by Carl Howard | Jun 15, 2010 | Blog Topics, Ethics, Evolution and Biology, Philosophy
[This post is a follow-up to my 5 min challenge to readers I posted last week. To get the most out of it, please do the challenge first.] In the last post, I presented a disturbing video of cow/calf abuse at a dairy farm. The context was not to see it in terms of...
by Carl Howard | Jun 8, 2010 | Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, Ethics, Evolution and Biology, Philosophy
The 5 min challenge that I would like everyone to take is to watch this video in its entirety and note your reactions. It’s only about 3.5 mins long so not a burden. But, do not switch tabs or open any windows, just give it your full attention: YouTube link...
by Carl Howard | May 14, 2010 | Atheism and Religion, Blog Topics, Evolution and Biology, Medicine, Philosophy
Via Pharyngula, here’s an amazing video of an elephant’s birth which I invite you to watch before reading on. (If you’re reading this by email the video won’t render so here’s a link to it on YouTube) Let’s forget the drama of the calf appearing lifeless at first and...
by Carl Howard | Apr 22, 2010 | Blog Topics, Ethics, Evolution and Biology, Philosophy, Society
This past Saturday I was in lovely Kiama and decided to go for a wander through the cliffs past the Kiama blowhole. Just before the path to the cliffs, the council put up a sign to the effect of: “Warning! This is risky business. Going past this sign places in you in...
by Carl Howard | Mar 2, 2010 | Blog Topics, Ethics, Philosophy
In the last 2 posts about morality, I looked at moral statements being: based on empathy not provable from non-moral statements being non-arbitrary because of their evolutionary history Today I’ll look at what this means for actual morality talk. The first point is...
by Carl Howard | Feb 23, 2010 | Blog Topics, Ethics, Philosophy
In the previous post, I argued that morality is made up of basic atomic statements (eg. “causing another being to suffer for its own sake is wrong”) that cannot be proved or further broken down into non-moral statements. In a way, I’ve actually argued that metaethics...
