Search results

  1. Received

    Rights and their Basis

    I like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy definition of rights: Rights are entitlements (not) to perform certain actions, or (not) to be in certain states; or entitlements that others (not) perform certain actions or (not) be in certain states. To be entitled to something is, roughly, to...
  2. Received

    Metaargumentative Aside: Ethics of Arguing

    Here's something pretty nasty and in my view hard for most people to see. Person A and B get into a debate. As they continue the debate, A begins debating more aggressively, throwing down inflammatory rhetoric (e.g., such-and-such is nonsense, crap, stupid, dumb, "man you're full of it," etc.)...
  3. Received

    "Taxation is Theft"

    Leaving aside the pretty simple rebuttal that theft implies coercion and choosing to live in a country means accepting (not necessarily agreeing with) its rules, including taxation, there's a more complicated argument that I think is much cooler. The government, in its most essential function...
  4. Received

    Celebrating Finitude

    The will, especially in the West, even more especially in America, often is conceptualized implicitly (and this is a strange part about it) as being limitless. The American ethos is "just try harder," which interestingly gets other people off the hook for their role as caring for each other...
  5. Received

    A Perversely Restricted Understanding of Work

    I'm a person with a (hopefully, confidently) temporary disability (chronic fatigue, etc.) and so had to drop off my work keys at the end of May after having an excellent five years as a therapist at a university. I console myself with the idea that I was already "checked out" by the time I had...
  6. Received

    Psychological Violence?

    A problem with laws is that many people come to see the stuff that's illegal as being unethical without really knowing why, and therefore not knowing any underlying reasoning that justifies something as illegal means you can't see (via the same type of reasoning) how something could be unethical...
  7. Received

    Is It Ethical to Take Responsibility for Stuff You're Not Responsible For?

    Say, I don't know, a husband and wife get into an argument and, I don't know, the wife says something like she's angry at the husband for not taking responsibility for the stuff he does wrong, and, I don't know, the husband says that responsibility isn't something that goes "all the way" in many...
  8. Received

    Reason as an Ethos

    I think there's a good reason why reason isn't included in the "big three" metaethical systems: deontology (duty, rules), consequentialism (morality is determined by its consequences, utilitarianism, which utilizes pleasure and pain along these lines, being the major form), and virtue ethics...
  9. Received

    When Family Is Bad

    Hey, I love the Godfather, and one of the themes of the film is valuing family above everything else. Like in The Godfather 2 when Michael is ostracized for joining the military, going against his brother Sonny's comments (which sound like "pop talkin'" to Michael) that you're supposed to value...
  10. Received

    God Image and Paternal Upbringing

    Just a thought. In psychology the three main types of parenting styles are permissive (too much room for the kid to roam, not enough discipline), authoritative (the parent explain punishments to kids), and authoritarian (the parent punishes from a strong sense of rules usually without...
  11. Received

    Is Pity Moral?

    Pity might not be the word I'm looking for. I'm referring to the feeling of looking down at another person in sorrow because of their situation. Contrast this with compassion, which is by definition egalitarian: when I feel compassion ("suffer with") someone, I'm right there on their level...
  12. Received

    Defining Evil

    I've never found definitions of evil palatable. The most common understanding seems to be when something is really, really bad. Obviously, if this is the definition, then the problem comes with not being able to state the line at which badness becomes evil. Badness, as I understand it, is the...
  13. Received

    Why You're Not Necessarily Entitled to the Money You've Made

    In a society with large income inequality, there is an ever-increasing divide between ethics and market outcomes. In a perfect world, a person would be paid according to market demand, and market demand would reflect at least an approximate level of work a person puts into something. "Work"...
  14. Received

    Why I'm Suspicious of Heroes

    The only heroes I think deserve their title are those who make no claim to being heroes. You know, Jon Snow, not Daenerys Targaryen. The former doesn't make claim to his own greatness, whereas the latter has half a million titles for what ultimately came down to the most unwilled thing of all...
  15. Received

    Why I'm Not (Quite) a Libertarian

    I don't think liberty is the greatest good. A good is something toward which you aim, the end of your intentions and goals. Liberty is understood in two ways: 1) freedom *from* constraints (i.e., the soul's right to breathe), and 2) freedom of the will to actualize itself. The two are closely...
  16. Received

    Please Read: Check Thyroid and Cortisol

    Note: this is long, but I entreat you to read this if you have anxiety that doesn't seem to go away with medication and/or therapy. This information is the result of two years of a personal struggle with undiagnosed hypothyroidism and low cortisol that caused at times almost unbearable anxiety...
  17. Received

    Why (Self) Identity Is Bad

    Now that I have your attention. :) I mean personal identity. To identify is to equate: 1 = 1. What are we equating with personal identity? The self with an idea (or an object, but this object is mediated by an idea). It's a little screwy, but there are two selves that we know. One is...
  18. Received

    Will to Believe

    Yes, I do very strongly think a will to believe exists. Belief clearly opens up actions, and these possibilities might tempt a person (sometimes very strongly), but they don't dictate action. I may believe that my dog is outside, but this doesn't necessarily make me want to let him in; or I...
  19. Received

    Logical Problems with Calvinism

    I put this into bullets so that it would be easier to critique individual premises. Logically, in order for an argument to be proven to be invalid, all you have to do is show how the premises don't follow to a conclusion, which can be done through showing how one of the premises are wrong...
  20. Received

    Taking Credit for Good Character

    One of my new favorite quotes is from Simone de Beauvoir: It is never the given that confers superiorities. All of us have some degree of good character by simply being born -- by temperament or by an upbringing which unconsciously swerves us to good behavior, for example. But virtue is what...