Philosophy
February 02, 2012
January 30, 2012
Right Side News on Kant
Weimar romanticism found it’s manifestation with 18th century German Philosophers like Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804), who is widely accredited with providing the first definition of enlightenment saying, “Enlightenment is Man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another.” The other he refers to is the Hebrew-Christian God and His priests. Instead Kant taught pagan metaphysics and spiritualism, where morality does not come from God, but from the state, where only those trained to reason correctly can dictate what is or is not moral. Today Kant is idolized as the epitome of morals and ethics, when in reality just the opposite is true.
WTF? That's not the Kant I know.
January 13, 2012
From Less Than Human
From David Smith's Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others:
"During their journey through time, prehistoric humans acquired a range of mental aptitudes that we take for granted today, but which were almost certainly absent during the earliest stages of hominid evolution. These include the physical traits that are necessary conditions for dehumanization, namely;
1. A domain-specific folk biology module responsible for parsing the biology world into natural kinds (species) and making inferences about them.
2. A domain-specific folk sociology module responsible for parsing the social world into natural kinds (ethnoraces) and making inferences about them.
3. A domain-general capacity for second-order thought that makes it possible to reflect one's own mental states.
4. An intuitive theory of essences used to explain why there are natural kinds.
5. An intuitive theory of natural hierarchy (great chain of being) for ordering the natural world."
August 14, 2011
August 08, 2011
Chomsky on the Corporate University and Academic Freedom
July 27, 2011
Must Philosophers Always Respect Arguments?
The co-author of an article defending the conjugal view of marriage takes issue with some critics for suggesting his arguments are rooted in prejudice rather than principles. He, of course, takes himself to be offering a principled argument in defense of a view of marriage that excludes homosexuals. He writes:
No serious philosopher would deny, in so many words, that to demonize opponents is to betray the vocation of philosophy. But some academic philosophers are so bound to the cause of redefining civil marriage that they would marginalize dissenters with epithets and analyze them as specimens of psychological pathology. Chappell, though he goes on to ask serious questions, is at pains to deny that he deems our argument worth engaging. For him, it is, like misogyny, merely unreasonable, subrational, and bigoted. Linking to Chappell’s critique, Brian Leiter repeats the charge and presumes to diagnose us.
Are philosophers necessarily committed to respecting arguments in every instance? Suppose that in all seriousness some philosopher offers up a contemporary defense of Aristotle's argument in support of slavery or his views and gender-relationships. The philosopher goes on and on about how nature has marked out some people to be ruled rather than to rule. He goes on and on about how women have reason, but it has no authority. The author readily admits that this is contrarian position from the standpoint of modern sensibilities, but notes that those sensibilities are fairly new (historically speaking) and that many thinkers throughout the history of philosophy have espoused arguments in support of dicriminatory practices.
Are professional philosophers committed to taking these arguments seriously? Or, would it be reasonable - given the well known flaws of this very old line of reasoning, the inconsistency of its application by those that espouse it, then tendency of that application to work in favor of the person espousing it, its close ties to actual bigotry and forms of oppression, and the fact it's obviously contrary to other common place moral sensibilities - to dismiss the argument and suggest that the philosopher's argument maybe motivated by prejudice? Is Girgis going to take that argument seriously?
I don't take arguments for slavery seriously. And, I'm inclined to believe that those who might seriously espouse arguments in support of the institution of slavery are probably motivated by prejudice, even if they are able to present their arguments publicly without using derogatory language. I think the vocation of philosophy requires philosophers to treat arguments on the basis of their merits and in this regard the majority of professional philosophers seem to think that arguments for slavery as well as the conjugal view of marriage come up short.
July 11, 2011
Meta-Ethics in "Your Friends & Neighbors" and "The Shape of Things"
Two Neil LaBute films, Your Friends & Neighbors and The Shape of Things, provide excellent depictions of one of the central debates in meta-ethics, the moral realism vs. moral anti-realism debate. Here are the trailers for both films.
In each film, one of the main characters - Evelyn in The Shape of Things and Cary in Your Friends & Neighbors - explicitly suggest that when it comes to morality there are no objective truths. In other words, they both express the moral anti-realist perspective.
