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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 [...]
Archive for the ‘Virtues’ Category
Believing Too Little Is As Bad As Believing Too Much
September 6th, 2011 
Daniel Fincke The Role Of Honor In Moral Revolutions
February 24th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Kwame Anthony Appiah explores a thesis I’ve never heard before in his new book, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen summarized by Matthew Pianalto: Judged by contemporary Western standards, honour has a mixed moral record. On the one hand, a sense of gentlemanly honour underwrote the practice of duelling, long after it had been [...]
Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, History, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Virtues, Virtues 
Tags: Honor, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Matthew Pianalto, Moral Revolution, Philosopher's Magazine 
4 Comments »The Religious Conservative's False Choice: "Big Brother" Or "Heavenly Father"
February 23rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke In an e-mail to me, Caroline proposes thought provoking reasons for non-believers to encourage (or at least to not actively discourage) religious beliefs: It would also be nice if people would carry out actions in good conscience of just being decent human beings rather than in fear of reprisal in the afterlife, but as there [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Christianity, Christianity, Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Duty, Duty, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, George W. Bush, George W. Bush, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism, Social Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology, Sociology, Theocrats, Theocrats, Torture, Torture, Virtues, Virtues, World Affairs, World Affairs Tags: Political Philosophy, Social Contract, Victor Frankl 4 Comments »What Can An Atheist Love In People's Religiosity?
February 15th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Earlier today, I argued that atheists can vigorously and outspokenly oppose bad faith-based ideas, values, and behaviors, but still love other aspects of the religiosity of their religious friends (and of religious people in general). I argued that religion can be as central to personal identity formation as sexuality is and that to indiscriminately hate [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Love, Love, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Prejudice, Religion, Religion, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism, Virtues, Virtues 14 Comments »Can You Really Love Religious People If You Hate Their Religion?
February 15th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Atheists do not exactly claim to “love sinners but hate sins” (if for no other reason than that most, if not all, of us reject the category of “sin” as a meaningful or valuable way to talk about ethical failure). Also, atheists may be more realistic than to think that we really do, or feasibly [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, LGBTQAA, Love, Love, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Prejudice, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism, Virtues, Virtues 15 Comments »What Is Love? Here's My Theory.
February 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke This is a renamed repost of July 24, 2009 post called “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways”: In the first part of this series, I explored the reasons for rejecting “unconditional” love as a candidate for the ideal essence of love since as a concept it is riddled with numerous problems [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Love, Love, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Virtues, Virtues 3 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 »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 »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 »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 »3rd TOP Q: Can Virtues Conflict Or Must Every Truly Virtuous Action Be Approvable According To Every Other Virtue As Well?
January 3rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Would you ever call a terrorist brave? Were there brave Nazis? Does fighting using unjust tactics or fighting for an unjust cause make one’s own willingness to face mortal threats less brave or can one have the virtue of bravery even though one resorts to evil techniques or serves evil purposes? Assuming the soldier or [...]
My Perspectivist, Teleological Account Of The Relative Values Of Pleasure And Pain
October 7th, 2010 Daniel Fincke With Sam Harris doing the rounds promoting a utilitarianism that seems to take the pleasures of sentient beings to be the good to be maximized, it’s as appropriate a time as ever to flesh out my objections to prioritizing pleasure and pain as the central goods in life. More specifically, you can read my already [...]
Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Genealogy of Morals III:12, Nietzsche's Perspectivism, Pain, Perspectival Knowledge, Perspectivism, Pleasure 12 Comments »My Perfectionistic, Egoistic AND Universalistic, Indirect Consequentialism (And Contrasts With Other Kinds)
July 25th, 2010 Daniel Fincke A consequentialist assesses the ultimate worth of all the various features of our ethical lives according to whether or not they bring about some specific intrinsic good or goods that the consequentialist judges to be of primary value. All the various valuable features of our lives have their ultimate value with respect to how they [...]
