Arbitrary Marks

Lord Colin Renfrew presented the John and Penelope Biggs lecture in the Classics at Washington University today, speaking on "Becoming Human: The Cognitive Archaeology of Humankind."  His talk had two major components.  First, he gave a general narrative of human history, based upon the last 150 years of archaeological discovery.  Then he explored the central [...]

I’m excerpting this discussion of the term “nature” from Martha Nussbaum’s essay, “Constructing Love, Desire, and Care” (Sex and Social Justice) because I want to be able to link back to it.  To make it clearer, I’ve added bullet-point formatting.  In terms of the ethical questions often discussed here, it’s a great touchstone*:
We use the term [...]

(Update: You can find this list on Amazon.com now!)
Before I get into the nitty-gritty, I’ll remind you that my expertise in religious studies is limited to a background in Christian theology (two years studying at a Reformed seminary) and analytic philosophy. I’ve done a lot of outside reading in order to get a grip on [...]

This is part four in a series I promised you a month ago.  It’s a good time to be talking about belief, since the many religious holidays occurring in December remind us that people may understand “belief” differently from group to group.
There are a few questions that we can ask when trying to understand religious [...]

Christine Korsgaard, an analytic philosopher who writes on ethics in the Kantian tradition, argues that what distinguishes mere behavior from an action is that “actions issue from your whole person, rather than something in you.”*  Instead of the incentive, you are the cause of your action.  If I see a piece of chocolate cake and [...]

Nietzsche introduces his concept of ressentiment in Genealogy of Morals, in which he argues that we have a flawed way of understanding morality’s origins. Instead of considering “good” actions those things which we disinterestedly calculate are useful, what really happens is that the nobility in power consider their own actions “good.” Contrasted with [...]

Hypothetical imperative: the impetus for an action if the action is good for something; a “should” which is based upon desire rather than morality
Categorical imperative: the impetus for an action if the action is good in itself, is rational; a “should” which is based on reason.
For Kant, moral judgments are the latter, not the former. [...]

A summary reference post.  More detail to come later…
Why should I be moral?  Christine Korsgaard, along with Immanuel Kant, argues that our morality is grounded in reason.  If you’re a rational person, then you ought to also be a moral person.
Hume, in contrast, argues that what motivates our “moral” decisions is only our set of [...]

Stephen Darwall introduces us to the question of what it could mean for moral demands to obligate us to act according to them, in his essay “Reasons, Motives, and the Demands of Morality: An Introduction.” There are two basic questions when it comes to moral demands and the reasons they seem to present us [...]

One of the classes that I’m taking this semester is Modern Ethical Theory, which surveys theory beginning with GE Moore. For my sake, as well as anyone passing through who’s interested, below is a brief overview of some major strands of ethical thought. I’m providing links to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, too, [...]