A Map With A Few of My Paths to Objective Morality

April 19, 2013 By 14 Comments

Yesterday I kicked off a series called “Paths to Objective Morality”. In response to commenters vigorously challenging my choice of vocabulary in calling morality “objective”, I decided to lay out my justification for my word choice systematically and to explain how it will be justified in each of the major components of my overall account of [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Authority, Contemporary Ethics, Duty, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Moral Psychology, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , 14 Comments

Paths to Moral Objectivity: Pragmatics

April 18, 2013 By 19 Comments

On this blog I regularly declare myself for “objective morality”. But what I mean by the term is often misunderstood. My views are a bit idiosyncratic. People typically need to read a handful of the right posts to get a full picture so that they can situate the context for any one post. Those who [...]

Filed Under: Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Metaethics, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , 19 Comments

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

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

In Which I Answer Leah Libresco's Moral Philosophy Concerns So You Don't Become A Catholic Too

June 28, 2012 By 121 Comments

Leah Libresco was an irreligious person with little interest in religious issues until as a Yale undergraduate she began dating a Catholic, reading Catholic theology and apologetics, and going to church with him. She wrote a blog about her process of weighing Catholicism against atheism. Recently, she converted to Catholicism. I have previously analyzed some of [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Contemporary Ethics, Duty, Ethics, Ethics, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophical Ethics, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Teleology, Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 121 Comments

How Foolish Atheists Convinced The Atheist Blogger Leah Libresco That Catholic Philosophy Was Rationally Superior To Atheism

June 25, 2012 By 192 Comments

On Friday I am finally going to put up an extensive post dissecting the philosophical arguments that atheist blogger Leah Libresco has either made or referred to in defending and explaining her decision to convert to Catholicism. But first this post will make some more important preliminary points about the inadequacy of the reasons for [...]

Filed Under: Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Atheism, Christianity, Ethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, New Atheism, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Roman Catholic Church Tagged With: , , , , 192 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

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

How Faith Theoretically Makes People Less Likely To Be Trustworthy

April 29, 2012 By 22 Comments

I am learning that there are a lot of people out there who are surprisingly willful in believing whatever they want and who actively resist information or ideas that they highly suspect (or outright know) would have the power to disabuse them of their errors. We all probably do this to one extent or another [...]

Filed Under: Faith, Faith, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Psychology Tagged With: , 22 Comments