What Is Happiness And Why Is It Good?

January 24, 2011 By 2 Comments

In this post, I explore the meanings and worths of two phenomena recognized by our language as  ”happiness”, in reply to remarks by James Gray on my most recent post.  For a little background for those joining late and who would like to catch up: I have been arguing in several posts now that goodness factually means [...]

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Effectiveness Is The Primary Goal In Itself, Not Merely A Means

January 24, 2011 By 17 Comments

In a recent post I argued that goodness, objectively speaking, means effectiveness.  Of course we use the word “good” for numerous purposes, to express that we find something pleasant, desirable, useful, advantageous to our interests, etc.  But I want to argue that when it comes to the facts of reality, goodness has only this one essential [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues 17 Comments

Grounding Objective Value Independent Of Human Interests And Moralities

January 23, 2011 By 5 Comments

In my most recent philosophical post, I have finally explained one of the most fundamental premises necessary for explaining and justifying my overall views on ethics.  I explained my view that goodness objectively means effectiveness and that all further true ideas of “good” should be understood only as derivative from the basic good of effectiveness.  Also [...]

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Goodness Is A Factual Matter (Goodness=Effectiveness)

January 23, 2011 By 11 Comments

All statements about values can be restated as statements of facts. The truth or falsity about value claims can be discovered by investigations of facts. Goodness is a word that can be defined by reference to certain kinds of factual relationships in the world. Whether or not something deserves to be called good can be [...]

Filed Under: Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology Tagged With: , , , , 11 Comments

I Am A Moral Naturalist, Not A Subjectivist

January 20, 2011 By 6 Comments

In a long comment on my post from this morning, George raised the question of usage of “subjectivism” beyond my own interpretation of the word.  Let’s look to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which should be as neutral an adjudicating source as the English-speaking philosophy world has.  I selected this source for its independent, encyclopedia character [...]

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Deriving An Atheistic, Naturalistic, Realist Account Of Morality

January 20, 2011 By 3 Comments

Tom Gilson thinks that theism accounts for moral realism better than atheism does.  My reasons for rejecting that view are here (though I am interested in tailoring a future post specifically to Gilson’s particular way of arguing for a theist basis for moral realism). For now, however, rather than counter Gilson’s positive claims for theism’s [...]

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On Good And Evil For Non-Existent People

October 12, 2010 By 1 Comment

Kyle, from the video blog Serptopia writes the following to me in reply to my posts from the summer, “On The Intrinsic Connection Between Being and Goodness”: Oh my, you seem quite the Aristotelean. From a certain angle, yes, I am very Aristotelean.  But in the broader picture, I see myself as situating all of [...]

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My Perspectivist, Teleological Account Of The Relative Values Of Pleasure And Pain

October 7, 2010 By 2 Comments

With Sam Harris doing the rounds promoting a utilitarianism that seems to take the pleasures of sentient beings to be the good to be maximized, it’s as appropriate a time as ever to flesh out my objections to prioritizing pleasure and pain as the central goods in life.  More specifically, you can read my already [...]

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Subjective Valuing And Objective Values

October 6, 2010 By 7 Comments

In reply to my post a week ago on the incoherence of saying that we relied upon God, or at least religion, in order to either discover or verify what was good and evil, Clergy Guy asks: Daniel, do you have some thoughts on defining good and evil apart from religion? How do we/should we [...]

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My Perfectionistic, Egoistic AND Universalistic, Indirect Consequentialism (And Contrasts With Other Kinds)

July 25, 2010 By 7 Comments

A consequentialist assesses the ultimate worth of all the various features of our ethical lives according to whether or not they bring about some specific intrinsic good or goods that the consequentialist judges to be of primary value. All the various valuable features of our lives have their ultimate value with respect to how they [...]

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