Is The Use of Pepper Spray Torture?

November 20, 2011 By 17 Comments

Yesterday digby discussed various cases of the use of pepper spray to argue that it is obviously torture. Is it torture? If it is torture but in some cases it could foreseeably prevent an altercation with greater likelihood of long term physical damage could it be justified nonetheless?  Is it only unjustified when applied to non-violent [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Authority, Authority, Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Ethics, Ethics, Free Speech, Free Speech, Law, Law, Law & Politics, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophy, Politics, Politics, Torture, Torture 17 Comments

What A "War on Terror" Should Mean vs. What it Has Meant

September 11, 2011 By 3 Comments

Princeton’s emeritus philosophy professor Michael Walzer is co-editor of Dissent. He is not a George W. Bush yes-man. But he thinks that “war on terror” is a legitimate concept even as many leftish thinkers oppose it as a confusion. People argue that terrorism is a tactic, not a specific enemy you can target. In “Terrorism [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Ethics, Ethics, Morality, Morality, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Politics, Politics, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Torture, Torture, World Affairs, World Affairs Tagged With: , , , , , 3 Comments

The Religious Conservative’s False Choice: “Big Brother” Or “Heavenly Father”

February 23, 2011 By 3 Comments

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 [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Christianity, Christianity, Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Duty, Duty, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, George W. Bush, George W. Bush, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism, Social Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology, Sociology, Theocrats, Theocrats, Torture, Torture, Virtues, Virtues, World Affairs, World Affairs Tagged With: , , 3 Comments

What Does It Mean For Pleasure And Pain To Be “Intrinsically Instrumental” Goods?

January 30, 2011 By 1 Comment

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 [...]

Filed Under: Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Torture, Torture Tagged With: , , , , , , 1 Comment

Pleasure And Pain As Intrinsic Instrumental Goods

January 27, 2011 By 2 Comments

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 [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Examining Conceptions of God's Attributes, Goodness, Knowability, and Existence, Featured, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Problem of Evil, Teleology, Teleology, Torture, Torture, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , 2 Comments