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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.” [...]
Archive for the ‘Applied Ethics’ Category
Bullying or Debating? Religious Privilege or Freedom of Speech?
November 13th, 2011 
Daniel Fincke 
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 »Paterno and the Pope
November 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jon Stewart says what needs to be said. (via Kylie) Freethought Blogs coverage of this disgrace comes from Pharyngula: What? It’s not just Catholic priests? and This is why I hate college football programs, Digital Cuttlefish: Am I Making Myself Clear?, Commradde Physioprof: Does Penn State Actively Condone The Rape Of Children?, and Almost Diamonds: Understanding Penn State. Your Thoughts?
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 »Mississippi Voters Reject “Personhood” Amendment
November 8th, 2011 Daniel Fincke JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi voters Tuesday defeated a ballot initiative that would’ve declared life begins at conception, a proposal that supporters sought in the Bible Belt state as a way to prompt a legal challenge to abortion rights nationwide. The so-called “personhood” initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters, falling far short [...]
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 »A Debate About The Wisdom of Trying To Deconvert People
October 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jaime: So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how best to debate the existence of God with religious believers… Kelly: Why would you do that? Jaime: Do what? Kelly: Debate the existence of God with religious believers. What’s the point in that? Jaime: What do you mean, “what’s the point?” We live in the [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy Of Religion, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism Tags: Debate With Believers, Deconverting, Why Debate Believers? 14 Comments »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 »Judging Yourself Truthfully
October 15th, 2011 Daniel Fincke One of the most important mental disciplines is to assess yourself honestly. We are so naturally susceptible to judging ourselves according to both the flattery of our admirers and of our own ego, on the one hand, and the disdain of our detractors and our own irrational fears, on the other. It takes a lot [...]
Homosexuality As Naturally Good Part 1: Laying Out Objections To Ethical Naturalism, Some On Behalf Of Gays
October 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I intend to lay out the case for the ethical goodness of homosexuality for homosexual people in a way that is consistent with my funadmentally naturalistic ethical theory. Many philosophers, natural scientists, social scientists, and laypeople alike are averse about trying to base ethical judgments on appeals to nature. And there are a number of [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Evolution, Evolution, Gay Marriage, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, LGBTQAA, Love, Love, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Teleology, Teleology Tags: Ethical Naturalism, Naturalistic Fallacy, Objections to Ethical Naturalism 8 Comments »Love Religious People (Tip 10 of 10 For Reaching Out To Religious Believers)
October 10th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Top Ten Tips For Reaching Out To Religious Believers: 1. Don’t Call Religious Believers Stupid. 2. Make Believers Stay on Topic During Debates. 3. Don’t Tell Religious Believers What They “Really Believe”. 4. Clarify What Kinds of Evidence Warrant What Kinds of Beliefs. 5. Help Break The Spell Of Religious Reverence. 6. Don’t Demonize Religious [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Love, Love, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Virtues, Virtues Tags: "Love The Religious Hate The Religion", "Love The Sinner Hate The Sin" 10 Comments »Confidence vs. Self-Confidence (And The Will To Power)
October 4th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Greta has a meditation up today on the topic of seeking new adventures, doing things you don’t think you’ll like, and generally expanding your horizons. It reminded me of something I think and say a lot but don’t think I have yet recorded on the blog. And of course, everything I think and say has [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Nietzsche, Nietzsche Tags: Confidence, Self-Confidence, Will to Power 1 Comment »The Facts About Intrinsic and Instrumental Goods and The Cultural Construction of Intrinsic Goods
September 23rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke In this post I want to say something which many would find radical and would assume is impossible and clearly false: I want to say that it can be a fact whether something is intrinsically good in some particular respect, for some particular being. A major part of this requires that I distinguish another kind of [...]
The Moral Toll of Executions on the Consciences of Executioners
September 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Allen Ault is the retired director of the Georgia Department of Corrections and former warden of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison which handled Troy Davis. Ault oversaw executions for the state of Georgia. He is now Eastern Kentucky University’s dean of “College of Justice and Society” and well-informed from an academic perspective about the [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, News, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Politics, Politics, Videos Tags: Allen Ault, Anti-Death Penalty, Death Penalty, Dennis O'Neill, Ed Schultz, Ed Show, Effects of Executions on Executioners, Georgia Department of Corrections, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Jeanne Woodford, Rachel Maddow, Reginald Wilkinson, Rick Perry, Ron McAndrew, Terry Collins, Troy Anthony Davis, Troy Davis 7 Comments »On The Ethics of “Sugar Daddies” and “Sugar Babies”
September 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke Kelly: Did you hear about this “sugar daddy” and “sugar baby” phenomenon wherein college girls are whoring themselves out through the internet to skeevy rich older men so they can pay for their college educations? It makes me sick to think that for these girls an education costs their bodies. These kids have to sell [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Autonomy, Autonomy, Ethics, Ethics, Feminism, Feminism, Love, Love, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Sex, Virtues, Virtues, Women's Issues Tags: Vices 34 Comments »Moral Perfectionism, Moral Pragmatism, Free Love Ethics, and Adultery
September 19th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Kelly: You are a moral absolutist, Jaime. Jaime: Nonsense. You are the one who wants to impose monogamy on everyone, whether they like it or not. Kelly: No, when we talked the other day, I conceded it was your right to have whatever kinds of open relationships you wanted. I only said that, given human [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Duty, Duty, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Psychology, Sex, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Adultery, Anti-Adultery, Anti-Monogamy, Changes in Moral Values, Consequentialism, Marriage, Monogamy, Moral Absolutism, Moral Idealism, Moral Institutions, Moral Perfectionism, Moral Revisionism, Moral Values, Non-Moral Values, Pleasure and Pain, Polyamory, Promiscuity, Utilitarianism 60 Comments »Why Getting Away With Wrongdoing Does Not Make It Worth It
September 18th, 2011 Daniel Fincke This past week across numerous different classes I am teaching in both ancient philosophy and ethics, I have been talking with my students about Plato’s Republic, Book II. We have discussed whether there would be any intrinsic goodness to justice such that it would be in our interests to choose just courses of action even [...]
