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Update: Joel Marks has replied to this post and to my first follow up post. I have reedited this post to incorporate his remarks at the end. Joel Marks is at the Center for Bioethics at Yale University and is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of New Haven. Though writing on ethics throughout [...]
Archive for the ‘Metaethics’ Category
On Rejecting Faith in Morality
September 16th, 2011 
Daniel Fincke 
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Personal, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Skepticism, Skepticism 
1 Comment »The Objective Value of Ordered Complexity
September 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I argue that the word goodness should be interpreted to mean, in the most fundamental sense of the word, “effectiveness”. I also argue that since effectiveness is a factual issue, goodness is a factual issue. These controversial positions of mine raise a lot of thought provoking questions and challenges from readers. I am using this [...]
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 “Moral Argument” For Free Will Is A Morally Troubling, Hypocritical, Faith Position
September 9th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Many who believe that we have free will are what philosophers call “libertarians”. These are not necessarily libertarians in the political sense but in a metaphysical sense. Libertarians conceive of free will as incompatible with determinism. Their notion is that to the extent that our actions are determined by forces or factors which are beyond [...]
Posted in Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Disambiguating Faith, Disambiguating Faith, Ethics, Ethics, Faith, Faith, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Tags: Determinism, Free Will, Hypocrisy of the moral argument for free will, Libertarian Free Will, The Moral Argument for Free Will 25 Comments »Can Good Teaching Be Measured?
September 8th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In recent posts I have been arguing that if only we interpret the word “good” to mean “effective” we can ground our discussions of values (moral and otherwise) in facts about effectivness. I argue that in that context we can have greater and lesser degrees of goodness, measurable in terms of greater or lesser degrees [...]
Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Education, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Evidence, Evidence, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Metaethics, Metaethics, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues 6 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 »What I Think About Metaethics
September 1st, 2011 Daniel Fincke To get new readers caught up and to inspire all of you to resume old conversations and to get new ones rolling, periodically I will write posts which tour you through my archive. In each post I will briefly summarize the positions I have taken in the past and provide links to the posts where [...]
Nietzsche's Immoralism As Rebellion Against The Authoritarian Tendencies Of Moralities
August 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke Nietzsche casts himself, quite provocatively, as an “immoralist”. In this post, I want to make clear what Nietzsche means by this term as a first step towards understanding the exact nature and scope of his hostility to morality. As should already be apparent to longtime Camels With Hammers readers, I am optimistic about philosophy’s possibilities [...]
Posted in Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Tags: Authoritarianism, Beyond Good and Evil 202, Daybreak 3, Hypocrisy, Immoralism, Will To Power 306, Will To Power 308 2 Comments »Is it Too Risky to Debate Morality's Foundations in the Public Square?
February 28th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jean Kazez argues that the public square is not the place for atheists to be arguing that science and religion are incompatible. I strongly reject her position on this point because not only do I believe that ordinary people are quite capable of handling a vigorous, no-holds-barred debate about religion but because I believe the [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Duty, Duty, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Politics, Politics, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin, Secularism, Skepticism, Skepticism Tags: J.L. Mackie, Jean Kazez, Jean-Paul Sartre, Moral Anti-Realism, Moral Error Theory, Moral Realism, Pragmatism, Russell Blackford, Sam Harris, The Death of God 8 Comments »Dawkins Against Religion's Claim To Superiority Because It Offers Absolute Morality
February 24th, 2011 Daniel Fincke This is one of the most concise, eloquent, and accurate statements on the problem with religious absolutism in morality and the superiority of secular, non-absolutist approaches to morality I have ever heard. And it is certainly Dawkins’s best 2 and a half minutes on the topic of morality I have ever heard: Thanks to Lucy. [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheist Videos, Atheist Videos, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authority, Authority, Bible, Bible, Christianity, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Islam, Islam, Koran, Koran, Metaethics, Metaethics, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Secularism, Videos Tags: Absolute Morality, Non-Absolute Morality, Richard Dawkins 2 Comments »TOP Q: “Do Children Have Higher Moral Status Than Adults?”
February 9th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In his book Moral Status and Human Life: The Case for Children’s Superiority, law professor James Dwyer argues that children are not merely equal to adults in moral status but actually have a higher moral status than adults. Below is a brief video in which he sketches out the broad contours of his thought on moral [...]
Posted in Abortion, Abortion, Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Autonomy, Autonomy, Bio-Medical Ethics, Bio-Medical Ethics, Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Duty, Duty, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Law, Law, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Teleology, Teleology, Today's Open Philosophical Question (TOP Q) Tags: Children, Children's Rights 2 Comments »Rejecting And Reconciling Moral Intuitionist Ideas With My Naturalist Account Of Goodness
January 30th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In reply to my post, Against Moral Intuitionism, James Gray defended his moral intuitionist leanings against my attacks on them. He starts by quoting me: But many people can be and have been persuaded that goodness is not a property of things but rather of people’s attitudes towards them. The very existence of anti-realists about the existence [...]
Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Evidence, Evidence, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Tags: Moral Intuitionism, Self-evidence 3 Comments »What Does It Mean For Pleasure And Pain To Be “Intrinsically Instrumental” Goods?
January 30th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In reply to my post, Pleasure And Pain As Intrinsic Instrumental Goods, James objects: You are defining pleasure as intrinsic instrumental good. This is obviously not intrinsic goodness as I define it at all. Instrumental goodness is not intrinsic goodness. A successful pleasure instance is an intrinsically good instance of pleasure in-itself and for-itself, just for being [...]
