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4 Misconceptions About the Nature of Offense Here are four common sense assumptions about giving and taking offense that I think are fundamentally mistaken and which atheists need to argue against: “You have every right to be offended, but you don’t have the right to censor others just because you’re offended.” “You cannot blame people [...]
Archive for the ‘Morality’ Category
No, Not Everyone Has A Moral Right To Be Offended By Just Any Satire or Criticism
February 15th, 2012 
Daniel Fincke 
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Free Speech, Free Speech, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Religious Satire, Religious Satire, Virtues, Virtues 
Tags: "You Have The Right To Be Offended", Andy Drennon, Denial of Atheists From Gelato shop, Gelatogate, In Defense of Blasphemy, Moral Rights, Offense as a Moral Category, Offense As Value Judgment, Religion, Religious Offense, Satirizing Religion, Skepticon IV, Values Perceptions 
53 Comments »Is Emotivistic Moral Nihilism Rationally Consistent?
February 2nd, 2012 Daniel Fincke Taylor: I know you’re bothered that I don’t believe in objective values, Pat, but I assure you I still care about the same things that you do. I just don’t say I’m being “objective” when I do so. Pat: I don’t know why you think I would be impressed by that. Taylor: Well when you [...]
God and Goodness
January 30th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Robin: Look, I get it, Jaime. As an atheist, you think that God’s wisdom is foolishness, that God’s righteousness is wickedness, and that the bloody death of Jesus on the cross is hateful and ugly rather than the epitome of love and beauty that Christians like I think it is. The Bible makes it very [...]
Posted in Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Authority, Authority, Bible, Bible, Christianity, Christianity, Ethics, God, God, Metaethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Of Religion, Problem of Evil, Problem of Evil, Rationalism, Religion, Religion Tags: Divine Command Theory, God and Goodness, God's goodness, Theological Voluntarism 26 Comments »Baby Morality
January 12th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Yale psychologist and author of How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like, Paul Bloom discusses the evidence that certain behaviors, dispositions, and feelings on which morality is built are innate in us and present already in babies: Relatedly, Alison Gopnik’s The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds Tell Us About [...]
Posted in Ethics, Ethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Psychology, Psychology Tags: Babies, babies and morality, Compassion 2 Comments »The Case Against Literature As Moral Education
December 18th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The other day, Corey Robin, author of The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, eviscerated Christopher Hitchens over two morally dubious comments he made. Robin concluded from them that, contrary to his reputation, Hitchens was not at all an internationalist but rather “a narcissist, the most provincial spirit of all”. Robin ended his post quoting [...]
Podcast Series Covering The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps
December 2nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Earlier today, I posted a link to an exceptional, accessible podcast introduction to the philosophies of the ancient cynics. The whole series that that podcast comes from is a marvelous idea and the few I’ve listened to are just great. It’s called “The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps” and it’s a must listen, basically a [...]
Posted in Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Love, Love, Metaethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Plato, Plato, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Anaxagoras, Anaximander, Anaximines, Ancient Atomists, Aristotle, Aristotle on Biology, Aristotle on Four Causes, Aristotle on God, Aristotle on Logic, Aristotle on Mind, Aristotle on Physics, Aristotle on Soul, Aristotle's Life and Works, Aristotle's Politics, Aristotle's Rhetoric, Atomists, Charmides, Cratylus, Cynics, Cyrenaics, Empedocles, Epicurus, Euthydemus, Gorgias, Hellenistic Philosophy, Heraclitus, Hippocrates, Melissus, Parmenides, Plato, Plato's Cratylus, Plato's Erotic Dialogues, Plato's Gorgias, Plato's Parmenides, Plato's Republic, Platonic Love, Presocratics, Pythagoras, Socrates, Sophists, Sorabji on Aristotle, Thales, The Republic, The Sophist, Zeno 8 Comments »If You Don’t Believe In Objective Values, Then Don’t Talk To Me About Objective Scientific Truth Either
November 27th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I recently argued that when any of us act, we must act for reasons. When acting for reasons we must decide that the end we pursue is the best, most worthwhile, goal to pursue and that the action we take in order to achieve that goal is the most suitable one. I should also add [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authority, Authority, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Evidence, Evidence, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science, Science, Science, Teleology, Teleology Tags: Coherency, Coherency Theory of Truth, Epistemic Normativity, Fictionalism in Science, Goodness is Effectiveness, Incoherency of Moral Nihilism, Moral Nihilism, Moral Normativity, Morals and Values, Naturalistic Fallacy, Normativity, Norms and Moral Norms, Norms and Values, Objective Values, Objectivity in Reason, Positivistic Nietzscheanism, Presuppositionalism, Problem of Induction, Scientific Truth vs. Moral Truth, Subjective Values, Subjectivity in Reason, Values in Reason, Values in Science, Values Nihilism 109 Comments »Why Bother Blaming People At All? Isn’t That Just Judgmental?
