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Entries Tagged as 'John Stuart Mill'

Thinking Matters Talk: Does Morality Need God? Part One

August 24th, 2022 Comments Off on Thinking Matters Talk: Does Morality Need God? Part One

This year the New Zealand apologetics organization Thinking Matters, ran a “Confident Christianity Conference” in Auckland. I was asked to speak at this conference on the topic. Does Morality Need God? Below is a slightly streamlined version of the talk I gave. “If God does not exist, then everything is permissible.” These words from Ivan […]

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Divine Command Theory and Utilitarianism forgotten bedfellows? Paley’s Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (part two)

January 18th, 2018 1 Comment

In my last post, I explained the position of Theological Utilitarianism as expounded in William Paley’s The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. I pointed out The Principles was first published in 1785, four years before Jeremy Bentham published An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. In this post, I want to look at the influence Theological Utilitarianism had […]

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Contra Mundum: Consenting Adults and Harm

August 6th, 2011 85 Comments

In debates over abortion, homosexual conduct, euthanasia, prostitution, drugs, those who call themselves liberals often mount the same basic argument; a socially or morally permissive stance is necessitated towards such practices because people have a right to choose do what ever they like with their own bodies. As John Stuart Mill put it in his […]

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Is Abortion Liberal? Part 1

October 26th, 2008 11 Comments

Laws permitting abortion on demand are often deemed to be liberal. Further, political liberals are frequently ardent defenders of such laws. I think these conclusions are mistaken. In a series of two posts I will provide some reasons why. Most contemporary liberals advocate a form of the harm principle, famously articulated by Mill in On […]

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Against Liberal Morality

August 10th, 2007 Comments Off on Against Liberal Morality

In debates over abortion, homosexual conduct, euthanasia, prostitution, drugs. Those who call themselves liberals often mount the same basic argument. A socially or morally permissive stance is necessitated towards such practices because people have a right to choose do what ever they like with their bodies. As Mill put it, The only part of the […]

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