* I recently argued on this blog that morality both can and should be legislated. Turns out the editorial staff at The Memphis Flyer agree. It also turns out that Andrew Sullivan was paying attention.
* Does state-mandated sexual education undermine parental rights? That’s what religious believers argue.
* Support for use of the death penalty on persons convicted of murder has hit a 39-year low in the U.S. after dropping from 64 to 61 percent, according to a new Gallup survey.
* How about this for a new blog: Occupy Philosophy, devoted to philosophical discourse on the Occupy movement.
* The number of four-year philosophy graduates has grown 46 percent in the last decade, surpassing the growth rates of programs such as psychology and history.
* We’re in the worst economy since the Great Depression, and what are Republicans doing? Cutting programs Americans desperately need to get through it, says Robert Reich.
* If you haven’t heard the story of Christopher Hitchens and Mason Crumpacker, click here right now.
Oh, I missed that. Congrats on the Sullivan link. It's good to see this gem of a blog get some wider exposure.
ReplyDeleteNice item about Hitchens, except that he unfortunately included Dawkins' latest book as good scientific reading for children.
ReplyDeleteFrom Michael Gazzaniga in the Edge article on Neuroscience and Justice:
"The person who sums it up for the tight view that the only scientific view is that we are machines and that there is no possible sense of free will, of course, is Richard Dawkins' with his quote where he said, "a truly scientific mechanistic view of the nervous system makes nonsense of the very idea of responsibility whether diminished or not, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Retribution as a moral principal is incompatible with a scientific view of human nature.""
Dawkins seemingly has no understanding of chance and how it thus enables humans, et al, to find behavioral purposes, and that those purposes are all about responsibility.
I got warm fuzzies reading the Hitchens story. Mason is a lucky young lady. Such tales make me all that much more sad to think of so many young people misled intellectually early in life by a religious upbringing, myself included.
ReplyDeleteMy one disagreement with Hitchens reading list was the David Hume pick. As cool and important as Hume is, I personally think Bertrand Russell would be a much better choice for people Mason's age who would benefit from an accessible introduction to philosophical reading.
Baron
ReplyDelete> "The person who sums it up for the tight view that the only scientific view is that we are machines and that there is no possible sense of free will, of course, is Richard Dawkins' with his quote where he said, "a truly scientific mechanistic view of the nervous system makes nonsense of the very idea of responsibility whether diminished or not, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Retribution as a moral principal is incompatible with a scientific view of human nature."
Thanks...I missed that. So true!! So eloquent, yet clear and unequivocal.
DJD, spoken like a true and abject determinist.
ReplyDeleteAlso from the Edge article:
ReplyDelete"And the only person that thought this whole thing was preposterous, of course, was William James, and he points to the roll of chance. There is no amount of determinism that's going to explain why this guy's life is about to be reordered by that yo-yo on the merry-go-round."
Baron
ReplyDelete>"There is no amount of determinism that's going to explain why this guy's life is about to be reordered by that yo-yo on the merry-go-round."
There is no answer to why. There is no why. Only cause can explain this guy's life change.
DJD,
ReplyDeleteTell that to William James.
Baron
ReplyDeleteWho is that? Is he a Methodist?
Michael,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link and the mention of our Blog, Occupy Philosophy!!