Timed with the current national release of Michael Moore’s Sicko, I have a (fairly) honest question: why do political libertarians reject the idea of state-financed universal health care? Now I know why they say they do: it would interfere with our individual liberty to do […] Read More
A shameless plug/invitation: I’ve created a new blog on the teaching of philosophy, In Socrates’ Wake. Please come visit, offer comments, etc. I’d also be interested if anyone would like to join up as a contributor. Thanks!
I was reading Dancy’s nonnaturalism entry to Copp’s Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory. Dancy discusses two arguments against naturalism which Parfit has presented in some of his unpublished writings. The first one is called the triviality objection against analytic versions of naturalism. Initially, I did […] Read More
Below the fold are a few things going on around the net. If you have any other announcements that folks at PEA Soup might be interested in, please feel free to add them in the comments section.
One venerable objection against the principle that all motivation derives from desire points to the motive of duty, or practical necessity, as phenomenological evidence of its falsity. Supposedly, the experience of doing something because you have to (or, per Kant, the experience of being able […] Read More
Like many other philosophers, I reject consequentialism in favour of a more deontological approach to ethics. That is, I favour a moral theory that implies that in certain cases, one ought to refrain from harming people in certain ways – even if, from an impartial […] Read More
Via Simon Kirchin: A reminder of a previous call for papers. 2008 sees the 10th anniversary of the journal "Ethical Theory and Moral Practice". In celebration, the journal is organizing a major international conference, to be held in Amsterdam, 19th-20th March 2008. The general conference […] Read More
Many Kantians have reservations about Kant’s rather strident view concerning self-killing. In the Lectures on Ethics in particular, Kant’s rhetoric pulls no moral punches. Kant calls suicide "revolting", an act wherein we reduce ourselves to mere "carrion" with "no intrinsic worth." We ought to "shrink […] Read More
Today marks the third anniversary of PEA Soup’s burst (okay, limp) onto the blogosphere. We’re celebrating with a new look, about which we’ll say a bit more below. But first, right up front, we want to thank all of you—our fellow contributors, commentators, and readers—for helping to […] Read More