On the Moral Value (and Dangers) of Dutifulness

April 10, 2013 By 2 Comments

What kinds of motives are morally relevant? Which are important? Why are they important? When are they important? How do they relate to one another? What are their respective places in the best overall moral framework? In a few posts I hope to answer such questions as these. I am going to distinguish various kinds [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Duty, Ethics, Intellectual Virtues, Love, Moral Psychology, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

How To Live Happily: Truthfully Understand Yourself and Your Constructive Potential

January 26, 2013 By 5 Comments

My thoughts on self-esteem, identity, objectification, Jean-Paul Sartre, and overcoming self-sabotaging narratives we tell ourselves.

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Ethics, Intellectual Vices, Moral Psychology, Philosophical Ethics, Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

The Virtue of Steelmanning

December 7, 2012 By 9 Comments

One of my new best friends on Facebook, Chana Messinger has written a very good post about the reasons to “steelman” others’ arguments. I had never heard this word before but I love it. It means to figure out even better arguments for your opponents’ positions while arguing with them and to beat those arguments [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Ethics, Intellectual Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

On Dealing With Trolling, Banning, and Uncomfortable Disagreements

August 3, 2012 By 54 Comments

There have been many objections to both the wisdom of my comments policy and my general stand against the use of epithets and incivility and what I see as hasty personal attacks that derail philosophical discussions. I am writing 8 posts to address 8 major objections. I have already written my own summaries of all the objections I [...]

Filed Under: About This Blog, Applied Ethics, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , 54 Comments

How Ethics Is More Like Physics Than Faith

July 2, 2012 By 48 Comments

People who use the free speech that they take for granted in free societies to disparage moral philosophy as useless, superfluous, and incapable of progress since it does not function like a natural science are as naive and guilty of practical contradiction as people who use the internet to talk about how science can not attain any genuine truths because it cannot square its own metaphysical foundations or tell us about the meaning of life.

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Authority, Contemporary Ethics, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Moral Psychology, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Tagged With: , 48 Comments

After I Deconverted: I Was A Radical Skeptic, Irrationalist, And Nihilist—But Felt Liberated

June 26, 2012 By 13 Comments

In a series of posts, I have been describing my former Christian life and beliefs, the stage by stage process of my deconversion from Christianity, and the ways that my predominantly Christian friends and family and I each took my deconversion. I am not done with all those stories yet, but because of other posts [...]

Filed Under: Epistemology, Ethics, Nietzsche, Personal, Philosophy Tagged With: , , , , , , 13 Comments

Is Anything Intrinsically Good or Bad? An Interview with James Gray

June 14, 2012 By 2 Comments

James Gray blogs at Ethical Realism. He is passionate about advancing philosophy education and exploring moral realism both in ways accessible to beginners and engaging for advanced philosophy students. The interview below was done as part of a blogathon to support the Secular Student Alliance. Please donate to this worthy organization! And see more links [...]

Filed Under: Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Ethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues 2 Comments

How I Deconverted: It Started With Humean Skepticism

June 12, 2012 By 10 Comments

I have written a number of personal posts about what I was like before I deconverted and then how things went for me when I deconverted. There is more to say about both those periods, but it is time to start explaining how I deconverted. And, philosophically, that started with my discovery of David Hume. [...]

Filed Under: Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Evidence, Evidence, Personal, Philosophy 10 Comments

On Unintentionally Intimidating People

May 28, 2012 By 10 Comments

While most of us rightly want to be exceptional in some way or another, we often feel a lot of social and moral pressure not to think of ourselves as generally better than others. And, even more urgently, we feel pressure not to convey to others that we think ourselves superior and not to be [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Psychology, Psychology, Social Psychology, Social Psychology, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , , 10 Comments

No, Not Everyone Has A Moral Right To Feel Offended By Just Any Satire or Criticism

February 15, 2012 By 56 Comments

4 Misconceptions About the Nature of Offense Here are four common sense assumptions about giving and taking offense that I think are fundamentally mistaken and which atheists need to argue against: “You have every right to be offended, but you don’t have the right to censor others just because you’re offended.” “You cannot blame people [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Free Speech, Free Speech, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Religious Satire, Religious Satire, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , 56 Comments