Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Ethics

  • Still More on the Morality of Celebrating the Death of Evildoers

    It is not just some Christians who feel the moral  dubiousness of joy and celebration at the death of evildoers.  Here is Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld.  "So our tradition is clear: Public rejoicing about the death of an enemy is entirely inappropriate."  Here is a delightfully equivocal statement by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman. Interestingly, Dennis Prager is still…

  • On Joy at Osama’s Demise: Dennis Prager Responds to Me on the Air

    It's been an interesting morning.  At 10:30 AM I noticed that my traffic was way up for the day.  And then at 11:12 AM I heard Dennis Prager reading on the air the first paragraph of a post of mine from yesterday in which I express my disappointment at Prager for rejoicing over Osama bin Laden's death…

  • 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…

  • Potentiality, Abortion, Contraception

    This interesting missive just over the transom.  My responses in blue. I have been pondering your application of the Potentiality Principle to the question of abortion. It is undoubtedly the case that a one year old child has the potential to become an adult possessing rights-conferring properties. It is also undoubtedly the case, for much…

  • Abortion, the Potentiality Principle, the Species Principle, and the Species Potentiality Principle

    A reader comments: In an earlier post, Why We Should Accept the Potentiality Principle  (24 October 2009), you suggest that we should apply the potentiality principle — All potential persons have a right to life — to the unborn to be consistent, as we already apply it to children. What troubles me is this: how do…

  • 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…

  • Richard Taylor on Goodness: Critical Remarks

    Richard Taylor, Good and Evil: A New Direction (Prometheus 1984),  p. 134: Goodness . . . is simply the satisfaction of needs and desires . . . the fulfillment of purposes. The greatest good for any individual can accordingly be nothing but the total satisfaction of his needs,whatever these may be. There seems to be a tension…

  • The Converse Callicles Principle: Weakness Does Not Justify

    Might does not make right, but neither does impotence or relative weakness. That weakness does not justify strikes me as an important principle, but I have never seen it articulated. The Left tends to assume the opposite.  They tend to assume that mightlessness makes right.  I'll dub this the Converse Callicles Principle. The power I have to…

  • Analogies, Souls, Harm to Souls, and Murder

    Peter Lupu comments: Bill has argued that my murder-argument relies upon a faulty analogy. I have a very general response to this charge: while the murder-argument indeed relies upon an analogy, the analogy upon which it relies is one employed by the soul-theorists themselves. Thus, I contend that if the soul-theorists are entitled to a…

  • Souls and Murder

     A guest post by Peter Lupu.  Comments in blue by BV. If there are immortal souls, would murder be a grave moral breach? 1) Theists, like their atheist adversaries, consider murder a severe breach of morality. Unlike causing a minor physical injury to another or damaging or even completely destroying their home, car, or other belongings,…

  • When Does A Human Life Begin?

    This from a reader: I enjoy reading Maverick Philosopher even though I seldom agree with the conservative viewpoint.  The thing that I find most interesting about your articles on abortion is that they really do not address what I consider to be the central issue and that is when does human life begin.  Zygote, blastomere,…

  • All Legislation Legislates Morality

    One often hears people say, 'You can't legislate morality!' People who say this are often people who confuse the genus morality with the species sexual morality. But even upon acquiescence in this genus-species confusion, it is obvious that we can, do, and ought to legislate morality. After all, we have laws against rape, and we…

  • Deriving Gun Rights From the Right to Life

    I take the view that some rights are logically antecedent to anything of a conventional nature such as a group decision or a constitution. Thus the right to life is not conferred by any constitution, but recognized and protected by well-crafted ones. In simple terms, you don't have the right to life because some people…

  • ‘Probative Overkill’ Objections to the Potentiality Principle

    Here is a simple version of the Potentiality Argument (PA): 1. All potential persons have a right to life.2. The human fetus is a potential person.—–3. The human fetus has a right to life. Does PA 'prove too much'? It does if the proponent of PA has no principled way of preventing PA from transmogrifying…

  • Why We Should Accept the Potentiality Principle

    The idea behind the Potentiality Principle (PP) is that potential personhood confers a right to life. For present purposes we may define a person as anything that is sentient, rational, and self-aware. Actual persons have a right to life, a right not to be killed. Presumably we all accept the following Rights Principle: RP: All…