Coming to terms with metaethics, I am beginning to think, is all about distinguishing between levels. I first learned to do this rigorously
back when I was getting to grips with mathematical logic, and
discovering that you could prove complete absurdities,
if
you lost track even once of the distinction between "believe particular
PA proofs", "believe PA is sound", and "believe you yourself are
sound". If you believe any particular PA proof, that might sound
pretty much the same as believing PA is sound in general; and if you use PA and only PA, then trusting PA (that is, being moved by arguments that follow it) sounds pretty much the same as believing that you yourself are
sound. But after a bit of practice with the actual math - I did have
to practice the actual math, not just read about it - my mind formed
permanent distinct buckets and built walls around them to prevent the
contents from slopping over.
Edge: MORAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION: A Talk With Jonathan Haidt
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Thomas Aquinas College: The Curriculum
The College's curriculum is an integrated liberal arts program based primarily on a study of the Great Books. Guided by College faculty, students analyze and discuss in tutorials, seminars, and laboratories these works of the greatest minds of our tradition. By daily practice in reading, translation, demonstration, and argument, students form habits of thought and discourse which will stay with them throughout their lives. And by means of these habits, they can better lay hold of the knowledge and wisdom recorded in the Great Books.
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Open Left:: Moral Politics And The Bailout
The problem is this: a tax cut that provides a million dollars to a single individual or a single dollar to a million individuals still pumps a million dollars into the economy. So what justifies giving so much of it to one rich guy instead of spreading it across a million regular people?
Only the conservative belief that the rich acquired their money by exercising greater virtue than the rest of us. While trickle-down economics theory can be used to mask a raw power grab, it is also a philosophy of moral superiority which many conservatives have come to truly believe. It credits the wealthy not only with financial savoir-faire, but with character excellence: the rich are not just financially wise, but morally good, because they use their resources in ways that promote, instead of harming, the general welfare.
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slacktivist: False Witnesses 2
Again, I whole-heartedly agree that kitten-burning is really, really bad. But the leap from "that's bad" to "I'm not that bad" is dangerous and corrosive. I like to call this Thornton Melon morality. Melon was the character played by Rodney Dangerfield in the movie Back to School, the wealthy owner of a chain of "Tall & Fat" clothing stores whose motto was "If you want to look thin, you hang out with fat people." That approach -- finding people we can compare-down to -- might make us feel a little better about ourselves, but it doesn't change who or what we really are. The Thornton Melon approach might make us look thin, but it won't help us become so. Melon morality is never anything more than an optical illusion.
This comparing-down is ultimately corrosive because it bases our sense of morality in pride rather than in love -- in the cardinal vice instead of the cardinal virtue. And to fuel that pride, we end up looking for ever-more extreme and exotically awful people to compare ourselves favorably against, people whose freakish cruelty makes our own mediocrity show more goodly and attract more eyes than that which hath no foil to set it off.
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Analysing capitalism — Crooked Timber
The events of the last weeks have made me wonder about the agenda of contemporary analytical political philosophy. There are many ways to describe the current financial crisis, but it’s not implausible to say that the foundations of capitalism are shaking. Yet I find little help in contemporary analytical political philosophy to help me understand what’s going on.
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slacktivist: Weltanschauung
Other Christians may use the word too, occasionally, rarely, in a way that conforms more closely to its usual dictionary definition or to the way the German sociologists used it when they coined the term weltanschauung. But when you hear it used frequently, the way it's employed by the BJU Press and the Worldview Weekend folks above, it is a signpost term. It helps to show where the user falls on the spectrum between typical Christianity Today/Wheaton College/Ned Flanders mainstream evangelicalism and the scary lunatic fringe of radical separatists, dominionists and third-generation homeschoolers. The more you hear someone talk about "Christian worldviews" or "biblical worldviews" the further to the extreme right of that spectrum you can expect them to be.
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The Real Reasons For The Modern Productivity Movement | Matthew Cornell - Personal Productivity Specialist
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Walker Percy - Literature, Fiction, Philosophy, Existentialism, Language, Semiotics
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Unenumerated: The Coase Theorem is false: contracts depend on tort law
The proof that the Coase Theorem is false is actually quite simple: the assumptions of the Theorem contradict each other. The assumption that transactions are voluntary contradicts the assumption that any prior allocation of rights is possible, including
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Overcoming Bias: You Provably Can't Trust Yourself
Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.overcomingbias.com%2F2008%2F08%2Fno-self-trust.html
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U of M: Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior: Faculty: Mark E. Borrello
I’m a historian of biology with interests in evolutionary theory, genetics, behavior and the environment. My work explores the varied interpretations and applications of evolutionary theory from the late19th century to the present. My dissertation, “Vero
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Global Spiral :: Past Issues
The Global Spiral is an e-publication of Metanexus Institute. Through articles, essays, book reviews, and news, the Global Spiral explores humanity's most profound questions and challenges.
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The Medium Is The Meaning That We Consume And Create
by Jon Husband at Wirearchy
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ISHPSSB
The International Society for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB) brings together scholars from diverse disciplines, including the life sciences as well as history, philosophy, and social studies of science. ISHPSSB summer meetings are known for innovative, transdisciplinary sessions, and for fostering informal, co-operative exchanges and on-going collaborations.
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Evolving Thoughts: What philosophy of science and "postmodernism" have in common
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