Over the weekend, my friend pointed me to a great new web site called YourLogicalFallacyIs.com, which was designed “to help you identify and call out dodgy logic wherever it may raise its ugly, incoherent head.” The creators are even offering a free, printable poster of logical fallacies. Check it out:
Tagged: ethics, logic, morality, philosophy
In case you hadn’t heard, facts finally kicked the bucket last week. To the shock of most sentient beings, Facts died Wednesday, April 18, after a long battle for relevancy with the 24-hour news cycle, blogs and the Internet. Though few expected Facts to pull out of its years-long downward spiral, the official cause of death was from injuries suffered last week when Florida Republican Rep. Allen West steadfastly declared that as many as 81 of his fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives are communists. Facts held on for several days after that assault — brought on without a scrap of evidence or reason — before expiring peacefully at its home in a high school physics book. Facts was 2,372. “It’s very…
By Michael De Dora On Saturday, April 28, I will speak before an expected crowd of thousands in New York City as part of a nationwide effort led by the organization Unite Women to help raise awareness on the recent attacks on women’s rights and urge those who care to get politically engaged. The movement is endorsed by a wide range of groups, such as the Center for Inquiry, Americans United for Separation for Church and State, Catholics for Choice, and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. I have noticed that many people — mostly secularist and liberal religionist friends — who would normally support women’s rights have not embraced the term “war on women” and avoided the movement fighting under its banner. I’m…
Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss sparked an interesting debate earlier this week when he stated in an interview with The Atlantic that science (or, more specifically, physics) makes philosophy obsolete. Here’s a small taste of Krauss’ comments: Philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen joke, “those that can’t do, teach, and those that can’t teach, teach gym.” And the worst part of philosophy is the philosophy of science; the only people, as far as I can tell, that read work by philosophers of science are other philosophers of science. It has no impact on physics what so ever, and I doubt that other philosophers read it because it’s fairly technical. And so it’s really hard to understand what justifies it.…
Vatican cracks down on nuns for being ethical: The Vatican has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying that an investigation found that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.” The Vatican’s assessment, issued on Wednesday, said that members of the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” “I’m stunned,” said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby founded by sisters. Her group was also cited in the Vatican document, along with the Leadership Conference, for focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice,…
Readers, It’s hard to believe, but one year ago yesterday, I officially launched The Moral Perspective. At that point, I had no clue whether this blog would last this long. But, alas, we are still here. So, I’d like to reflect for a moment on the past year. As you can see on the archive, I initially updated this blog several times per day. I soon realized that was taking up too much of my time, and switched to a once daily posting schedule. I hope to continue this pace. Over the past 12 months, we have explored a wide range of topics. Broadly speaking, the central theme of this blog has been, and will continue to be, the relationship between morality and public…
Tagged: ethics, morality, philosophy, religion, science
If you hadn’t already heard of it, Unite Women is a new organization whose mission is to bring together Americans against the recent political attacks on women’s rights (from reproductive to economic), in part by orchestrating marches and rallies across the United States on Saturday, April 28. I feel fortunate to announce that I will be speaking at their rally in New York City. Here’s the (rather impressive) speaker list: Jasmine Burnett, Raising Voices Colia Clark, Candidate for U.S. Senate (Green Party-NY) Michael De Dora, Center for Inquiry Mona Eltahawy, independent journalist Rep. Richard Gottfried, New York State Assembly Barbara Grufferman, Huffington Post Anne Klaeysen, New York Society for Ethical Culture Leighann Lord, comedian Rep. Carolyn Maloney, U.S. House of Represenatives (D-NY) Lynn Paltrow,…
Tagged: abortion, ethics, morality, Politics, reproductive rights, war on women, women
Here’s Mike Tudoreanu making sense in The Daily Collegian at the University of Massachusetts: The idea that government should be morally neutral is an old one. It holds that society can be compared with a complex game in which different people have different goals and follow different values, and the role of the state is to enforce the rules of the game. So the government should be like a referee in a game of football: it should not take sides or support any one player’s goals and values, but merely ensure that everyone follows the rules. The problem with that vision is that the rules themselves are not morally neutral, so the state is not actually taking a neutral stance when it enforces them.…
Tagged: ethics, law, morality, philosophy, Politics
Is this really what lawmakers who push anti-reproductive rights legislation want to happen? In August 2010, I was overjoyed to discover I was pregnant. My husband and I still wanted nothing more than to give my son a brother or sister. For weeks, my pregnancy was proceeding normally. But then 22 weeks into my pregnancy, it went terribly wrong. On Saturday, November 27, my water broke and there was not enough amniotic fluid for my daughter to survive. This was heartbreaking. If there was anything we could have done to save her, we would have. What happened next should have remained a very private decision between me and my family and my doctors. As the result of a law similar to a bill considered…
TED has posted a new talk by Emory University primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal on his work with primates and the evolutionary origins of morality. Here’s a short description of the 17-minute presentation: Empathy, cooperation, fairness and reciprocity — caring about the well-being of others seems like a very human trait. But Frans de Waal shares some surprising videos of behavioral tests, on primates and other mammals, that show how many of these moral traits all of us share. Watch here.
Tagged: ethics, evolution, morality, philosophy, science
THE MORAL PERSPECTIVE