Changing Minds

Steven Pinker compares current worries that the internet is changing how we think and making it more superficial to previous “moral panics” at the arrival of all other new media, from the printing press to newspapers to television.  (And his examples might as well have gone all the way back to Plato’s mistrust of the […]

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Michael Sandel On “The Lost Art Of Democratic Debate”

A good video from Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel, who recently wrote a book on justice for a popular audience, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, and who last year released on YouTube high production value videos encapsulating his lectures for his standard introductory level ethics class at Harvard. You can start watching those videos here. […]

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On The Powers Of Personal And Political Bodies Over Their Apparent Mental Leaders

The Peaceful Atheist finds “consciousness-lowering” experiences in which she escapes her aloof and wandering mind to reconnect with her tangible and oft-forgotten body to be greater than her many “consciousness-raising” experiences.  She writes: It’s extremely hard for me to escape the internal labyrinth of my mind and focus completely on something external.  Often after being […]

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Evolution and Epistemology

If our minds take to be true only what evolution has conditioned us to think is true for the sake of fitness for survival, does this mean that our beliefs cannot be genuinely true but only some sort of useful ways of thinking that do not necessarily track how the world actually is?  And if […]

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Bertrand Russell Queried About His Atheism

I found it both fascinating and a little dispiriting to watch this video and get the keen sense that it might as well have been made yesterday since essentially all the straw men of atheists and trite, easily refutable arguments against atheism offered against Russell here are still propagating endlessly today.   It’s a reminder […]

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A Brief Overview Of My Dissertation

Nietzsche’s writings on morality are famously provocative and controversial.  His criticisms of morality in both theory and practice are so extensive and rhetorically scathing that many philosophers assume that he can offer little or nothing constructive to moral philosophy.  Additionally, his glorification of the will to power sounds prima facie like a celebration of excessively […]

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Reading Nietzsche Post-Modernly

This week from Chaos Pet: And find out why Nester is frustrated with time travel here. Your Thoughts?

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Philosophical Ethics: Rawls’s Maximin Principle

In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices […]

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Philosophical Ethics: Whether It’s Worth It To Be Just With No Incentives Or With Disincentives

Before we get to the philosophy this time, let’s enjoy my favorite Flaming Lips song: In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or […]

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Happy Birthday Friedrich Nietzsche!

You would have been 165 today.  It is a shame you didn’t make it past 55 and even a greater shame that your mind didn’t make it past 44.  There was still so much to be clarified, developed, and newly discovered.

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Philosophical Ethics: “But Why MUST I?” Kant’s Ironic Formulation Of Liberty As Duty

In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices […]

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Philosophical Ethics: Hobbes On The Source Of Authority

In a series of posts this semester, I am blogging all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts primarily explicates the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices (such as my […]

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Philosophical Ethics: Kant, The Good Will, And Rational Actions

In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices […]

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Philosophical Ethics: Does Calling Someone Evil Explain Anything About Them?

In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester. Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices […]

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My Thoughts On Blasphemy Day

(I’m moving this post written for “Blasphemy Day” to the front page today as its basic themes relate to “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” which occurs today.) So today is “Blasphemy Day.”  Here’s what it’s about: Blasphemy Day International is an international campaign seeking to establish September 30th as a national day to promote free speech […]

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Camels With Hammers Philosophy

After this introductory paragraph, every sentence in this post will summarize and link a different post expressing my views, primarily on topics related to atheism, philosophy, and ethics—which are the primary preoccupations of this blog. I am organizing all of these links into this one summary statement of “Camels With Hammers’ Philosophy.”  This post will […]

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The Yearning Animal

Greta Christina takes down the argument that the desire for God proves there is a God to fulfill it out there to be discovered: Someone (I can’t remember who now) recently pointed out that the “no atheists in foxholes” argument, even if it were true (which it’s not), isn’t an argument for God’s existence. It’s actually […]

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Also Sprach Zarathustra: School Performance Style

Stirring: Your Thoughts?

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Philosophical Ethics: A.J. Ayer And The Emotivism Of A Positivist

In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester.  Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices […]

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Philosophical Ethics: From G.E. Moore’s Non-Naturalism To C.L. Stevenson’s Emotivism

In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester.  Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices […]

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Philosophical Ethics: On G.E. Moore’s Notion Of Good As An Indefinable Non-Natural Property

In a series of posts this semester, I am going to blog all (or almost all) the lecture topics for the two Philosophical Ethics classes I am teaching this semester.  Each of these posts will primarily explicate the reading or a theme that dominated class discussion in a way that should be accessible to novices […]

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Biblical Scholar—Western Ethics Come From The Greeks, Not The Bible

Biblical scholar and professor emeritus at the University of Sheffield, Philip Davies writes that the idea that religion bestows ethical value on human life is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.  First he lays into the divine command theory throughout the Torah and proverbs as genuine routes to proper (or even defensible) moral motivation […]

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A Little Nietzsche For Kanye

One last Kanye thought for the morning, before I return to my work for the day.  From Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra part II, section 3, comes his prescription in a nutshell for how to be a Beyonce or a Barack rather than a Kanye or a Wilson: if we learn better to experience joy, we […]

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Kanye Disses Taylor Swift (On The Pusillanimity Of Joe Wilson And Kanye West Vs. The Magnanimity Of Beyonce Knowles And Barack Obama)

So last night, Kanye proved once and for all that he has no class through a single action which demonstrated an unbelievable lack of grace.  Taylor Swift looked so demoralized and her speech had been all about feelings of being surprised to be accepted by this particular voting bloc, when he insulted her by implying […]

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Logicomix: The Graphic Novelization Of The Life Of Bertrand Russell

That illustration comes from Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth about Bertrand Russell’s real life philosophical adventures.  The Independent’s writes:  The subject of the newest comic-strip sensation, though, might still raise eyebrows: it’s the story of the quest for the foundation of mathematics, starring and narrated by Bertrand Russell, the British logician, philosopher, mathematician, reformer, pacifist, […]

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