moral philosophy – manwithoutqualities

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December 8, 2017moral philosophy

Why Honor Matters

Looking forward to Tamler Sommers’ latest endorsed by no less than Paul Bloom. ethicspaul bloomphilosophy of lawPolitical philosophytamler sommersvery bad wizards

July 20, 2014moral philosophy

WOULD You Kill the Fat Man?

When moral dilemmas are posed in a foreign language, people become more coolly utilitarian — The Economist Daniel Kahnemanlanguagemoral philosophyMoral psychologyPsychologyUtilitarianism

July 15, 2012bernard williams, Christine Korsgaard, derek parfit, ethics, kant, moral philosophy

Treating people as ends in themselves

Christine Korsgaard interview. John Rawls

June 29, 2012bernard williams, brian magee, Descartes, moral philosophy, personal identity, philosophy

I’ve just had the occasion to read a posthumously published paper by Bernard Williams. One is reminded what a top-notch mind he was, steering a balance between the worst excesses of analytical philosophy’s logicism and continental obscurity, yet with devastating and readable arguments. (OK, I concede that the one exception is his incredibly dense but…

June 6, 2012artificial intelligence, ethics, moral philosophy, robotics, robots

Welcome to the machine

Lead article from the latest Economist. Cognitive scienceDriverless carInternational Committee for Robot Arms ControlIsaac AsimovThree Laws of Robotics

June 4, 2012adam smith, empathy, ethics, freedom, hayek, liberalism, libertarianism, liberty, moral philosophy, moral psychology, philosophy of economics, philosophy of social science, political philosophy, spontaneous orders

Morals and markets

Sandel plugging his latest. The journalist’s quote below has much resonance to me. Even to a toddler’s mind, the logic of the transaction was evidently clear – if he had to be bribed, then the potty couldn’t be a good idea – and within a week he had grown so suspicious and upset that we…

June 4, 2012Andrew Sneddon, Embedded, enaction, enactivism, ethics, extended mind, externalism, hume, kant, moral philosophy, moral psychology

Like-Minded: Externalism and Moral Psychology

A recent book in the EM genre. CognitionCognitive neuroscienceCognitive scienceExtended MindMoral psychologyMoral responsibilitymoralityphilosophical psychologyPhilosophy of mindPsychologySocial Sciences

February 21, 2012freewill, moral philosophy, mri, neural correlates, neurobiology, neuron, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy, philosophy of biology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, political philosophy

Free will

Two articles on that old philosophical chestnut – free will: one from Intelligent Life (neurons v. free will) and one from the sister title, the Economist (Free will and politics). Cognitive scienceFree willIntelligent LifeneurosciencePhilosophy of mind

January 30, 2012conservatism, David Eagleman, evolution, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, Jesse Prinz, liberalism, moral philosophy, moral psychology, neural correlates, neurobiology, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, plasticity, political philosophy, roger scruton, Susan Greenfield

Nature, nurture and liberal values

Roger Scruton weighs in on the nature/nurture debate via a threefold review. (Image another Steve Pyke portrait). Roger Scrutonsteve pyke

January 27, 2012brain, brain science, cognitive science, consciousness, Eliminative Materialism, folk psychology, moral philosophy, moral psychology, neural correlates, neural networks, neurobiology, neuron, neurophilosophy, Neurophysics, neuroscience, patricia churchland, paul churchland, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science

Patricia Churchland

Having missed Pat Churchland’s talk at NEI this past October, it was great that she was in town for a full week of speaking engagements not to mention interviews and other demands being made on her time (and she is supposedly retired!). It was a pleasure to meet her (finally!) having followed her work over the…