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I think W is talking about science claiming moral authority, or, actually, certain individuals claiming moral authority in the name of science. To the...

What I have in mind is the attempt to impose a particular vision of the moral (like yours) on an autonomous person. I don't disagree with what you say...

All I mean by individual moral progress is some individual becoming a better person. In the ordinary sense of all the words. Nothing fancy. And, yeah,...

All good points. Frankly, I'm not against a gun-free society. I'm open to the idea of only the police having guns. But I don't think it's a realistic ...

Banno is fine. I like Banno. But he did jump on me initially with a bad paraphrase or misreading of my point despite my anticipatory disclaimers. I'm ...

I don't know if the average American is all that afraid. Lots of us don't vote. When I was younger, politics was a boring channel on TV. The phrase 'b...

Actually, I agree. Yes, it does happen. But it probably won't happen to me. There is a certain 'magic' or irrational attachment involved: 'happiness i...

Why do you put absurd in quotes? Don't you think it's an absurd situation? Perhaps you mistake me for a starry-eyed patriot. Nah, I was just born here...

The problem with heated political discussions is the tendency to misread and project. I vote Democratic and would like to have voted for Sanders in th...

Have you watched The Good Place? A clever show. I would like there to be a Heaven that is much like life at its best down here. I don't want there to ...

Mass shootings suck, and they make the news that is shown between commercials. But young people are more likely to kill you by drunk driving than with...

Thanks for clarifying. I don't disagree with this 'ultimately,' but my anti-metaphysical streak (influenced by linguistic philosophy) ushers me away f...

I agree. So when societies or individuals are diagnosed or accused, this seems to imply at least some blurry notion of a preferred state. I think we h...

I'm a gun owning American (liberal/moderate, I suppose.) Maybe I can add some perspective. I would rather live in a society where I would never need a...

OK, but books were just an example. Here's the simple question: is there individual moral progess? In my view, of course there is. And progress is (se...

Perhaps you took me in the wrong spirit. I wasn't complaining of being treated badly. I was trying to make a point that moral judgments imply a hierar...

I happen to know that book. I stumbled on a yellow copy in a used book store. He turned me on to other writers, and he was interesting in his own righ...

I think that's the ideal. As experiments get more complicated and technical and the entities get tiny or distant, the layman is unfortunately more and...

Right. To me it's just metaphysics masked as science to twist science beyond its proper realm. In free societies, individuals are more or less expecte...

Hi. Thanks.

From what I remember, I think that was the hope. But I could never take Kant seriously on ethics. I've always related to being more of a realist than ...

As far as I can tell, you are making a metaphysical point against other metaphysicians. Reading some of your other posts in this thread, it seems to m...

It seems to me that being reasonable is a learned, virtuous conformity. Ideally, I may agree. But I can't follow this downplaying of the body. We are ...

I understand your objection, but it seems to me that the very notion of philosophy is hierarchical. If there is something to be learned from life with...

Yes, I agree. Conformity is mostly grease on the wheel. 'Bad' individuality involves a vain transgression for transgression's sake, whereas 'bad' conf...

I think that's part of the truth. But we do have unique bodies and unique formative childhoods, so that we are indeed distinct. I agree that this dist...

I think it's more or less true. What we do is a function of things we did not choose (of the body and the environment that was given to us.) Moreover,...

I've seen some bad textbooks. As others have mentioned, Durant's book is good. From Socrates to Sartre is also good.

I don't think you have to worry about it happening the US. I believe that plenty of male liberals (moderates?) (including myself) are quietly intent o...

Indeed, and that's part of the charm of art. The artist makes an object separate from him or herself that has its own life. This object may be wiser a...

To me the correct but slippery answer is utility. How best to define utility? In a useful way, surely. With words like 'utility' and 'good,' I think w...

What occurs to me right away is the context dependence of these words. Any of them standing alone is utterly worthless, it seems to me. Yet any of the...

This is very well written, and I think I know what you mean. This is a great description of erring on the side of a kind of conformity (a conformity t...

I think of it simply as the negation of the finite. No end. No death. So instead of thinking in terms of duration, we can think in terms of the absenc...

b Respectfully, this is risky territory. How is one consciously enjoying a consumerist life, for instance, and yet deeply miserable? A misery that nev...

Don't forget that I wrote "relative to this desire at its most absolute." At its most absolute, the desire wants something that lasts forever, somethi...

I read the link. New to me. What I get is that Einstein had help, though, and not that he wasn't himself important to the genesis of the idea. Still, ...

I haven't read much of his prose, so, when I think of Einstein as a philosopher, I think of the philosophy implicit in his science. He thought about t...

I agree. There is a strong tendency to call primary experience an illusion relative to some true but hidden reality. Yet this hidden reality can only ...

Not to be contrary, but how does this follow? Let's imagine that the physical world is made of tiny cubes. The cubes are so tiny that our eyes cannot ...

While I do think the fear of death is an important theme, I don't think it explains everything. I suggest that we have an urge toward objectivity in v...

Good point. But let's say that our lovers are not parents and have decided not to be parents. What holds aging childless couples together? In my exper...

Hi. I can relate to that. But what of our presence on this philosophy forum? Why do we get pleasure from studying science or history? I understand tha...

I can agree that the desire to create/be the deathless object is plausibly an evolved trait that succesfully reproduces itself. Future orientation is ...

Great post.

Hi. I agree that our purpose is just clarifying and satisfying a host of desires. But I think Noble Dust has a point too. One of those desires is the ...

Great post. Apart from evolutionary arguments, there's also the idea that we get intellectually/spiritually bored with anyone we can predict/control. ...