Atheist Ethicist

A view of right and wrong, good and evil, in a universe without gods.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Legitimate Criticism and Defining Characteristics

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The most common objection currently being raised to my claim about criticizing a bad idea goes something like this: "You say that it ...
8 comments:
Monday, October 13, 2014

On Criticizing an Idea

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When is a criticism of Islam bigoted, and when is it not? This has been a hot topic of debate in some circles recently after an exchange b...
26 comments:
Wednesday, October 08, 2014

A Rational View of Tolerance

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I haven't used this blog in a while. However, I have found a lot of nonsense on a recent question of whether Sam Harris and Bill Mahar a...
6 comments:
Friday, July 19, 2013

The "Values" Found in the Republican's Proposed NASA Budget

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There is more Republican idiocy going on in the House of Representatives concerning NASA's budget. Among the elements of the Republican ...
4 comments:
Wednesday, June 19, 2013

False Beliefs

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False beliefs are bad. Desirism accounts well for the badness of false beliefs. People seek to objectively satisfy their desires, but act ...
12 comments:
Friday, June 14, 2013

Religion Poisons Everything?

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There is a fundamental inconsistency in the way many atheists relate religion to good and bad actions. When a theist does something bad, r...
15 comments:
Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Effective Altrusim

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I have been looking into the movement known as “Effective Altruism” recently, particularly in the light of Peter Singer’s presentation at TE...
2 comments:
Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Why you should not kill yourself and why we should try to stop you if you do try.

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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...
Monday, June 10, 2013

Talking Somebody Off a Ledge

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I have been presented with the following scenario: Imagine a healthy, intelligent, priveleged young guy with the entire life ahead of him....
1 comment:
Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Procreation and Reasons for Action that Exist

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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...
1 comment:
Tuesday, June 04, 2013

On Having a Purpose

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Another question from the studio audience. Given the premise that determinism is correct, how can you say that the universe has no purpose...
3 comments:
Monday, June 03, 2013

Using People

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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...
1 comment:
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Population Ethics: Bringing More People Into the World

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Last week, I posted several articles on population ethics - the question of "How many people should there be?" Before moving on,...
3 comments:
Friday, May 24, 2013

The Nonidentity Problem

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There is a problem in the philosophy of morality called The Nonidentity Problem . A member of the studio audience, Evan Dawson-Baglien, aske...
5 comments:
Thursday, May 23, 2013

Future Desires Do Not Count

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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...
Wednesday, May 22, 2013

The Value of More Possible Worlds

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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...
4 comments:
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About Me

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Alonzo Fyfe
When I was in high school, I decided that I wanted to leave the world better off than it would have been if I had not existed. This started a quest, through 12 years of college and on to today, to try to discover what a "better" world consists of. I have written a book describing that journey that you can find on my website. In this blog, I will keep track of the issues I have confronted since then.
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