Atheist Ethicist

Let's assume that you take this global warming issue seriously. You decide that you are going to reduce your carbon footprint. You pur...

Morality is a practical institution - a tool that we have invented to make our lives better. This fact is important to understanding some ...

There is this thing called the "Hedonist Paradox." Assume that the only thing you desire is pleasure. Human psychology seems t...

Do you know how you are having a conversation - debating some issue - and you don't get a chance to clearly explain what it is you meant...

I am working on a new paper which looks at promise keeping from a motive utilitarian (or desire utilitarian) perspective. Yes, I know, I a...

There is an argument that I have often used in defense of a desire-based ethics that I found in my most recent read-through of Henry Sidgwic...

In Chapter 6 of The Wild and the Wicked: On Nature and Human Nature , Benjamin Hale described an argument available to those who oppose vacc...

In Chapter 5 of The Wild and the Wicked: On Nature and Human Nature , Benjamin Hale attempted to draw some moral lessons from a distinction ...

I would like to say a few words about utilitarianism- the standard happiness-maximizing kind. My instructor for the first three weeks of the...

Social media is filled with memes - many showing quotes from famous people meant to support some favored view. This post concerns the stor...

I have a few topics that have been piling up. But a moral logic homework assignment had me in panic mode -fearing I could not do the work. ...

My environmental philosophy class this weekend introduced me to the writings of J. Beard Callicott. Callicott is branded as one of the fou...

Each motive determines its own end. To promote a particular motive is to promote a particular end. The reason that this is important has t...

I have survived the first week of class. I have nothing of substance to report in the Environmental Philosophy class yet, since we devote...

In my readings for my environmental philosophy class, I have been reading Thinking Like a Mall: Environmental Philosophy After the End of Na...

Today is the first day of my new life, as it is the day of my first official event as a graduate student - grad student orientation. It is...

I try to avoid being a part of the echo chamber. If those likely to read what I write already agree, then I see no reason to write it. And t...

In 22 days, I will be in class. One of those classes, I strongly believe, will begin with an evaluation of Henry Sidgwick's Methods of...