Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Axiology

  • We Are All Bothered by Different Things

    Brian Kennedy, A Passion to Oppose: John Anderson, Philosopher, Melbourne University Press, 1995, p. 141: Melbourne intellectuals came to regard [John] Anderson 'as the man who had betrayed the Left, a man who had gone over to the other side.  Melburnians wanted Anderson to answer a simple question: was he or was he not interested…

  • Secular Self-Deception About the Value of Life

    Here is the penultimate paragraph of John Lach's In Love with Life: Reflections on the Joy of Living and Why We Hate to Die (Vanderbilt UP, 1998): When the time comes [to die], we must surround ourselves with life.  In a bustling hospital or a loving home, let everyone get on with their [sic] activities. …

  • The Obligatory, the Supererogatory, and Two Moral Senses of ‘Ought’

    This is an old post from the Powerblogs site, written a few years ago.  The points made still seem correct. ………………… Peter Lupu's version of the logical argument from evil (LAFE) is committed to a principle that I formulate as follows: P. Necessarily, agent A ought to X iff A is morally obligated to X.…

  • After MacIntyre: Is and Ought

    This follows up on yesterday's discussion.  Thanks to Hodges for getting me started on this, to Milos for reminding me of MacIntyre, and to Peter for agreeing with me so far. Are there any valid arguments that satisfy the following conditions:  (i) The premises are all factual  in the sense of purporting to state only…

  • If Life Has a Meaning, Then it Cannot be Subjective

    My title is my thesis.  This post has a prerequisite, The Question of the Meaning of Life:  Distinctions and Assumptions.  Read it first. Extreme Subjectivism We should distinguish between an extreme and a moderate version of the thesis that the meaning of life is subjective.  They can be referred to as extreme and moderate subjectivism…

  • Does God Give His Existence Meaning?

    Chad McIntosh writes, Your post We Cannot Be the Source of Our Own Existential Meaning touches on a puzzle that I’ve been wrestling with for several years now. I’d greatly appreciate your thoughts on the following. Like you, I think meaning is bestowed, or endowed, by agents. However, I may hold a stronger view, which…

  • Good, Better, Best

    From the mail bag: Is the way you interpret Voltaire's saying the way it was originally intended? I'm probably wrong here, but I always took the saying to mean this: a willingness to settle for what is "better" makes it likely that one won't acquire what is "good".   Good, better, best.  Positive, comparative, superlative. …

  • Bonum Progressionis and the Value of One’s Life

    The value of a whole is not determined merely by the values of the parts of the whole; the order of the parts also plays a role in determining the value of the whole.  One of several order principles governing the value of a whole is the bonum progressionis.  Glossing Franz Brentano, R. M. Chisholm (Brentano and…

  • Moral Objectivism, Mackie’s Argument from Queerness, and Alterational Change

    Our old friend Vlastimil Vohanka from the Czech Republic asked me if moral objectivism is a respectable metaethical position.  It depends on what exactly moral objectivism is.  Let's first of all see if we can locate it on the metaethical map.  Then I take a quick look at Mackie's 'argument from queerness.' Let's think about…

  • The Ought-to-Be and the Ought-to-Do and the Aporetics of “Be Ye Perfect”

    Is there any justification for talk of the ought-to-be in cases where they are not cases of the ought-to-do? Let's begin by noting that if I ought to do X (pay my debts, feed my kids, keep my hands off my neighbor's wife, etc.) then my doing X ought to be. For example, given that…

  • Does God Exist Because He Ought to Exist?

    Steven, Peter, et al.:  This paper has been languishing  on my hard drive for some time.  Comments appreciated.  Abstract.  Modal ontological arguments for the existence of God require a possibility premise to the effect that a maximally perfect being is possible. Admitting the possibility of such a being may appear to be a minimal concession, but…

  • Life-Death Asymmetry: An Aporetic Triad

    Let us consider a person whose life is going well, and who has a reasonable expectation that it will continue to go well in the near term at least.  For such a person 1. A longer being-alive is better than a shorter being-alive. 2. A longer being-dead is not worse than a shorter being-dead. (Equivalently:…

  • Relativism About Values and About Axiological Justification

    Spencer Case e-mails: I am as big an enemy of relativism in all its manifestations as you are. However, I think you were a bit too quick in your recent post on the supposed difficulties of standing resolutely for things you value only relatively. For instance, consider the following passage: Now here's the question. Given…

  • Can I Stand Unflinchingly for Convictions that I Accept as Only Relatively Valid?

    Isaiah Berlin's great essay "Two Concepts of Liberty" concludes as follows: 'To realise the relative validity of one's convictions', said an admirable writer of our time, ' and yet stand for them unflinchingly, is what distinguishes a civilised man from a barbarian.'  To demand more than this is perhaps a deep and incurable metaphysical need;…

  • Supererogation and Suberogation

    It would be neat if all actions could be sorted into three jointly exhaustive classes: the permissible, the impermissible, and the obligatory. These deontic modes would then be analogous to the alethic modes of possibility, impossibility, and necessity. Intuitively, the permissible is the morally possible, that which we may do; the impermissible is the morally…