In the last 24 hours I have been following the debate over the father convicted for assaulting his son. Predictably I have heard differing views from many people whose sense I respect. On the one hand I have heard that he was only prosecuted for delivering three smacks. On the other I have heard that […]
Entries from November 29th, 2007
When Trust is Destroyed
November 23rd, 2007 4 Comments
Tags: Bad Policy · Child Abuse · Due Process · s59 · Smacking
New Publication
November 21st, 2007 Comments Off on New Publication
I just received word from the Editor of The Journal of Ethics and Medicine that my article “Boonin’s Defense of the Sentience Criteria: A Critique” has been accepted for publication in a future issue (the exact issue is still being decided). There may be some minor amendments made but at present the following is the […]
Tags: Abortion · David Boonin · Ethics · Feticide · Published
Damian Peterson on Sexual Morality
November 21st, 2007 7 Comments
In a recent post I took a swipe at an argument often used to justify current sex education policies. In the comments section Damian Peterson advanced the debate further than this specific argument. I think he raises some issues worth clarifying so I will respond to them here. Damian’s comments in full are, OK, I […]
Tags: Damian Peterson · Sexual Morality
Congratulations
November 12th, 2007 1 Comment
I want to take this opportunity to offer congratulation to my friend Glenn People’s over at Beretta on the successful examination of his PhD thesis entitled Religion in the Public Square. In this work Glenn criticizes contemporary liberal thinkers who maintain that religion should be excluded from public life in a liberal democracy. Glenn and […]
Tags: Glenn Peoples · Graduation · Religion in Public Life
Imposing Your Beliefs Onto Others: A Defence
November 7th, 2007 1 Comment
Recently an acquaintance forwarded me a some comments about this blog on a internet forum. The critic, who goes by the handle Kaiwai stated: Matt Flanagan I find, yes, some of the things I agree with but there is generally speaking, a huge difference; I don’t set out to impose my views by way of […]
Tags: Abortion · Bad Reasoning · Feticide · Kaiwai · Leslie Cannold · Religion in Public Life
The Euthyphro Objection Part III: The Redundancy of God is Good
November 1st, 2007 8 Comments
My first post in this series, The Euthyphro Objection Part I: Against Divine Commands & Avoiding Strawmen, I examined Peter Singer’s version of the Euthyphro argument and demonstrated that it relies upon a strawman. In my Part II I criticised Singer’s utilisation of the arbitrariness objection against divine command theory. Singer’s last objection comes as a rejoinder […]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Edward Weirenga · Ethics · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · Paul Faber · Peter Singer · Philosophy of Religion
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
Greens, Tasers and Torture
November 29th, 2007 3 Comments
Watching the news the other night, I heard how some UN body had declared that the use of tasers constituted torture. (At least that is how it was reported). Predictably the Green party cited this as a for rejecting the use of Tasers.The implicit argument here seems to go something like this. [1] The use […]
Tags: Ethics · Greens · Torture