October 4, 2009 – 7:38 pm
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 [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Authority, Autonomy, Duty, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Secularism
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Also tagged Deontology, Kant, Rational Action, Reason
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Njustus offers a probing challenge to my recent post in which I defend Daniel Dennett’s argument that atheists should stand up for atheism rather than take the attitude that the religious beliefs that they do not share are good for their neighbors and should be encouraged. I argued that Dennett’s position is not “ideologically narrow” [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Daniel Dennett, Faith, Intellectual Virtues, Political Secularism, Rationalism, Religion, Secularism
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Also tagged Belief in Belief, Civility, Irrationalism, Zarathustra
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I am puzzled by appeals to history to oppose gay marriage because history is only the story of what people have done and never of itself directly tells us anything about right or wrong. Results of history can serve as warnings about effective and uneffective approaches to goal x or goal y but what people [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Civil Rights, Cultural Secularism, Culture, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Gay Marriage, Homosexuality, Jesus, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Political Secularism, Politics, Psychology, Religion, Religious Secularism, Same Sex Marriage, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Social Psychology, Sociobiology, Sociology, Virtues
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Also tagged Attractions, Aversions, Beauty, Civil Unions, Definition of Marriage, Disgust, Gay Adoption, Homophobia, Irrational Moral Judgments, John Richardson, Jonathan Haidt, Joshua Greene, King David, Michel Foucault, Misogyny, Nathan The Prophet, Polygamy, Separate But Equal, Socrates, Traditionalism, Ugliness
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In a previous post, I raised some remarks from psychologist of morality Jonathan Haidt, in which he discussed his theory that moral thinking appeals to 5 essential modules hardwired into our brains by evolution. In the interview I cited from a couple of years ago he only referred to 4 of the 5 modules but [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Atheistic Ethics, Authority, Autonomy, Duty, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Sociobiology, Virtues
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Also tagged Arete, Aristotle, Care, Equality, Excellence, Fairness, Harm, Human Flourishing, Immanuel Kant, Ingroup Loyalty, Jonathan Haidt, Justice, Moral Goods, Moralism, Motives, Non-Moral Goods, Purity, Thomas Hurka, Tyler Samien, Values, Virtues
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Aaron writes this wonderfully thought provoking reply to my post about moral motivation apart from reference to God:
I had an argument a few years back with someone over this. She thought I’d go to hell for not believing in Jesus, even thought she thought I was a great person. I found that troubling. It doesn’t [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Christianity, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Fundamentalism, Islam, Moral Psychology, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion
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Also tagged Burqa, Culture, Exclusiveness, Group Psychology, Inclusiveness, Islamic Civilization, Jacques Derrida, Moral Absolutism, Moral Integration, Moral Relativism, Multiculturalism, Original Sin, Philosophy, Pluralism, Redemption, Religion, Thus Spoke Z, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Values Transformation, Western Civilization
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I loathe witch hunts over people’s personal lives. What interests me are some observations on sincerity and hypocrisy which seem apparent to me watching the bizarrely unself-aware and narcissistic way that Sanford has acted as though he is a character in the Bible or some other morality tale in which he is the star.
I don’t [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Ethics, Hypocrisy, Moral Psychology, News Discussion, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion
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Also tagged Duality, Freud, Jonathan Haidt, Lack of Self Awareness, Mark Sanford, Narcissism, National Review, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Sincerity, Vice
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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 [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Moral Psychology, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy
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Also tagged Aaron Ridley, Brian Leiter, Christopher Janaway, David Dudrick, David Owen, Freedom, John Richardson, Ken Gemes, Mathias Risse, Maudemarie Clark, Peter Poellner, Philosophy, Robert Pippin, Sebastian Gardner, Simon May
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As the school psychologist during all my undergraduate years as at Grove City College, Warren Throckmorton counseled a couple of my friends about their closeted homosexuality. (I also visited Professor Throckmorton while a junior and an Evangelical Christian for probably three elective counseling sessions but for different reasons. I liked him a lot.) Here’s how [...]
