Philosophy & Ethics

"On Bullshit" sounds a lot better in Latin, doesn't it. Harry Frankfurt has a very interesting take on intellectual bullshit* (not agricultural bullshit) and its relationship to lying.

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the
truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who
lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent
respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he
believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly
indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the

IS THE MIND UNIQUE FOR EACH PERSON?<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

SAD OF THE EARTH

Ayad Gharbawi

As thinking creatures we must evolve mentally towards achieving a humanity within ourselves for whereas physical growth proceeds unguided mental growth requires a continual and firm guidance on the part of ourselves with the help of society and culture.

I do believe that a vast majority of men and women are evil and that furthermore we really ought to deal with this fact rather than being politically correct and ‘believing’ that all Men are inherently good.

On what do I base my saying that Man is evil?

There has been much discussion lately on this blog and elsewhere about the relationships among skepticism, atheism, and politics.

Mariano Crociata: a name, a promise. The general secretary of CEI (the Italian Episcopal Conference) secures a spot in the front page of Italian newspapers today by declaring that pharmacists in Italy should be allowed to object to the distribution of pharmaceuticals enabling " clearly immoral choices", like abortion. I wonder why he stopped short of asking for the removal of condoms from the counters. Hmmm, let me guess: a sudden change of mind about birth control ? Or just the knowledge that it would be too large an economical loss for pharmacy owners to self-flagellate that way ?

It is good that US Courts recognize that there are some rights one cannot surrender through contractual arrangements. One of those rights is the right to file suit against your employer if your co-workers gang rape you and the company mishandles the evidence, at least in the 5th Circuit. Franken seeks to make sure that the US government does not do business with companies that block employees from seeking legal redress in the court system for both minor and egregious problems. I was never a fan of Franken on SNL, but I like this "skit." Shine a light, Senator. 

STUDIES ON ‘REALITY’: CHANGING FACES IN ONE FACE<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

The Domain of Morality Illustrates Religious Nepotism and Nepotistic Religiousness.
(The Domain is something that I have touched upon in my other posts, for those of you who have read my work, I apologise for repeating myself. If you have an understanding of the Domain please feel free to scroll down to the line marking the beginning of my main argument.)

    The Domain of Morality itself is the current accepted standardization of opinion. It is simply a scale that is arranged in what we would consider an “atypical political right/left” scenario thusly:
    

The Constituents of the Mind, (com), as I have stated previously, are composed of several attributes which we have neatly written down. However, we now need to discuss further this study (See article, ‘Constituents of the Mind’ (com)).

It needs to be said that each and every attribute, or mentioned (com) is by no means so cut and dry. Just like the infinite number of varying colours, hues, shades in a colour that exist, so too, these variations exist for each and every (com). Thus, Sound, Odour, Emotion, have an infinite ‘number’ of variations and these can and do interact with each other.