Ethics
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Philosopher Michael Ruse takes a sledgehammer to Sam Harris’s new book on morality: I don’t know what Harris studied in his philosophy courses as an undergrad at Stanford, but they don’t seem to have penetrated very deeply. He denounces philosophers before him (including myself, I should admit) without really addressing the challenge their arguments pose Read more
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This Frans de Waal essay and the accompanying video discussion with Robert Wright, on the evolutionary roots of morality, are worth checking out. De Waal’s argument is that moral impulses exist in our non-human animal relatives–particularly our closest relatives, the primates–and that we can see morality emerging along a continuum as a completely “natural” phenomenon. Read more
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In his review of Wesley Smith’s book that I linked to below, Angus Taylor puts his finger on exactly what has long bothered me about Smith’s rhetoric of “human exceptionalism”: Even if can be shown … that all human beings deserve an elevated moral status, it is not clear why this elevated status should entail Read more
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– Chris Hayes: Postcard from Palestine – Endangered red wolves being hunted to extinction – Tea partiers fantasize about a “constitutionally pure” government – Jean Kazez on Sam Harris’s book The Moral Landscape – On not really believing in heaven – Corporations gain privacy rights as people lose them – Soldiers against torture – A Read more
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Scu at Critical Animal has interesting take on the Anthony Bourdain-Jonathan Safran Foer debate I posted about last week. One of Bourdain’s arguments (which echoes an argument made by Michael Pollan, among others) is that embracing vegetarianism alienates you from human community. As Scu points out, however, sometimes this is a good thing. Not to Read more
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One thing that Eating Animals author Jonathan Safran Foer does really well in this debate about vegetarianism with celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain is to keep bringing the discussion back down to earth from Bourdain’s hyper-idealized view of meat-eating. Safran Foer’s not interested in arguing that meat-eating is always, everywhere, and under any conceivable circumstances wrong; Read more
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From Wired, a report of laboratory monkeys (rhesus macaques, to be specific) that have shown signs of self-recognition (and thus potentially self-awareness): In the lab of University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Luis Populin, five rhesus macaques seem to recognize their own reflections in a mirror. Monkeys weren’t supposed to do this. “We thought these subjects didn’t Read more
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There have been a couple of articles recently on the “slow reading” movement, one in Newsweek and one in the Guardain. Actually, “movement” may be a bit strong; it seems to be more of an impulse, or a reaction against our 24-7 ultra-connected, multitasking, information-saturated lives. (Where “we” are a relatively small minority of affluent Read more
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In thinking about the relation between ethics and theology, it helps to distinguish the metaphysical aspects of this problem from the epistemological ones. Or, as St. Thomas would say, the order of being from the order of knowing. Value, or ethics, may depend metaphysically on the existence of God, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Read more
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Camassia and Eve Tushnet have been discussing this Stanley Fish column that takes aim at the idea of “secular reasons”–reasons which, according to Fish, “because they do not reflect the commitments or agendas of any religion, morality or ideology, can be accepted as reasons by all citizens no matter what their individual beliefs and affiliations.” Read more
A Thinking Reed 