A close cousin of god-of-the-gaps arguments are arguments that argue for something that sounds kind of like a god, but which wouldn’t actually have to be a god. A good example of this is the argument from design, which claims that we can somehow show that the life on Earth and/or the universe was designed, [...]
What a graduate-level philosophy seminar is like
May 28, 2012 By 10 Comments
Last week’s discussion of what philosophical arguments everyone should know about gave me a lot of ideas for posts, but reading the comments, it occurred to me that there is a very big gap between me and almost all of you readers. The gap is this: even if you’ve read a good bit of philosophy, [...]
Moral theory isn’t as helpful as many people think
May 22, 2012 By 12 Comments
I actually have some nice things to say about moral theory, but I’m saving them for another post because I’ve been kept up late doing other things, and a purely negative post is easier to dash off late at night. Let me begin by quoting a great bit from Eliezer Yudkowsky:
Abortion is about the right of women to control their bodies
May 18, 2012 By 76 Comments
This is something I’m posting on Facebook, in part for the benefit of a high school friend, but I’m posting it here so non-Facebookers can see it. To some extent it’s a rehash of this post, but I’m going to see if I can make the points made in that post even clearer.
Ross Douthat promotes myth about religious basis of morality
April 25, 2012 By 17 Comments
Ross Douthat, who inexplicably has job as a columnist at the New York Times, is doing an exchange with William Saletan at Slate that looks to be full ‘o all kinds of fail, but this entry (HT: Julian Sanchez) especially caught my eye:
A position statement on metaethics (or, the package deal fallacy)
March 27, 2012 By 5 Comments
“Metaethics” means taking a step away from standard ethical-slash-moral questions (is abortion morally permissible? is it permissible to bomb civilians if it will end the war sooner and prevent a greater number of deaths?) and asking questions about the questions. Do we know the answers to any moral questions? If so, how do we know [...]
Post-hoc rationalization among philosophers
March 8, 2012 By 29 Comments
What are philosophers good at? Eric Schwitzgebel reports on the results of an experiment which suggests the answer is “not the things they’d like you to believe they’re good at”:
The under-rated “famous violinist” defense of abortion
February 23, 2012 By 56 Comments
The view taken by the Catholic Church, and other anti-abortion extremists, that a single fertilized human egg cell is a person, has always struck me as bizarre. Well, since I was old enough to think about the issue anyway. And I’ve realized for just as long that there isn’t going to be a magic moment [...]
Empirical poltics, also abortion
February 9, 2012 By 17 Comments
I’m always baffled by how ready many people are to declare anything and everything “not an empirical issue,” without any kind of argument, as if it were just obvious what things are not empirical issues. It’s one thing to say that about, say, ethics, but I have no idea why anyone thinks that’s a sensible [...]
Moral beliefs don’t motivate much
February 8, 2012 By 7 Comments
Several months ago, there was a post on the NYT opinionator blog called “Confessions of an ex-Moralist” by philosopher Joel Marks, about moving from moral realism to moral nihilism. I don’t think the arguments Marks gives for moral nihilism are any good, but there’s a part at the end worth amplifying, even though the article [...]
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