Atheist Ethicist

There is more Republican idiocy going on in the House of Representatives concerning NASA's budget. Among the elements of the Republican ...

False beliefs are bad. Desirism accounts well for the badness of false beliefs. People seek to objectively satisfy their desires, but act ...

There is a fundamental inconsistency in the way many atheists relate religion to good and bad actions. When a theist does something bad, r...

I have been looking into the movement known as “Effective Altruism” recently, particularly in the light of Peter Singer’s presentation at TE...

Yesterday, I wrote that if you want to talk a person off the ledge, you need to tie that action to current desires. Future desires do not wo...

I have been presented with the following scenario: Imagine a healthy, intelligent, priveleged young guy with the entire life ahead of him....

If desires is the thing that tells us what is morally right / wrong, doesn't that impose upon us to procreate as much as possible? So th...

Another question from the studio audience. Given the premise that determinism is correct, how can you say that the universe has no purpose...

I have been provided with another set of questions to answer regarding desirism. I will start with this one: A guy drugs a girl. She passe...

Last week, I posted several articles on population ethics - the question of "How many people should there be?" Before moving on,...

There is a problem in the philosophy of morality called The Nonidentity Problem . A member of the studio audience, Evan Dawson-Baglien, aske...

Future desires do not count. This is not to say that future desires do not matter. They matter to some people. In fact, they happen to mat...

As a follow up to my last post, I gave been asked to compare another pair of possible worlds. [B]etween the following [pair] of worlds, w...

As a follow up to yesterday’s post, I have been asked [B]etween the following [pair] of worlds, which would desirism recommend ("neut...

I have been asked the following question from the studio audience. What's your view on it? Should we maximize fulfilled desires in the...

I have been asked, What is the [desirism] perspective on gun control? Which is a subject I have been thinking about recently along with ....

I am going to use a comment I got from my previous post to continue my discussion on criminal justice. I have been questioning the "...

I am having trouble coming up with a moral case for a "right to remain silent". If Person A can be compelled to come to court an...