Gay Sex And Reality

July 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Recently a University of Illinois adjunct professor in a course on Catholicism got into unfairly lost his job over expressing his philosophical opposition to homosexuality in an e-mail to his student in what seems to me like a pretty clear violation of academic freedom. As to the substance of his arguments though, PZ Myers does [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Ethics, Ethics, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, LGBTQAA, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, PZ Myers, PZ Myers, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Sex, Teleology, Teleology Tagged With: , , Leave a Comment

How Our Morality Realizes Our Humanity

July 11, 2010 By 5 Comments

In a previous post, I discussed the intrinsic connection between being and goodness and between functional activity and being.  I argued, for example that the various components of a heart need to function as a heart to be a heart and similarly that a human being must act morally to realize her humanity.  Specifically, I [...]

Filed Under: Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Duty, Duty, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Love, Love, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , 5 Comments

On God As The Source Of Being But Not Of Evil

July 9, 2010 By 16 Comments

Introduction This post is a long one but an important one for understanding what sophisticated Roman Catholic philosophers have traditionally meant when they have said that “God is good” and that the existence of evil is not to be taken as counter-evidence to their belief in God’s goodness.  Very often we atheists are dismissed as [...]

Filed Under: Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Atheism, Atheism, Christianity, Christianity, Ethics, Examining Conceptions of God's Attributes, Goodness, Knowability, and Existence, Featured, God, God, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Benedict XVI, Problem of Evil, Religion, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: 16 Comments

On The Intrinsic Connection Between Being And Goodness

July 8, 2010 By 5 Comments

All things, insofar as they are, have goodness.  This is because, for any existent thing whatsoever, to be is necessarily better than not being (regardless of whether a given existent thing consciously acknowledges this or is even capable of thinking about it at all).  This goodness is partly a function of the fact that every [...]

Filed Under: Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: , 5 Comments

Contortions Of Catholic Philosophy: Eve Tushnet Argues Gay Sex Is Not OK But Sex Changes Are

June 28, 2010 By 3 Comments

Tushnet’s moral choice for herself and for other gays is celibacy or gender reassignment. Of course for some people, specifically some of the transgendered, a sex change is entirely appropriate and preferable to gay sex because from a gender (rather than a sex) perspective, those who are pre-op transgendered and are attracted to members of their [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Bio-Medical Ethics, Bio-Medical Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, LGBTQAA, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism, Sex, Teleology, Teleology 3 Comments

Dennett On Evolution

September 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

This is a terrific video in which Dennett and Dawkins get further into the weeds discussing the dynamics of evolution, responsibility, how you can make living things out of dead stuff and conscious ones out of unconscious ones, the wonder of natural processes, the idea that we have souls—but they’re made of neurons, and many [...]

Filed Under: Biology, Daniel Dennett, Evolution, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Teleology, Teleology Tagged With: , , , Leave a Comment