Continue reading "Meta-Ethics in "Your Friends & Neighbors" and "The Shape of Things"" »
June 24, 2011
Anonymous: From Civil Disobedience to "Cyberwar"?
The release was credited as being a part of it and LulzSec's ongoing Operation Anti-Security. The operation is a new cyber campaign led by the two hacking collectives designed to protest and combat any and all institutions or governments attempts to censor or moderate the internet.
Already its brother-in-arms LulzSec has taken credit for attacks and hacks on Arizona law enforcement, the U.K.'s Serious Organised Crime Agency and two Brazilian Government owned websites.
Anonymous is yet to release a formal statement outlining its reasons for the hack.
via uk.ibtimes.com
Anonymous' DDoS attacks against PayPal, Visia, etc., they claimed were in retaliation for these companies cutting off WikiLeaks under government pressure. You know, like AT&T did with the Bush Administration. At any rate, on the standard version of civil disobedience this is a stretch since it requires the disobedient to accept punishment. Anonymous is, well, . . . . You see the problem. Nevertheless, they had, I think, a legit beef and we might argue a little bit over whehter accepting punishment is a necessary condition for civil disobedience. Now, with the rise of LulzSec things have changed. If Anonymous was engaged in "civil disobedience" before changed to something more like "cyberwar" against companies and governments that censor the internet. Some of these latest hacks aren't anything like a 21st century verion of the sit-in, as Anonymous has described it's previous DDoS attacks regarding WikiLeaks. It's not just relatiation or a plea for reconsideration or justice like in civil disobedience. This should be a good case study for information and computer ethics and political philosophy. It sure is interesting to see some of the debate over the morality of these hacks carried out within Anonymous itself. The key moral question: Do these information leaks harm innocents? It seems pretty clear that with hacks like the Sony thing there's a great potential for haming innocents here. They released personal information for a lot of people that just happen to use Sony's service. They aren't responsible for Sony's poor internet security, but they're all in danger of identity theft, etc. That's a lot of potential collateral damage to point out a security flaw and it seems different than the Brazil hack.
June 18, 2011
Herschel Telescope Spots a Star Spewing Powerful Water Jets into Interstellar Space | Popular Science
Researchers looking for signs of life elsewhere in the universe often start by looking for one key ingredient necessary to complex life as we know it: water. And just 750 light-years away, they’ve found quite a bit of it spewing from the poles of a young, sunlike star that is blasting jets of H2O into interstellar space at 124,000 miles per hour.
This discovery is interesting on a number of levels. For one, it indicates that throughout the universe young protostars could be distributing vast quantities of water, potentially seeding life elsewhere.
via www.popsci.com
One of the key premises of the contemporary design argument is that the conditions required for life to emerge as so improbable that they must have been fine-tuned by a supernatural, intelligent designer. But findings like the one above as well as here on Earth suggest that the conditions required for life are not as narrow as traditionally thought.
June 15, 2011
Virtue Ethics in South Park
"The List" episode of South Park draws attention to one of the three most influential approaches to normative ethics in Western philosophy, virtue ethics. All the girls at school make a list that ranks the attractiveness of the boys. Butters is exuberant that he's ranked No. 11. But, suspiciously, is ranked quite low on the list, which is a blow to his self esteem. Abraham Lincoln then appears to teach Kyle that being physically attractive is not all it's cracked up to be. What really matters in life is being a good person and developing virtuous character traits.
This approach to ethics emphasizes the notion that cultivating virtues is required for living the ethical or good life. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle provides us with a classical example of a virtue ethics. Just as a plant requires water, nutrients, soil, and sun light in order to grow or flourish as a plant so too human beings require virtues like justice, patience, courage, truthfulness, etc. in order to live a happy life or flourish as a human being. So, according to this view, Kyle should really work hard not to become an asshole. Assholes are vicious people or people who have not only failed to cultivate virtuous, but that have managed to cultivate negative character traits that impede our pursuit of a human flourishing.
Primary Source Reading
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.
Secondary Readings
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