Nietzsche: Moral Absolutism and Moral Relativism Are "Equally Childish"

September 25, 2011 By 23 Comments

Recently Joel Marks, a career moral philosopher, concluded that the moral certitude he has felt and argued for his entire career was built as much on faith as many theists’ belief in God is. And in response he swung radically in the opposite direction and came to believe that there can be no rational objectivity [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology 23 Comments

The Facts About Intrinsic and Instrumental Goods and The Cultural Construction of Intrinsic Goods

September 23, 2011 By 8 Comments

In this post I want to say something which many would find radical and would assume is impossible and clearly false: I want to say that it can be a fact whether something is intrinsically good in some particular respect, for some particular being. A major part of this requires that I distinguish another two other [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Philosophy, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: 8 Comments

The Moral Toll of Executions on the Consciences of Executioners

September 22, 2011 By 7 Comments

Allen Ault is the retired director of the Georgia Department of Corrections and former warden of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison which handled Troy Davis. Ault oversaw executions for the state of Georgia. He is now Eastern Kentucky University’s dean of “College of Justice and Society” and well-informed from an academic perspective about the [...]

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Moral Perfectionism, Moral Pragmatism, Free Love Ethics, and Adultery

September 19, 2011 By 60 Comments

Kelly: You are a moral absolutist, Jaime. Jaime: Nonsense. You are the one who wants to impose monogamy on everyone, whether they like it or not. Kelly: No, when we talked the other day, I conceded it was your right to have whatever kinds of open relationships you wanted. I only said that, given human [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Duty, Duty, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Psychology, Sex, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 60 Comments

Philip Pettit On How Consequentialism Can Respect The Integrity of Agents

September 14, 2011 By 1 Comment

Princeton professor Philip Pettit makes the case for consequentialism on this week’s Philosophy Bites. The voices and elocution of everyone in this interview are worth the price of admission. I love the way they pronounce al-Qaeda (“al-kay-ee-duh”) in particular. Your Thoughts?

Filed Under: Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Tagged With: 1 Comment

The Objective Value of Ordered Complexity

September 13, 2011 By 9 Comments

I argue that the word goodness should be interpreted to mean, in the most fundamental sense of the word, “effectiveness”. I also argue that since effectiveness is a factual issue, goodness is a factual issue. These controversial positions of mine raise a lot of thought provoking questions and challenges from readers. I am using this [...]

Filed Under: Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Evolution, Evolution, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: 9 Comments

What It Means To Me To Be Free

September 13, 2011 By 5 Comments

I think that in some meaningful ways, human beings are free. In a couple of previous posts and in subsequent comments in their comments sections, I have been arguing for the ways that we are not free in a libertarian sense, i.e., our actions are not “undetermined” by forces outside our fundamental control. We are [...]

Filed Under: Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Mind Tagged With: , , , , , , 5 Comments

Internecine War At Freethought Blogs: Philosopher vs. "Redneck" Edition: Free Will And The Real World Smackdown

September 10, 2011 By 19 Comments

As far as I have noticed, there has not been a blog war between any of the Freethought Blogs (or, er, since we all moved here anyway) so I was a little trepidatious of going and picking apart the every word of a quick comment on one of my posts by my new favorite blogger, Hank [...]

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The "Moral Argument" For Free Will Is A Morally Troubling, Hypocritical, Faith Position

September 9, 2011 By 25 Comments

Many who believe that we have free will are what philosophers call “libertarians”. These are not necessarily libertarians in the political sense but in a metaphysical sense. Libertarians conceive of free will as incompatible with determinism. Their notion is that to the extent that our actions are determined by forces or factors which are beyond [...]

Filed Under: Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Disambiguating Faith, Disambiguating Faith, Ethics, Ethics, Faith, Faith, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Tagged With: , , , , 25 Comments

Can Good Teaching Be Measured?

September 8, 2011 By 7 Comments

In recent posts I have been arguing that if only we interpret the word “good” to mean “effective” we can ground our discussions of values (moral and otherwise) in facts about effectivness. I argue that in that context we can have greater and lesser degrees of goodness, measurable in terms of greater or lesser degrees [...]

Filed Under: Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Education, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Evidence, Evidence, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Metaethics, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues 7 Comments