Reading Time: 3 minutes We’re almost there, so a few more political pieces to go… Trump supporters must really be careful now. He has moved into such open lying in his rallies and messaging now that he is swimming in conspiracy theories and nonsense. It’s dangerous. As I have said in many pieces, support for him amongst intelligent people […]
morality
Posted inEthics and Morality, Politics
What’s Good
Reading Time: 3 minutes Here is another guest post, this time from Martin Zeichner. Thanks muchly to him. Today’s lesson, whether in terms of politicians or the police, is “Do as I do”: Ascertaining what it takes to be a good person has long been a subject of philosophical writing. A great deal of ink and uncountable photons have […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Politics
Evangelical Christianity, the GOP, Morality and Cognitive Dissonance
Reading Time: 7 minutes Cognitive Dissonance: The term cognitive dissonance is used to describe the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. People tend to seek consistency in their attitudes and perceptions, so this conflict causes feelings of unease or discomfort. This inconsistency between what people believe and how they behave motivates people to engage in actions that […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
What Makes a Person Good or Decent?
Reading Time: 3 minutes This is a guest post from Cynthia, a little muse to get you thinking over your cup of tea, of coffee, as to what denotes “good” behaviour in society, as to whether conformity is a driving factor. Thanks to her, and here it is: There’s a quote that often gets passed around in atheist circles: […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
Quote of the Day on the Morality of Those Seeking Heaven
Reading Time: 2 minutes I will be expanding on this, but this point from a regular astute commenter is exactly one that I have touched upon here: Heaven & Hell Stop You From Genuinely Morally Evaluating But if you can’t be bothered to read that, read (((J_Enigma32)))’s recent comment: Oh, there’s a bunch of problems with heaven, but all of […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Politics
Statues, The Sorites Paradox & Slippery Slopes
Reading Time: 12 minutes It’s my favourite philosophical thought experiment. There is a reason that I find the Sorites Paradox compelling, insightful and very important: it is everywhere and has ramifications right across the board. I’ll get onto it later. In my opinion, it goes hand in hand with conceptual nominalism – the belief that universals and abstract ideas […]
Posted inEducation, Ethics and Morality, The Secular
Morals Without Religion – Alice Roberts
Reading Time: < 1 minute I like Prof. Alice Roberts. She is a scientist and author who is excellent at communicating science on TV and other media and, now, humanism. She is relatively newly appointed to the President of Humanists UK. She courted controversy courtesy of the Times and other right-wing newspapers when, in an interview, she explained that she […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
Pearced Off! #3 – God Is a Consequentialist
Reading Time: < 1 minute I am running a series of the old podcast segments from my Pearced Off! section of the Skepticule Podcast (a British skepticism-based podcast now on hiatus) that I used to contribute to. Some of the earlier ones have some quieter audio. Apologies. They run at around ten minutes. Something to keep you company outside of Netflix and the news… […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Health, Politics
Consequentialism and Coronavirus, Visually Speaking
Reading Time: < 1 minute For those who are a bit TL;DR for my recent piece, I have now set it to face time. If you fancy my dulcet tones, check this out. And while you’re at it, please subscribe to my channel. I plan on doing a number of these over the lockdown period. Help me out! Stay in […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Health, Politics
Morality: Consequentialism and Coronavirus
Reading Time: 4 minutes We are living in times of moral dilemma. As I have so often stated before, politics is a subset of morality. When we talk about morality, we talk about oughts – normatively what we should, as individuals, do. Politics is this write large over societies and from a governmental perspective. In these testing times of […]