From the category archives:

Philosophy

Non-sequiturs in Layard’s Happiness

June 9, 2005

This book is just a philosophical/methodological disaster.
Layard cites a study by Carol Ryff that purports to show that “purpose in life, autonomy, positive relationships, personal growth and self-acceptance” are highly correlated with self-reported SWB. OK. No suprise. What does Layard think this shows? That Mill was wrong about the existence of qualitatively “higher” pleasures.
Thus Mill [...]

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Bentham on the Brain

June 7, 2005

Right now, I’m looking at Richard Layard’s Happiness. He’s an unreconstructed Benthamite, and his view seems to be that evidence on the neurological reward system provides an account of objective utility. And because there’s a neurological correlate to utility, we should think of utilitarianism as the most scientifically respectable of all moral theories, and use [...]

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Relatively Relativistic

April 25, 2005

All this relativism talk. Velleman posts on relativism because he isn’t satisfied with what he sees. Me neither, even after reading Velleman. Allow me to ruminate.
The correct thing to say about relativism is that some version of relativism is true, and the correct thing to say about absolutism is that every version of absolutism is [...]

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You Should Buy Explaining Postmodernism

March 30, 2005

My friend Stephen Hicks, a professor of philosophy at Rockford College, has written an outstanding book, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. Steve is an incredibly lucid writer, and has a rare talent for making fordbidding ideas accessible. Steve traces the dismal [...]

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Blackburn v. Rationalists

March 17, 2005

I’m sure Blackburn isn’t being altogether fair to Sam Kerstein (a friend and former professor) in this paper [.pdf], but I very much liked the overall gist of his argument. And I liked the conclusion, which puts me in mind of an ongoing conversation I’ve had with Julian over the last few years.
…the kinds of [...]

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The Importance of Caring About Harry Frankfurt

March 16, 2005

From Lindsay Beyerstein’s comments in her post about freezing in line to see Harry Frankfurt talk about his book On Bullshit on the Daily Show, here’s the segment.
I found it delightful to see a real philosopher on The Daily Show. And I was pleased to see that Stewart was smart enough to have genuine [...]

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Meta-atheism, Death by Accident, and the Mysteries of Religious Experience

February 2, 2005

For some time I have been persuaded by Georges Rey’s account of meta-atheism. (Georges was one of my teachers at Maryland.) His claim is that many people who say they believe in God don’t really. It’s not that people are lying about what they really believe. It’s just that we’re often wrong about our own [...]

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Faith-Based Mental Health

November 12, 2004

John Tomasi is right (see “Should Political Liberals be Compassionate Conservatives?: Philosophical Foundations of the Faith-Based Initiative” Social Philosophy & Policy 21/1, January 2004″) and Rawlsian political liberalism requires that if the state is going to provide certain services, then the state should also provide funds to non-secular providers of those services, otherwise, they get [...]

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What are Philosophers Good For?

November 12, 2004

In a monumental post on Stephen Toulmin, Michael Blowhard writes:
The impression I’ve gotten from a few timid looks into up-to-date philosophy is that it’s a matter of filling in the few remaining (and really tiny) squares — an activity for specialists and tenured-prof-wannabes only. Between you and me, and off-the-record only, my philosophy-prof friends giggle [...]

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