November 25th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Before moving on to addressing the question of when it is right or wrong to get offended, let me quickly address a certain attitude that arises a lot in response to my posts on morality. I sense in the tone of a lot of comments I get in general that there is a fear of [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Jesus, Jesus, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Rationalism, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Blame, Blame and Determinism, Determinism, Free Will, Immoralism, Judgmentalism, Moralism 32 Comments »Yes, We Can Blame People For Their Feelings, Not Just Their Actions
November 24th, 2011 Daniel Fincke “You can’t blame people for how they feel, only for what they do.” “You have every right to be offended, but you don’t have the right to censor others just because you’re offended.” In this post and the next one, I want to explain why I think these two common moral sentiments are quite mistaken—or, [...]
On Not-Pologies, Forgiveness, and Gelato
November 23rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Kinds of Forgiveness Let’s start with the theoretical. How should we characterize forgiveness, and when and why should we forgive people? Full forgiveness involves three things: 1. Waiving all just moral and/or legal penalties, including all forms of restitution and compensation, that we would normally demand for wrongdoing. 2. Restoring amicable emotional, social, and/or professional [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Virtues, Virtues 39 Comments »Answering Objections From A Moral Nihilist
November 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Earlier today I explained why moral nihilism is self-contradictory in reply to a comment by thedudediogenes on my earlier attack on moral nihilism from last Friday. thedudediogenes also wrote: How I look at morality is influenced most strongly by Nietzsche, Mackie, Leiter, Garner, Greene and Blackford. I think we project our moral sentiments onto the world. [...]
Why Moral Nihilism Is Self-Contradictory
November 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke My post against moral nihilism on Friday received many stimulating replies. I hope to address those replies, or their general concerns, as there is time and occasion in future posts. In this post–and in another I have written for later today–I want to start by answering thedudediogenes. He is the most seemingly self-conscious moral nihilist [...]
Posted in Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Metaethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology 19 Comments »Thinking According To Scale
November 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke PZ and Crommunist offer nice denunciations of the significance of a graphic which has been going around the internet which concludes that the chance of any given individual alive today ever existing was 1 in 102,685,000. Below the fold is the graphic, key snippets of their remarks and the lesson to draw for how we should consider [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Biology, Biology, Ethics, Ethics, Evolution, Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Probability, Psychology, Psychology, PZ Myers, PZ Myers, Science, Science, Sociobiology, Sociobiology Tags: Crommunist Manifesto, Grind the universe down to its finest powder, Hierarchical Reductionism, PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, Richard Dawkins on Reductionism, Terry Pratchett, The Blind Watchmaker 3 Comments »A Philosophical Polemic Against Moral Nihilism
November 18th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jesse is undeterred by my argument that at least some of our moralities (or elements of them) can be objectively defended even though the physical universe (taken as an entirety) does not care about them: Daniel– I haven’t gone deeply enough through the other posts you linked to, and I will — but I think [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Evidence, Evidence, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues 31 Comments »Why Be Morally Dutiful, Fair, or Self-Sacrificing If The Ethical Life Is About Power?
November 17th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I argue in my moral philosophy that our highest ethical goods are to maximally flourish in our power and in our will to power. When I say this, many immediately assume that my ethics must be quite at odds with the sorts of concerns for selfless respect for duty and for the autonomy of all [...]
Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Duty, Duty, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Kant's moral philosophy 8 Comments »The Universe Does Not Care About Our Morality. But So What?
November 16th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Towards the end of my dialogue on immoralism, I discussed, through the voice of one of my characters, my view that there can be relatively objective moralities. In reply, Jesse writes: I saw your post on objective goods and it till doesn’t work for me. I still get back to the question of what an [...]
