 2nd Great Awakening. John W. Loftus, a former minister and fellow former member of the Church of Christ turned atheist, has a [...]
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. [...]
This is from 2007 and I just found that it pops right up when one Googles me. It’s hard for me to watch because it involves watching me. But I figured it might be of interest to others. Forgive the extemporaneousness of it all and enjoy some of the more hilarious hand gestures. (My favorite [...]
So Chris Mooney’s article in Playboy about the spirituality of scientists has sparked some interesting debate in the atheist blogosphere. His new post on the subject explicitly interprets his aims and themes in the piece as essentially saying what I interpreted them to be—to defend the idea that you can have completely sufficient spirituality without [...]
With Sam Harris doing the rounds promoting a utilitarianism that seems to take the pleasures of sentient beings to be the good to be maximized, it’s as appropriate a time as ever to flesh out my objections to prioritizing pleasure and pain as the central goods in life. More specifically, you can read my already [...]
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 [...]
In a recent comments section, Gregory Wahl argued to me that religion is so deeply rooted in psychological needs, specifically the longing for immortality, that there is an inherent limitation to the ability of all my philosophical arguments to dissuade the faithful. As this line of reasoning goes, they do not believe for intellectual reasons [...]
Barrett Brown, the director of communications for the godless lobby “Enlighten The Vote” and a contributor to skeptic magazines, explains why he deserves all the mean e-mails he gets: In my defense, though, I didn’t choose to be either an atheist or a skeptic; rather, these were simply mindsets I came to adopt around the [...]
The Peaceful Atheist finds “consciousness-lowering” experiences in which she escapes her aloof and wandering mind to reconnect with her tangible and oft-forgotten body to be greater than her many “consciousness-raising” experiences. She writes: It’s extremely hard for me to escape the internal labyrinth of my mind and focus completely on something external. Often after being [...]
If our minds take to be true only what evolution has conditioned us to think is true for the sake of fitness for survival, does this mean that our beliefs cannot be genuinely true but only some sort of useful ways of thinking that do not necessarily track how the world actually is? And if [...]
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 [...]
This week from Chaos Pet: And find out why Nester is frustrated with time travel here. Your Thoughts?
You would have been 165 today. It is a shame you didn’t make it past 55 and even a greater shame that your mind didn’t make it past 44. There was still so much to be clarified, developed, and newly discovered.
(I’m moving this post written for “Blasphemy Day” to the front page today as its basic themes relate to “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” which occurs today.) So today is “Blasphemy Day.” Here’s what it’s about: Blasphemy Day International is an international campaign seeking to establish September 30th as a national day to promote free speech [...]