What, Why & How do we Know ?
Heard Graham Bell talk again last week, this time a LAAG event entitled: “Making moral decisions: Are ‘you’ really in charge?” (With scare quotes around the ‘you’ in the original.) Obviously with that title presented that way, I was prejudiced to expect the usual “You and your free-will are illusions” line of denial. In fact, … Continue reading ““Making moral decisions: Are ‘you’ really in charge?””
Noticed this NYT opinion piece (Hat tip to tweet by Bob @IHEU) a couple of weeks ago and my initial response to the statement … Why our children don’t think there are moral facts. … was, that there aren’t any. Of course the sentiment of the piece is correct, so my problem here is a language game, … Continue reading “Moral Relativism ? @IHEU @Elizaphanian @kenanmalik”
After the thankless exertions of blogging and follow-up from a couple of weeks ago, I missed two opportunities to blog the week before last, and I have only just caught-up with last week’s Dennett lecture, so I need to record some items I’ve missed. They are, of course, all connected. I listened to John Gray in conversation … Continue reading “Arguing with Care – Listening & Reading #GuardianLive @kenanmalik”
Interesting responses to my critical post of the recent LAAG event below. Defensive and now, sadly, largely ad-hominem. Apparently the number and size of my balls affect the arguments. I’d drafted a couple of yards of replies on Friday afternoon, to the initial handful of comments that day, but the aggressive responses continued over the … Continue reading “Atheist, Rationalist, Secularist and Humanist – What’s in a Name?”
Struck by Nigel Farage responding to questioning from Mishal Hussein on BBCR4Today on the principle of an immigration commission establishing and enforcing bases for entry (*1) being about “maintaining normality”. Particularly impressed with his insistance that a quantifiable cap on immigrant numbers was a compete red herring, the point being “social quality”. If pushed, yes he … Continue reading “Farage – the Sense in Avoiding Numbers”
(Editorial Note : This paper was originally prepared for the 2005 Liverpool Conference on Robert Pirsig and his Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ). It is a personal non-technical view of the MoQ, and indeed the first part of paper is an entirely subjective and naive account of the author’s “thought journey” that led to reading Pirsig … Continue reading “It’s Evolutionary Psychology Stupid”
Listening to Simon Blackburn last night at Conway Hall, indeed mulling over the title of his talk before listening to him, it is transparently obvious that he has an important agenda when it comes to his close association with humanism and the BHA. Now Blackburn is probably “the” greatest living British philosopher active and teaching … Continue reading “Simon Blackburn’s Message on Virtues for Humanists”
@ConwayHall tonight a #londonthinks event from The Ethical Society chaired superbly by Samira Ahmed, with: Adam Rutherford @AdamRutherford – scientist, atheist, writer and humanist. Rev Giles Fraser @Giles_Fraser – priest, Grauniad columnist and humanist. Francesca Stavrakopolou @ProfFrancesca historian of religions of the book, atheist humanist but expressly not “new atheist”. Billed unimaginatively by some for … Continue reading “Science knows best, or does it? #londonthinks @ConwayHall @ProfFrancesca @AdamRutherford @giles_fraser”