Meditations on How to Be Powerful, Fearsome, Empowering, and Loved

May 29, 2012 By 11 Comments

Yesterday I observed that sometimes an inaccurate sense of modesty can lead a powerful person to underestimate the extent to which he intimidates others. I focused particularly on the fact that moral and social conditioning trains us to downplay our accomplishments, the extent of our influence on others, and our fearsomeness in their eyes. It [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , 11 Comments

ZJ Defends “Everybody Draws Muhammad Day”

May 28, 2010 By 1 Comment

Your Thoughts?

Filed Under: Free Speech, Islam, Racism, Religion Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Scared Enough To Grow

April 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Lily, as usual, eloquently and succinctly sums up a truth of human psychology: I’m facing some difficult projects at work and some annoying situations in life right now.  I feel way over my head, but I think the problem is that I’m not in over my head enough.  If there’s any chance of learning, if [...]

Filed Under: Ethics, Psychology Tagged With: , , Leave a Comment

Rational Beliefs, Rational Actions, And When It Is Rational To Act On What You Don’t Think Is True

August 19, 2009 By 2 Comments

We hold beliefs with various degrees of justification and the demands of rationality dictate to us that we proportion our degree of belief to the degree of our justification.  If I am looking at evidence for two sides of a position and I find that 60% of the evidence seems to favor side A, whereas [...]

Filed Under: Disambiguating Faith, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Ethics, Evidence, Faith, Featured, Philosophy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments