A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Philosophy

  • Of wolf and man

    I “tweeted” recently that I head read and really enjoyed Mark Rowlands’ The Philosopher and the Wolf. Rowlands, the eponymous philosopher, has written a bunch of books, including an excellent introduction to animal rights. TPATW defies easy summary, but it’s part-memoir and part-philosophical rumination arising from Rowlands’ experience living with a companion wolf named Brenin Read more

  • Vegetarianism without foundations

    Freddie at the group blog the League of Ordinary Gentleman probes the philosophical underpinnings of vegetarians/vegans and contends that they are insufficiently developed. I think he’s wrong in suggesting that vegetarians haven’t devled deeply into these issues: there’s quite a vast philosophical literature on the subject that has sprung up in the last 30 years, Read more

  • “A severely conservative moral stance”

    James Rachels on vegetarianism: Vegetarianism is often regarded as an eccentric moral view, and it is assumed that a vegetarian must subscribe to principles at odds with common sense. But if this reasoning is sound, the opposite is true: the rule against causing unnecessary pain is the least eccentric of all moral principles, and that Read more

  • The cosmic prodigal son

    I’ve been reading a book called Created from Animals: the Moral Implications of Darwinism by the late philosopher James Rachels. The thesis is that Darwinism does have far-reaching implications for morality, even if not the ones commonly thought. This is in contrast to those, like Stephen Jay Gould, who tried to erect an insuperable wall Read more

  • One more (at least) on pluralism

    Another thought occurred to me about John Hick’s pluralism hypothesis: that it risks introducing a moralistic distortion into religion. Since, for Hick, religion is primarily a practical rather than a cognitive enterprise (because the Real in itself eludes our cognitive abilities), the criteria by which he judges religion are primarily moral ones. Religions are vehicles Read more

  • Further thoughts on pluralism

    Thinking a bit more about John Hick’s pluralism, spurred on by some of the excellent comments on the last post, it does seem that my original worry about Hick’s position could be stated in a stronger form. My question was whether it’s necessary to believe in a tradition in a non-pluralist way (i.e., to believe Read more

  • Religious pluralism revisited

    One common criticism of the pluralistic view of religions–and one that I have found persuasive–is that it presupposes a “god’s eye” vantage point that seems to be ruled out by the theory itself. That is, asserting that all religions provide a partial perspective on the divine, seems to imply that the pluralist can discern clearly Read more

  • Recent nibbles from Philosophy Bites

    I’ve flagged the excellent philosophy interview series Philosophy Bites before, but here are some recent highlights: –Political philosopher G.A. Cohern (who died yesterday-R.I.P.) on egalitarianism –Ben Rogers on Pascal’s Pensées –Christian philosopher and priest Marilyn McCord Adams on evil –Paul Snowdon on persons and animals Read more

  • WASM 6: Concluding thoughts

    (See previous posts: 1|2|3|4|5) So, what has Linzey accomplished here? What I think his argument does–at least–is shift the burden of proof. Most of us, if we’re being honest, believe that animals suffer and that their suffering matters morally, at least to some degree. Few non-sociopaths think that it’s a matter of sheer moral indifference Read more

  • WASM 5: sed contra

    (See previous posts: 1|2|3|4) In addition to the critique of Peter Singer, Linzey’s final chapter in Why Animal Suffering Matters contains replies to six objections: 1. The practices of hunting, fur farming, and sealing are relatively trivial and non-controversial compared to issues like animal testing. Linzey acknowledges that practices like animal testing and factory farming Read more