My Mission:
To improve our understanding of human nature in a way that helps to further human flourishing.
My Vision:
A world where human flourishing harmonizes with Earth's Life Systems
Freedom vs Determinism
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Coming soon: a discussion on the idea of freedom. In the meantime here is an excellent source for ideas in this debate:
If Morality requires clear boundaries, fair and equitable rules, and active participation of group members in monitoring and enforcement, it resembles in some ways the conditions that make for successful long-term management of a Common Pool Resource. A C ommon Pool Resource , sometimes called a CPR , is a resource such as a body of water, irrigation channel, fishery, alpine meadow, etc., which is held in common. Common Pool Resources are akin to Public Goods such as public roads, in that, if they are available, they are available to everyone. The thing about a CPR that is different from a public good is that when one takes away from the pool, there is less in the pool. With public goods this is not the case. If I drive on a road, I don’t make the road less available to others. A Moral System can be seen as a kind of Social Capital ; something that’s necessary for human society to get off the ground; something that, once put in plac...
Where to start? What keeps philosophers up at night worrying? I can assure you it isn’t meta-ethics, which I will discuss after I’ve introduced the real villain in this story. What keeps philosophers up at night is something called “ethical naturalism”. That’s the notion that there can be a science of morality, a way of explaining what morality does that is non-subjective and avoids the notions of moral freedom, responsibility, and purpose. Historically, past forms of ethical naturalism have morphed into Eugenics and Social Darwinism, practices which, in their crudest forms have led to the death camps. So, yes, it has kept me up at night. But don’t worry, because there is a philosophical antidote to this horrible disease! It is called “meta-ethics”; and, although I heartily agree that it does help me to get a good night’s rest, I think it actually makes it harder for all of us to understand how ethics works, and it almost seems as if it is desi...
Is deference to authority the basis for morality? According to Christian doctrine, the “original sin”was disobedience, which is what led to the first humans being separated from God and ejected from paradise. The Bible tells us that at first God planted a tree of knowledge in the middle of the garden of Eden and then forbade the humans from eating its fruits. Here we have the very first test of obedience, the kind where children are given access to an attractive goody but are expressly forbidden from partaking, in order to see whether they have the self-discipline to obey authority. Apparently, Adam and Eve failed the first test, hence the idea of “original sin”. Note that later in the Bible, one of the “ten commandments” is “Honour your father and mother”. Put this way, deference to a parent’s authority appears to be a human universal. Indeed, as the Psychologist Jean Piaget showed, all young children recogni...
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