A Debate About The Value of Permanent Promiscuity
September 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jaime: I think monogamy is a mistake as an ideal. I believe in permanent promiscuity. Kelly: You’re saying people should cheat on each other? Jaime: No, if there were no monogamy there would be no cheating. We do not have monofriendamy do we? We do not say you are “cheating” on one of your friends [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Sex, Virtues, Virtues 46 Comments »In Honor of Firefighters
September 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Today, remembering 9/11, I have been thinking about parts of two posts I wrote in 2009 which mean a lot to me, in which I meditated on the bravery of the firefighters. One of the posts is about my father, a retired New York City firefighter and fire marshal, and the other is about the [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Duty, Duty, Virtues, Virtues Tags: 9/11 Firefighters, Firefighters, Heroism, William Fincke, William X. Fincke, William Xavier Fincke No Comments »What A “War on Terror” Should Mean vs. What it Has Meant
September 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Princeton’s emeritus philosophy professor Michael Walzer is co-editor of Dissent. He is not a George W. Bush yes-man. But he thinks that “war on terror” is a legitimate concept even as many leftish thinkers oppose it as a confusion. People argue that terrorism is a tactic, not a specific enemy you can target. In “Terrorism [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Ethics, Ethics, Morality, Morality, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Politics, Politics, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Torture, Torture, World Affairs, World Affairs Tags: Michael Walzer, Terrorism, Terrorism and Genocide, Walzer on Terrorism, What is Terrorism?, What is wrong with Terrorism? 3 Comments »Internecine War At Freethought Blogs: Philosopher vs. “Redneck” Edition: Free Will And The Real World Smackdown
September 10th, 2011 Daniel Fincke As far as I have noticed, there has not been a blog war between any of the Freethought Blogs (or, er, since we all moved here anyway) so I was a little trepidatious of going and picking apart the every word of a quick comment on one of my posts by my new favorite blogger, Hank [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Ethics, Ethics, Faith, Faith, God, God, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Metaethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Psychology, Psychology, Social Psychology, Social Psychology Tags: Free Will 19 Comments »The Contexts, Objective Hierarchies, and Spectra of Goods and Bads (Or “Why Murder Is Bad”)
September 7th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I wrote a post which laid out the cornerstone of my theory of objective value. In it I argued that “goodness equals effectiveness”. Wherever one uses the word “good”, one could substitute the word “effectiveness” and the sentence would mean the same thing. My view is that since effectiveness is clearly a measurable and factual matter [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology Tags: Why Murder is Bad, Why Murder is Wrong 7 Comments »Believing Too Little Is As Bad As Believing Too Much
September 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke When formulating principles and practices for forming good beliefs and avoiding bad beliefs, the first thing we must keep in mind is that consciously affirming a belief, consciously affirming a disbelief, deliberately avoiding believing or disbelieving are all actions. When we choose our standards for what propositions count as worthy of our belief, our disbelief, or [...]
The Simpsons, Family Guy, and The Trolley Problem
September 4th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Tomkow explains the famous “Trolley Problem” using the aid of characters from The Simpsons and Family Guy: TROLLEY A runaway trolley is coming down the track. It is headed towards five people who cannot get out of its way. A Passerby realizes that he can save the five by throwing a switch and diverting the trolley down [...]
Santorum’s Hypocrisy and Backwardness on Questions of Epistemic Authority
September 1st, 2011 Daniel Fincke My thoughts:
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Faith, Faith, Free Speech, Free Speech, Gay Marriage, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Law, Law, LGBTQAA, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Same Sex Marriage, Same Sex Marriage, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Teleology, Teleology, Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocrats, Theocrats, Videos Tags: Rick Santorum 5 Comments »Asking Richard Wade About The Ethics of Lying To Stay In A Protective Closet
July 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In four previous posts, I have discussed with the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, the problems with forming one’s identity based on one’s beliefs (or non-beliefs), and how atheists should respond to the possibly religious dimensions of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the installment of [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Secularism Tags: Closeted Atheists, Honesty, Intolerance Against Atheists, Richard Wade, The Ethics of Lying, Truthfulness 10 Comments »
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