Atheist Ethicist

In our last exciting episode, I discussed Wall's argument that Moore's Paradox regarding beliefs lead to a "norm" with re...

Since the beginning, I have argued that nothing has intrinsic value, not even desire fulfillment. One of the ways in which I have expresse...

One of the things that I want to accomplish in my study of desire is to present a quick summary of a main point in each of the articles. F...

The top of my list of things to dislike about academic philosophy is . . . They choose a language that gets in the way of philosophers tal...

In the last few posts, I have been examining Peter Railton's claim that beliefs aim at actual value in the same way that beliefs aim at ...

A desire is an attitude that aims at the actual value of its object. At least, this is the case according to Peter Railton. (Railton, Peter,...

Does the type of change that a desire undergoes as a result of an encounter with reality constitute “learning?” No. Not really. There is...

In our previous episode , we looked at Peter Railton’s theory of belief. (Bel p) A belief that p is a compound state consisting in (1) a d...

There is an element of Peter Railton’s theory of desires that concerns me. Like Gregory, Railton (and this is my interpretation) handles cer...

Remember a few episodes back when I mentioned in passing this idea that beliefs and desires were quite alike in one respect. I suggested t...

In discussing Timoty Schroeder's article on the neurobiology of intentional action (Schroeder, Timothy, (2017), “Empirical Evidence agai...

In my last exciting episode I looked at what Timothy Schroeder had to say about the biology of intentional action. Schroeder, Timothy, (2...

*begin Jaws theme here* We have reached the scariest part of the series for some desirists. *pause for dramatic effect while the Jaws th...

Alex Gregory proposes: To desire to φ is to believe that you have normative reason to φ. (Gregory, Alex, (2017), “Might Desires Be Beliefs...

First, I rewrote the previous post before posting this one. I did this to improve the fit between the two posts. They discuss related topics...

In our last exciting episode , Alex Gregory distinguished hunger from feelings of hunger - hunger pangs and the like. He argued that the lat...

In considering objections to his thesis, Gregory considers an objection near to the objections I have raised. Specifically, he considers the...