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, obedient [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Atheism, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Uncategorized
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Also tagged About this Blog, Camels, Dragon of Thou Shalt, Hammers, Immoralism, Lion, Philosophy, Three Transformations, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Truthfulness, Uncategorized
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Today, an excellent former student pushed me on the question of whether philosophy was more important than basic survival. I interpreted this question, at its core, to be whether freedom of thought is worth dying for. I think this because the right to philosophize for oneself is, at its core, the fundamental freedom of thought [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Applied Ethics, Ethics, News Discussion, Nietzsche, Philosophy
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Also tagged Courage, Freedom, Freedom of Thought, Iran, Liberalism, Philosophy, Politics, Power, Twilight of the Idols, Tyranny
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I’m really not sure that this is a very accurate inference about the nature of Nietzsche’s shift in writing style from his early works into his middle phase, but it’s interesting to ponder nonetheless:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google
Sometime in 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche bought a typewriter—a Malling-Hansen Writing Ball, to be precise. His vision was failing, and keeping his [...]
Thomas Huxley coined the word agnostic as a play on words. He was a philosopher who was irritated about the metaphysical presumptuousness of the philosophers around him who all seemed to know the secrets of the universe as though they had some special knowledge about things no one can really know about. He compared them, [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Atheism, Metaphysics, Nietzsche, Philosophy
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Also tagged Agnostic, Agnosticism, Early Christianity, Gnostics, Nietzche, Philosophy, The Existence of God, Thomas Huxley
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Whenever I cover the topic of abortion in my ethics classes, I go to great pains to stress to my students the value of a dispassionate inquiry on the subject. I discourage use of values charged, question begging language of “pro-choice” and “pro-life” and encourage more descriptive language of “pro-abortion [...]
Teeth
Sometimes people disagree about what makes for a horror film. As far as I’m concerned, the definitive feature of the genre is that it deals with frightening transgressions of nature and of morality. Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Teeth is horror that situates itself purely in terms of this defining characteristic. The horror [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Film, Nietzsche, Psychology, Sex
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Also tagged Aaron Eckhart, Ben Stiller, Catherine Keener, Despair, Films About Cruelty, Horror, Jesse Weixler, Mitchell Lichtenstein, Myths, Narcissism, Neil LaBute, Sexuality, Teeth, Your Friends and Neighbors
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In reply to my review of Peter Bogdanovich’s film about Tom Petty Running Down a Dream , “Lizzie B” over at the Tom Petty message board points out an oversight in my review. She astutely observes:
Something you didn’t touch on that really stood out to me in the film is Tom Petty’s shrewd [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Morality, Music, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
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Also tagged Drive Psychology, Music, Philosophy, The Soul, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
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Michel Gondry’s masterpiece The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, following Charlie Kaufman’s masterpiece script, is one of the most top to bottom brilliant achievements in film I have ever seen.
Taken as a science fiction film, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ranks as a model for the genre. The [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Bob Dylan, Film, Music, Nietzsche
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Also tagged Bob Dylan, Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Film Review, Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Michel Gondry, Most of the Time, Music
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What follows are a couple of replies to questions sent to me by a student this semester about Nietzsche’s views on politics and religion. While not definitive or thoroughly sourced discussions of Nietzsche’s thoughts on politics and religion, I think the sketches of Nietzsche’s positions as I formulated them in these replies have some [...]
By Daniel Fincke
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Posted in Atheism, God, Metaphysics, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Spinoza
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Also tagged Eternal Recurrence, Julian Young, Nietzsche's Philosophy of Religion, Pantheism, Philosophy, Politics, Spinoza
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[written January 4, 2007]
Best film of 2006, in my opinion. Just a stunning film. I was in love with it early on and then it took fascinating turn after fascinating turn and just became deeper and deeper.
It’s a truly sublime, sensual film that manages to communicate the power of scent through [...]
In Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part II, section 4 (Parkes translation, Oxford 2006)), we read:
Zealously and with much shouting they drove their herd over their bridge: as if to the future there were but one bridge! Verily, these herdsmen thesmelves still belonged among the sheep!
Little minds and capacious souls these shepherds had: but, my brothers, what [...]
This is not a site for Nietzsche’s ideas but a place for Nietzschean ideas. It is not a place for the dogmatic preaching of Nietzschean ideas. It is not a place where everyone will necessarily agree with Nietzschean ideas. It is a place where Nietzschean ideas will seduce us to many a new venture of thought and promise nothing more definitive than that.
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