counterpunch

The purpose of life is make good on the struggles of all previous generations, by using what is thereby gained to secure the future for all subsequent...

I saw a ghost once. It was on Scooby Doo! Scooby was terrified - tried to run away, and he's pumping his legs but not getting anywhere. All the while ...

No, the proposal is to protect freedom of speech in universities. It's not unreasonable to ask questions about what that means, and how it will be ach...

There's no need to establish what is, empirically the case. That's the point. It's impossible anyway, because it's a policy about how people conduct t...

Are you not following your own comments? You asked me what I reckon: A forgettable remark, admittedly - but you could at least pay attention to what y...

I think there's probably something to Peter Tatchell's claim that these measures are in some part adopted for political advantage; but the reason insi...

I have no particular antipathy toward Hume, but this. He's writing in 1740, a hundred years prior to Darwin. Human evolutionary history is the basis o...

Perhaps not.

I can see some logic in your argument, but you do not acknowledge the problem - which is, to use the crude vernacular: "cancel culture." The idea that...

Was he? "One of the most hotly debated issues arising out of Hume’s philosophy is whether or not he was an atheist. Two methodological and historical ...

The specific measures are yet to be announced. But reason suggests looking first to the nature of the problem - rather than the nature of supposed sol...

I'm not at all confused. You are. You have just failed to appreciate a very simple premise after a protracted discussion of my argument. Perhaps if yo...

I fucking well know that Hume posed the question. That's why I mentioned him. I do not disagree with Hume's observation - that people state facts, and...

Oh dear, not another one. I'm not going reply to any comment arguing that insisting on free speech implies universities having to entertain flat earth...

Free speech doesn't bypass academic merit. It bypasses politically correct censorship.

I didn't reply to unenlightened's comment for the same reason universities would ignore flat earthers. This isn't about arguments that lack academic m...

I don't know anyone who thinks it does.

The classic example is shouting fire in a crowded theatre without cause. It would cause panic, and unambiguous harm. It's not controversial to accept ...

No, they don't. For online publishers in particular, there are legal requirements, and platforms like twitter are legally responsible for the content ...

I live in a society where a man on a TV politics talk show was told by a member of the audience that his opinion was illegitimate because of his skin ...

If that's what you think then you're either a dupe - or a fraud, out to dupe others.

No. There's no free speech defence for closing down others. You don't get to delegitimise, shout down, drown out and de-platform other people - and cl...

I don't imagine humankind could survive the fall of modern civilisation. There are too many of us, and we are too alienated from the processes of prod...

How Kafkaesque! Always on trial for a crime you might commit by saying something someone else might find offensive. I'm offended by people who seek to...

I think you're mistaken. I would cite the example of JK Rowling - who made a somewhat innocuous remark about politically correct verbiage used in a wa...

Under the plans, universities would be legally required to actively promote free speech and the OfS would have the power to impose fines on institutio...

I thought the questions would form themselves. Your example is terrifying, and presumably precisely what these measures are intended to prevent. How c...

Not exactly, no. I am arguing that a MORAL SENSE is naturally selected for adaptive reasons. Not any particular moral or ethical principal, but a sens...

That's nonsensical; and betrays a paranoia I will explain to you. You think Nietzsche was right, that man in a state of nature was some amoral brute, ...

I'm sorry truth offends you, but your behaviours prove my arguments.

I was hoping for something a little more productive. I was trying to give you a taste of your own medicine. It's bitter, because you're bitter in your...

I know what it is supposed to mean. But perhaps you should say what you mean by it!

What, in your mind is the purpose of these sly asides? So in your view, the advent of self-consciousness involves an apple tree, a talking snake and a...

It's almost certainly, not my view being criticised. So wherein lies the benefit? Here's one of your quotes: Should I defend Dennet then? If Leon Wies...

I answered "none of the above" because morality is behavioural intelligence. The capacity to have a moral opinion is a consequence of evolution, and r...

It's not insufficient when one considers morality as the behaviourally intelligent survival strategy of social organisms that are built from the botto...

We have a choice. That's what gives the matter moral import. If we could only walk blindly into extinction, it wouldn't be a moral question. But becau...

I choose my words with care to explain some quite fine distinctions that your paraphrasing is apt to disregard. Yes, that is what I'm doing. I'm surpr...

I understand that I have never said 'the biological determines the intellectual' - and am not about to claim the words you want to put in my mouth. I ...

Morality, as I've explained, is a sense - and given due consideration to the facts, this is my considered opinion:

I do not find you an honest or reasonable debater. You are only out to shoot down these ideas; whether from personal enmity, or philosophical convicti...

What do you mean? Those that survived, survived - and did so because genetically and physiologically and behaviourally they were correct to reality. M...

Organisms survive until they don't. It's a functional truth relation: the structure of DNA, the physiology of the organism. It's mechanics - if you li...

Replication begins with DNA unzipping down the middle, and attracting its chemical opposite from the environment. This is the basis of a truth relatio...

One looks at the facts, and the moral implications are apparent - in the same way it's apparent that a joke is funny, or a painting is pleasing to the...

That I disagree with your assessment subtracts nothing from my boundless gratitude. Wayfarer's bombardment wasn't particularly helpful in explicating ...

I would find it very difficult to explain my reasoning in such a letter, and the Church would find it impossible to acknowledge receipt. So, no - that...

You say the Church is 100% committed to addressing climate change. I have a plan to solve climate change - and secure a prosperous, sustainable future...

Well Pfhorrest, what do you think? You asked if I care to elaborate. Was it just to antagonise Wayfarer?