As it’s been nine months since the last installment of this project, let's recap: Parts one to four were primarily concerned with the foundational, regulative virtue of prudence, and the last four parts continued to identify ways in which individuals can improve themselves. These were virtues of humility, nonjudgmentalism, and nonpossessiveness. We explored these three virtues Continue Reading …
Moral Sentiments and Moral Responsibility: An Interview with David Shoemaker (Part 1)
David Shoemaker is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University in New Orleans and on the faculty of the Murphy Institute Center for Ethics and Public Affairs. He is the editor of Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility and founder and co-editor of the Pea Soup blog. I recently interviewed him via e-mail about his new book, Responsibility from the Margins (Oxford Continue Reading …
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 5: Inwardness
One day in Synagogue a rabbi and a cantor and a janitor were preparing for the Day of Atonement. The rabbi beat his breast and bowed his head and said aloud, "I am nothing, I am nothing." The cantor beat his breast and bowed his head and said aloud, "I am nothing, I am nothing." The janitor beat his breast and bowed his head and said aloud, "I am nothing, I am Continue Reading …
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 4: Imprudence?
The Unjust Judge In a certain city there was a judge... [and] In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, "Grant me justice against my opponent." For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, "Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out Continue Reading …
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 3: Shocking Images
In the previous part dedicated to prudence, one of the parables I analyzed was "the Assassin" from the noncanonical Gospel of Thomas. The question of why this parable is not in the biblical canon is an intriguing one. It may simply have been invented by the authors of Thomas, but it does not sound unlike Jesus to me. Now, as well as it being the only noncanonical parable of the Continue Reading …
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 2: Prudence
Part 1 of this series ended with my arguments that because Jesus was not a systematic philosopher, it would be helpful to elaborate his moral teachings in the framework of an ethical system, and that virtue ethics is the system best suited to this purpose, as many Christians have traditionally thought. Taking up this approach, in Parts 2 to 4 I discuss several of Jesus's Continue Reading …
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 1: Introduction
Jesus was a philosopher. If you doubt this, I'd like to persuade you by way of his parables, which imply a certain kind of ethical system with several key values. These include, principally, prudence, nonpossessiveness, nonjudgmentalism, humility, inclusion, and forgiveness. This is post is the first of several parts. In future parts, I'll address parables themselves. In Continue Reading …
Inverting the Gaze: Pagan Political Philosophy
[From Michael Burgess, edited by Seth.] A traditional means of founding political or moral philosophies in the west has been the construction of a point from which we can be seen and judged. This is an internalization and politicization of the Christian God who surveys and intervenes in his creation: we are always under the gaze of God and must therefore be Good. For Hume this Continue Reading …
I’m declaring a moratorium on Nazi examples in moral philosophy
OK, I was listening to the latest episode of Philosophy Bites, where Nigel "Daddy Warbucks" Warburton is interviewing Sean Kelly about Homer and Philosophy. I have documented elsewhere my love and admiration of Warburton and the podcast, so this is not in any way to be construed as a criticism. But a couple of things pushed my buttons. At the beginning, David Edmunds says Continue Reading …
Simon Blackburn vs Sam Harris: Can Science Tell us Right from Wrong?
In a debate with Patricia Churchland, Peter Singer, Sam Harris, and Lawrence Krauss, Simon Blackburn explains why Harris simply has it wrong on whether science can provide substantive guidance on morality: https://youtu.be/qtH3Q54T-M8 There is no doubt, he notes, that "science can inform our values" (and I would add that this goes trivially for many other types of Continue Reading …