On ‘Can Humanists Talk to Postmodernists?’

Well, can they?

Apparently not…

Which may have implications for the future of this blog…

On 'Posner's Pragmatic Moral Skepticism'

T. Nadelhoffer, of the Leiter Reports, has posted on the sceptical position Posner J has advocated in regard to philosophical ethics …

(Meanwhile, Leiter has posted on ‘new legal realism’ …)

On Law and Morality

‘Though law and morality are not the same, and many things may be immoral which are not necessarily illegal, yet the absolute divorce of law from morality would be of fatal consequence … To preserve one’s life is generally speaking a duty, but it may be the plainest and the highest duty to sacrifice it.’ – The Queen v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QB 273, 287 (Lord Coleridge CJ).

On ‘Zombies and Consciousness’

For Samuel: Hauser’s review (for NDPR) of Robert Kirk’s recent work on the implications of zombies on theories of mind and consciousness …

Side Effects – Philoblog Review

Side Effects – a long established philoblog dealing with aesthetics in the European humanist tradition.

On Civil Unions

The Federal Government used its constitutional powers to prevent the ACT’s homosexual civil union legislation coming into force.

Is there a stronger argument for why civil unions should not be accorded a legal status akin to that of marriage – given that heterosexual de facto relationships are akin to marriage – than the policy/values position that marriage is between a man and a woman only? Because the position assumes many things about the state of values in contemporary Australia …

[Update – This briefing paper, on the legal recognition of same sex relationships, is from the Parliament of New South Wales.]

On the Cult of Right to Life

At the start of a heated stoush, John Derbyshire compared the right to life movement with a cult, which was ‘rebutted’ by a rhetorical response …

[Another review of the work that started the debate.]

Ali G and Respect

Ali G as an ‘unconventional modern pop-culture manifestation’ of Grotius, Hobbes, and Locke? (The paper is on reciprocity in international law.)

On ‘Mind and Meaning – The Sequel’

Samuel, due to the sort of popular demand that led to the forth-coming Superman film (with its scenes that plagued our streets and crowded our parks ...), has composed a sequel on mind and meaning. This time it’s all minds, infinite monkey generators, and functional isomorphs …

On 'The War On Relativism'

Apparently, war has been declared on relativism.

The current martial strategy is to impose ‘fact’ on morality, promoting it to role akin to that it plays in science.

Given the analogy of the war on terrorism, perhaps it is time to commence an insurgency …

An apparent issue is methodological – by what method does one impose fact on morality? Assumedly, the vanguard what to construct a schema of ‘absolute’ ethical norms which might form the basis of their ‘secular morality’ but the choice of method is not so simple …

Philosopher’s Carnival, No. Thirty-one

The 31st Philosopher's Carnival is being hosted by Kenny Pearce.

Baggini On The Simpsons

Julian Baggini’s ‘argument’ for Homer to be considered the new Plato ...

I've always thought that Homer was slightly more Cynic than he was Platonic ...