Emma Goldman’s “The Victims of Morality”
November 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In reply to my dialogue which I posted this morning examining what I perceive to be immoralism’s important contributions to moral thinking and its inevitable limits, a reader sent me to investigate Max Stirner and Emma Goldman. I may have something to say about Stirner in the future if time permits. But for now I [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Christianity, Christianity, Ethics, Ethics, Feminism, Feminism, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocrats, Theocrats, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Issues 7 Comments »Immoralism?
November 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Taylor: I’ve been reading a lot of Nietzsche of late, like you recommended. Pat: Oh? And what do you think? What are you taking away from it? Taylor: I really like what he has to say about immoralism. I realized I am an immoralist. Pat: How so? How are you interpreting that word? Taylor: Well, he makes this really fascinating [...]
Posted in Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy 10 Comments »Bullying or Debating? Religious Privilege or Freedom of Speech?
November 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jaime: Did you see the Republicans just endorsed the right to bully in schools as long as it’s done in the name of religion. Kelly: They did not. Jaime: Yes. They did. They perversely added to anti-bullying bill the right to bully as long as such bullying was based on “sincerely held religious or moral convictions.” [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Free Speech, Free Speech, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, Law, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Racism, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Same Sex Marriage, Same Sex Marriage, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocrats, Theocrats Tags: John Rawls, Libertarianism, Tolerance 33 Comments »A Critique of Noble Lies And The “Theologies” They Create
November 10th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In this long post, I begin by explaining Plato’s formulation of the concept of a noble lie for those unfamiliar with it and then I explain in detail numerous problems I see with employing noble lies and with attempts to persuade people through “theological” arguments. I think all theology is either an explicit or an [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, History, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Religion, Religion, Religion and Science, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocrats, Theocrats, Virtues, Virtues 34 Comments »Is Oxytocin The “Morality Molecule”
November 7th, 2011 Daniel Fincke That is Paul Zak’s theory. The video is fascinating: Now I just need to find 8 people to hug me everyday. (via Philosopher’s Haze, who you can read for a summary if you cannot watch the video for some reason). Patricia Churchland’s book Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality explores the role of Oxycotin in morality [...]
Posted in Biology, Biology, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophy, Psychology, Psychology Tags: Adam Smith, Empathy, Oxytocin, Paul Zak, Trustworthiness 9 Comments »Qualia Soup on Morality Part 3: Of Objectivity and Oughts
November 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Qualia Soup makes the case for a J.L. Mackie sort of subjectivism in ethics against William Lane Craig. I think more can be said for objectivity than he allows. As I summarized last week, in my own objections to Craig’s positions: I, for one, am convinced atheists can have a perfectly fine naturalistic ontology of objective goodness, which allows us [...]
Posted in Ethics, Ethics, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Tags: David Hume, Defense of Moral Subjectivism, Error Theory, J.L. Mackie, Projectivism No Comments »Force and Reason
October 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke In previous posts (like Rational Passional Persuasion and On Zealously, Tentatively, and Perspectivally Holding Viewpoints) I have argued that there is a proper place for emotional appeals as part of a rational argument. In the last couple of weeks, though, I have also argued firmly against certain kinds of emotional appeals that I consider abusive, counter-productive, and hypocritical [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Coercion, Emotional Appeals, Emotional Persuasion, Emotions in Reason, Emotivism, Force of Reason, Manipulation, Objective Valuing, Perspectivalism, Persuasion, Rational Appeals, Rational Force, Rational Persuasion, Rationality, Reason and Emotion, Subjective Valuing, Values 15 Comments »From Is To Ought: How Normativity Fits Into Naturalism
October 19th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In a previous post, I laid out a number of reasons that people think values cannot be grounded in naturalistic ways or that if they were they would be values which would threaten vulnerable groups. In this post, I want to address the charge of the naturalistic fallacy: i.e., the claim that you cannot derive [...]
Fighting The Dictionary
October 18th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Ophelia wrote an insightful, controversial paragraph: Churches don’t do education. Religion doesn’t do education. Churches and religion do religion, which is different from education. Education is what schools do. It is fundamentally secular – it is about the world, and exploring and learning about the world. Like newspapers, like forensics, like medicine, like so many human institutions, [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Education, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Language, Secularism 20 Comments »
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