Posted in Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Act Consequentialism, Act Utilitarianism, Consequentialism, Direct Consequentialism, Hedonism, Hedonistic Consequentialism, Indirect Consequentialism, Kant, Perfectionism, Perfectionistic Consequentialism, Pleasure, Practical Contradictions, Rule Consequentialism, Rule Utilitarianism, Self-Sacrifice, Utilitarianism 16 Comments »Barry Schwartz’s Urgent Call For Practical Wisdom
July 17th, 2010 Daniel Fincke I love how he sums up Aristotle’s notion of practical wisdom, to paraphrase, “practical wisdom is about having a moral will and a moral skill”. The entire talk is a great defense of wisdom, the skill of moral judgment, against cultural overemphases on bureaucratic reliance on rules at the expense of all thinking: Schwartz’s books [...]
Posted in Ethics, Ethics, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Philosophy, Virtues, Virtues No Comments »How Our Morality Realizes Our Humanity
July 11th, 2010 Daniel Fincke In a previous post, I discussed the intrinsic connection between being and goodness and between functional activity and being. I argued, for example that the various components of a heart need to function as a heart to be a heart and similarly that a human being must act morally to realize her humanity. Specifically, I [...]
Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Duty, Duty, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Love, Love, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Aristotle, Empowerment, Existentialism, Functionalism, Power, Teleological Ethics 13 Comments »On God As The Source Of Being But Not Of Evil
July 9th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Introduction This post is a long one but an important one for understanding what sophisticated Roman Catholic philosophers have traditionally meant when they have said that “God is good” and that the existence of evil is not to be taken as counter-evidence to their belief in God’s goodness. Very often we atheists are dismissed as [...]
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, Atheism, Atheism, Christianity, Christianity, Ethics, Featured, God, God, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Metaethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Benedict XVI, Problem of Evil, Problem of Evil, Religion, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Thomas Aquinas 19 Comments »On The Intrinsic Connection Between Being And Goodness
July 8th, 2010 Daniel Fincke All things, insofar as they are, have goodness. This is because, for any existent thing whatsoever, to be is necessarily better than not being (regardless of whether a given existent thing consciously acknowledges this or is even capable of thinking about it at all). This goodness is partly a function of the fact that every [...]
The Harmony Of Humility And Pride
July 5th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Previously I have argued that pride is the proper identification of the self with whatever excellently expresses, manifests, reflects, results from, or causes one’s own excellence. It is only fitting that we feel that we love and admire that which is good and love and admire it more the better it is and less the [...]
Posted in Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Autonomy, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Love, Love, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Humility, Pride, Virtue of Humility, Virtue of Pride 10 Comments »How To Both Love And Debate People (And Knock Off The Attempts To “Save” Them)
July 5th, 2010 Daniel Fincke A somewhat unpleasantly hostile atheist is outraged that a nephew, with whom this atheist is admittedly not very close, announced on Facebook plans to study theology (in addition to political science). Here is what the atheist wants to say to the nephew “in a nutshell”: “In a nutshell, I think religion is: pernicious fraud and one [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, Religion, Religion, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Civility, Friendly Atheist, Judging People, Proseytization, Richard Wade, Value Judgments, Values No Comments »On The Virtue Of Patriotism
July 5th, 2010 Daniel Fincke I think the Maverick Philosopher‘s construal of the virtue of patriotism is generally on target and consistent with my framework for understanding the virtue of pride (which would be important since patriotism is, manifestly, a sub-species of pride) and humility (which I essentially wrote last week and am almost ready to post). The maverick one writes: [...]
Posted in Ethics, Love, Love, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Virtues, Virtues No Comments »“Testimony: He Or His Apparition”
July 4th, 2010 Daniel Fincke From Three Poems by Nicole Cooley: Testimony: He or His Apparition About noon, at Salem, Giles Corey was press’d to death for standing Mute. — Samuel Sewall, Diary, September 19, 1692 The girls’ testimony is gravel scattered on the grass. Ann Putnam: Giles Corey or his Apperance has most greviously afflected me by beating pinching and almost [...]
Posted in History, Virtues Tags: Conscience, Courage, Nicole Cooley, Poems, Poetry, Salem Witch Trials, Testimony: He Or His Apparition, The Afflicted Girls No Comments »Rightful Pride: Identification With One’s Own Admirable Powers And Effects
June 23rd, 2010 Daniel Fincke Pride is essentially the personal identification with something admirable. When I am rightly proud of my traits, I rightly take the traits themselves each to be admirable in one way or another and rightly take myself to be admirable insofar as they are part of me and expressions of me. When I am rightly proud [...]
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