Below is a great dialogue between Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene and Yale “experimental philosopher” Joshua Knobe laying out some of the basics of moral psychology. I took notes as I watched the video, summarizing the major points for myself and for your use, dear blogreader. It will be easier to just watch the video, of [...]
Summary of the video and the contents of the whole lecture: Timothy Ferris, Former Editor of Rolling Stone and Professor Emeritus at U.C. Berkeley, makes the case that science inspired the spread of democracy. Just as the scientific revolution rescued billions from poverty, fear, hunger and disease, Ferris argues that the Enlightenment values it inspired [...]
In reply to a recent post, Tyler writes: Your definition of ethics and morality is well taken and allows for further interesting debate on culture and moral systems but it still requires assumption of benefit. Defining phrases like “fully flourishing life” and “most excellent characters we can develop” require a standard of evaluation which I [...]
Researchers on echolocation are trying to tap what they think is our untapped potential to learn what it’s like to be a bat. A team of researchers from the University of Alcalá de Henares (UAH) has shown scientifically that human beings can develop echolocation, the system of acoustic signals used by dolphins and bats to [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Jon Stewart: Religion makes sense to me. I have trouble with dogma more than I have trouble with religion. I think the best thing religion does is give people a sense of place, purpose, and compassion. My quibble with it is when it’s described as the only way to have those things instilled. You can [...]
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 [...]
Click here for a half hour audio broadcast, introducing the basic notions of “experimental philosophy,” the new movement causing waves in moral philosophy the last few years.
They won’t tell anyone the sex of the kid, here are their reasons: “We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mold from the outset,” said the child’s mother, “Nora.” (The paper used fake names for the entire family to protect their privacy.) “It’s cruel to bring [...]
It should not be necessary for understanding this post, but in case you’d like to catch up on the full debate with Camels With Hammer Reader/Debate Spar Extraordinaire Shane leading up to this post, here are the previous installments: Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellecuals 1 Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals 2 Objections to [...]
No one is immune—the question is whether we cultivate or counteract our natural cognitive fallacies. A professor at the University of Guelph, Prof. Davis has spent the past 20 years paying attention to the use of such seemingly benign phrases: “It was a sign,” “Thank God” and even “Good luck.” To him, such phrases reflect [...]
Njustus has kindly accepted my gauntlet to readers to offer on the possibility of the French government outlawing women from publicly wearing burqas. And his reply is a good one: From a Lockean ’social contract’ perspective, I believe the state should have the power to regulate the wearing of burqas if it can offer a [...]
In metaethics debates, there are disputes between various forms of cognitivists and non-cognitivists. Cognitivists claim that when we make a claim that “x is wrong” or “x is right” we mean to say that “it is a fact that x is wrong” or that “it is a fact that x is right.” Whether it turns [...]
(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 [...]
Please, if your specialization in life is not philosophy, do not feel unwelcomed when encountering the sorts of detailed phiosophical discussion that this blog specializes in. When I write on here I am going to write in the clearest and most precise way I can about the philosophical issues that arise in my research on [...]
Cosmologist Lawrence M. Krauss on the incompatibility of God and science. The whole piece is worth your time. This succinct statement summing up the article, however, hits the nail on the head: My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel [...]
France, which has already banned headscarves in schools, purportedly as an effort to separate church and state, is now considering banning the burqa in public since it represents servitude and indignity for women (according to Sarkozy). Click here for the full story and links to perspectives on the option. Would the effects of this be [...]
Below I quote Shane’s reply to part 4 of my series, “Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals” (for further background to this debate, check out parts 1, 2 & 3) and reply to him. The topic has evolved into questions of teleology and the “point” of life, so little background in previous installments should be [...]
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 [...]
Shane’s reply to this post addressing him (and you can find part 1 which initiated the conversation here): An excellent response! Much more in-depth than my teasing comment probably warranted. Sorry, but my response is a bit rambling. That comes with the blog commenting genre, I think. My earlier point wasn’t about intellectual virtues or [...]
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, [...]
Marcus Brigstocke has a rant (which I used to have in this post in video form before it was taken down from YouTube. The end of the rant goes like this: Now I know that most religious folks are moderates and nice and reasonable and wear tidy jumpers and eat cheese like real people. And [...]
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 [...]
