Not all facts are empirical
There’s been a fair bit of blogosphere buzz about Sam Harris‘s recent TED talk, entitled “Science can answer moral questions.” I didn’t expect to agree much with Harris, given my usual objections to...
View ArticleKant on Yudhiṣṭhira’s elephant
Michael Sandel has long been fond of a certain eccentric position on the Kantian ethics of lying. Kant, as I’ve noted before, takes an absolute prohibition against lying, even in the most extreme...
View ArticleValue beyond obligation
The work of Harvard analytical ethicist Christine Korsgaard is justly renowned, for her clever attempt to reconstruct a Kantian ethics in the abstract terms of contemporary analytical moral philosophy,...
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Asperger’s syndrome in the history of philosophy
I’ve just been reading the popular neurologist Oliver Sacks‘s piece “An Anthropologist on Mars,” from the book of the same name. It’s a short biography of Temple Grandin, a woman whose life was...
View ArticleTo play a flawed role
In the past few years I’ve become involved in live-action role-playing (usually known by the acronym LARP, or “LARPing”): a cross between long-form improv theatre and tabletop role-playing games like...
View ArticleUniversals and history in metaphilosophy
I argued before that categories like ascent-descent and intimacy-integrity are important because they help us identify perennial questions, questions that appear (together with their usually opposing...
View ArticleA little bird told me he’s fine, thanks
Edward Feser has a fascinating post up on the ethics of lying. Feser, perhaps not surprisingly to his regular readers, follows Augustine in taking up a position in some respects even more extreme than...
View ArticleMultiple perennial questions
I’m returning today to the idea of perennial questions: questions that recur throughout the history of philosophy, where both sides of a debate keep getting articulated in many different places. The...
View ArticleWhat it means to have a reason for action
One of the most fundamental things a philosopher does is to ask why. When someone says “you should do x” or “y is good,” it seems to me, the true lover of wisdom needs to ask why this is the case. If...
View ArticleOn the ethics of robots
Last week the Economist ran a cover story on a philosophical topic: the ethics of robots. Not just the usual ethical question one might ask about the ethics of developing robots in given situation, but...
View ArticleTo say something is to negate something
Not long ago I attended a conference on a particular genre of educational technology. The conference presenters were endlessly positive, uplifting – they sought to inspire the attenders with the...
View ArticleReasons for rights
We have seen over the past few posts that while the idea of individual rights is not just a modern invention, it also is far from a universal one. Rights are not obvious or commonsensical. Contra the...
View ArticleThe superogatory acts are the ones that matter
Last time I introduced the idea of supererogatory acts, those that are good beyond what duty and obligation require. The nature of supererogatory acts is sometimes referred to with the noun form...
View ArticleChoosing a few traditions
I have long had an ambition which, I am slowly realizing, is unlikely to be fulfilled. It is an ambition suggested in this blog’s title: the idea of putting together all the major philosophical...
View ArticleThe traditional context of critique
It was sixteen years ago, in 2000, that I wrote this week’s post. It was a short paper submitted for Francis Fiorenza‘s class on hermeneutics, on the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Hans-Georg...
View ArticlePhilosophical and historical uses together
Last time I examined Andrew Ollett’s distinction between “decision-oriented” texts like Kant’s Grounding and “capacity-oriented” texts like Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga, and the ways in which that...
View ArticleThe dhamma is not a transcendent law
In his interesting recent Buddhism and Political Theory, Matthew Moore sums up current scholarly work on Buddhist ethics noting “There are several major debates ongoing in the field, particularly...
View ArticleKarmic punishment is not a good thing
I’m continuing to examine Justin Whitaker‘s interpretation of Pali Buddhist ethics as Kantian moral law. I argued last time that the concept of dhamma does not serve in these texts as a universal,...
View ArticleNaming the “be yourself” ideal
What name should we give the ethical ideal I spoke of last time, the pervasive idea that you should “be yourself, no matter what they say”? The answer to that question isn’t easy. I initially started...
View ArticlePodcast interview on qualitative individualism
Stefani Ruper interviewed me for her video podcast a while ago, and the interview is now live. It focuses on the topic of qualitative individualism, elaborating on ideas from my earlier series of...
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