Posted in Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Torture, Torture Tags: Instrumental Value, Intrinsic Instrumental Value, Intrinsic Value, Objective Value, Pain, Pleasure, Values 6 Comments »Moral vs. Non-Moral Values
January 28th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In a recent post I distinguished numerous times between moral and non-moral values and between different sorts of intrinsic and instrumental goods. James Gray asks for clarifications about how I use these terms: First, I don’t know that it matters to call something a “moral value.” Of course, there are instrumental values concerning morally neutral [...]
Posted in Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Moral Values, Moral Virtues, Non-Moral Values, Non-Moral Virtues 13 Comments »Against Moral Intuitionism
January 27th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In the series of posts I began on Sunday and which has continued through this morning, I have developed and defended my naturalistic approach to understanding value as a realist. James Gray, despite being a moral realist, has balked at much in my attempts to do this and it has become increasingly clear that the [...]
Posted in Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Ethics, Ethics, Evidence, Evidence, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Tags: Alasdair MacIntyre, Emotivism, Error Theory, G.E. Moore, Intuitions, Moral Anti-Realism, Moral Intuitionism, Moral Realism, Robert Audi, Values 6 Comments »Pleasure And Pain As Intrinsic Instrumental Goods
January 27th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In recent posts I have been arguing that there is one sense of the word “good” which can be analyzed in terms of facts and that this is the kind of “goodness” which we can consider a real part of the world. This real, intrinsic, factual sense of goodness is its meaning as “effectiveness”. We [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Problem of Evil, Problem of Evil, Teleology, Teleology, Torture, Torture, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Bernard Reginster, Pain, Pains, Pleasure, Pleasures, Will to Power 5 Comments »Non-Reductionistic Analysis Of Values Into Facts
January 27th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I have recently been arguing that the term good: must be cashed out in fact terms lest it just be a projection of our preferences and nothing more. [And] if it means anything objective, it means effectiveness. In reply, James Gray accuses me of reductionism: One, “good” does not have be defined in non-good terms. [...]
Posted in Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Teleology, Teleology Tags: Good, Immoralism, Intrinsic Goods, Metaphysics of Value, Natural Good, Non-Good Terms, Non-Reductionism, Reductionism, Values 8 Comments »What Is Happiness And Why Is It Good?
January 24th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In this post, I explore the meanings and worths of two phenomena recognized by our language as of happiness, in reply to remarks by James Gray on my most recent post. For a little background for those joining late and who would like to catch up: I have been arguing in several posts now that goodness [...]
Posted in Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Happiness 13 Comments »Effectiveness Is The Primary Goal In Itself, Not Merely A Means
January 24th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In a recent post I argued that goodness, objectively speaking, means effectiveness. Of course we use the word “good” for numerous purposes, to express that we find something pleasant, desirable, useful, advantageous to our interests, etc. But I want to argue that when it comes to the facts of reality, goodness has only this one essential [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues 25 Comments »Grounding Objective Value Independent Of Human Interests And Moralities
January 23rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke In my most recent philosophical post, I have finally explained one of the most fundamental premises necessary for explaining and justifying my overall views on ethics. I explained my view that goodness objectively means effectiveness and that all further true ideas of “good” should be understood only as derivative from the basic good of effectiveness. Also [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues 12 Comments »Goodness Is A Factual Matter (Goodness=Effectiveness)
January 23rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke All statements about values can be restated as statements of facts. The truth or falsity about value claims can be discovered by investigations of facts. Goodness is a word that can be defined by reference to certain kinds of factual relationships in the world. Whether or not something deserves to be called good can be [...]
Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology Tags: Good, Goodness, Hypothetical Imperatives, Value, Value Theory 26 Comments »I Am A Moral Naturalist, Not A Subjectivist
January 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In a long comment on my post from this morning, George raised the question of usage of “subjectivism” beyond my own interpretation of the word. Let’s look to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which should be as neutral an adjudicating source as the English-speaking philosophy world has. I selected this source for its independent, encyclopedia character [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authority, Authority, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Teleology, Teleology Tags: Divine Command Theory, Moral Relativism, Moral Subjectivism, Objectivist Relativism, Subjectivist Relativism, Voluntarism 8 Comments »Deriving An Atheistic, Naturalistic, Realist Account Of Morality
January 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Tom Gilson thinks that theism accounts for moral realism better than atheism does. My reasons for rejecting that view are here (though I am interested in tailoring a future post specifically to Gilson’s particular way of arguing for a theist basis for moral realism). For now, however, rather than counter Gilson’s positive claims for theism’s [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Duty, Duty, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues 7 Comments »How Morality Can Change Through Objective Processes And In Objectively Defensible Ways
January 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jason of Lousy Canuck thinks I am quibbling over semantics in complaining about his characterization of morality as essentially “subjective” and he wants me to clarify how my position diverges in substance from his own. Answering his questions and his formulations may prove a fruitful way to clarify my own positions. So, here goes. He [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authority, Authority, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Religion, Religion, Virtues, Virtues 15 Comments »Mutable Morality, Not Subjective Morality. Moral Pluralism, Not Moral Relativism.
January 18th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I hope soon to engage a few of the specifics of a debate going on at our friend George’s blog Misplaced Grace which started when a Christian apologist named Peter tried to argue that atheism has no way of ruling out pedophilia as immoral. Peter’s first remarks were critical of posts at Jason Thibeault’s blog Lousy Canuck. [...]
Posted in Atheism, Bible, Bible, Christianity, Christianity, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, God, God, Historical Philosophy, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Religion, Religion 17 Comments »
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