Tom Storm

Fair enough. Thanks for the chat, I appreciate your rigorous approach.

That’s not my understanding of pragmatism. Pragmatism doesn’t imply that moral concern must stop at the boundaries of one’s immediate community; it gr...

Sure, but people do use emotive language to describe atrocities, that’s true. And it is not intrinsic to pragmatism to describe actions like this as '...

Yes, I think this reasoning has some merit, although I find terms like 'morally evil' too close to a classical religious language I don’t use, I’d pro...

I’d probably agree with this too. Of course, given that we can’t change society short of a revolution (and then there’s the question of what to do the...

This would seem to be a tricky place to occupy, and I sympathise. :fire: And one might argue that they matter all the more in broken and chaotic circu...

I'm not a gender theorist. Here’s my formulation (and I’ll let you have the last word, since this isn’t a productive conversation, much as I’ve enjoye...

Yes, many of them do. Maybe I could tweak my wording. But the proposition was that a stranger like Bob Ross would deny the identity of people he’s nev...

Thanks for your thoughtful response. Food for thought. I’ve generally held that my response to life is more of an aesthetic, emotivist one. I avoid sy...

My response to Lewis was always that he missed the 4th option: myth. But I appreciate your response. Maybe we can talk about other things some time.

I can kind of see your point. But I guess I would hold that if someone is gay, this is a more significant part of their identity, and of a quite diffe...

Interesting response, thanks. But I'm still not sure why Christianity was convincing to you. I'm not sure “left” and “right” have much meaning these d...

Wow, you cover a lot of eclectic views there. I don’t support all trans activist demands. But I think the issues of sports, prisons, and toilets are r...

I come from a fairly progressive country and the Christian tradition I grew up in here is inclusive and welcoming to gay and trans people - right wing...

Nicely written response. I am reminded of David Bentley Hart's quip on his blog: Of course, conservative Christians are often critical of Hart because...

:up:

I guess @"Banno" would probably point to something like Nussbaum’s capability framework as a more useful approach. I was an emotivist for some time. A...

I don’t believe one can be appropriately loving to someone whose identity one denies and considers perversion. I don’t think there’s anyway we can res...

Fair enough. I've had a similar conversation with some Thomists sover the years.

Please do.

I don’t think any question requires philosophy, and certainly not if it’s to be settled by an educative political process. Seems to me all matters are...

Isn’t this the point where many theists refer to the Fall, human imperfection, and, if they’re particularly ardent, Satan? Which gets me wondering: Is...

I often think this is like an Ouroboros....without atrocity we wouldn't discover self-sacrifice and healing. Can it be that both are necessary? (Perso...

I'm not an essentialist, and I tend to see notions of 'male' and 'female' as evolving and changing over time. As I’ve said, I'm not a gender theorist....

Thanks for the clarification. Certainly, this seems true in the cultures I know. But what about cultures that appear deaf to the suffering of tribes n...

Isn't all human discourse a contingent product of cultural and linguistic practices? Everything exists within layers of constructs and frameworks. Hum...

:up: Food for thought.

My view of this issue is untheorized and based on my experience knowing and working with numerous trans people, both men and women. I support most tra...

Does this include non-human animals? Forgive me a few quesions as I find this difficult to follow - and I am unclear how ethics can arise in this way....

Yes, I think this is the nub of it. Would you say that homosexuality falls into this category because, in your view, God is against it? And does your ...

As I said, I was going to leave you with the last word on this, but I wanted to correct something. You are right. I misspoke - my sentence above is wr...

Calling people degenerate is bigotry. To use your terminology, this much is 'obviously true'. If I said theists are delusional and need to be cured of...

One's penis can go anywhere one chooses (with consent). But anal sex is not compulsory, right? No one is saying it is, although it's a common heterose...

I'm not saying you are a bigot i said what you wrote was bigoted. But you may well be a bigot too. Notice your language: Both of these read like bigot...

Thanks for articulating your views further. To me they seem to be founded in bigotry, but no doubt you think I’m wrong too, so I guess we’re a microco...

There's a bit of this around these days. Metaphysics is a good place to hide.

From my perspective your language seems bigoted and cruel. But I do understand that people think this way. I think progressives around the world would...

I see what you’re saying: what counts as a dangerous question in one country might not be in another. Here in Australia, no one much cares about God o...

But an AI Nietzsche without hormones and a fragile sense of masculinity won't need to overcompensate so much...

I wonder if their reading will be existentialist or post-modern. No doubt we'll be able to pick.

I don’t think this is moot. In my experience, low-status people can and do question those of higher status. And changes may result. Ok, thanks for the...

I never said you did. :wink: I was simply responding to an argument often made when people start talking about purpose. I’ve not noticed that. Certain...

True enough: although I suspect purpose may be plural. I doubt it could ever be one thing. My issue with the ususal definition is: what does “love of”...

Looks like a robust framework to me. I wonder if there is also room for a speculative and creative tool there, something about: Use AI for imaginative...

Just checking - does this work the other way? Would it also be naive and idealistic to think a person of high status could correctly measure or evalua...

I see what you mean. But does rational mean level headed and peaceable? It just means capable of reasoning. One so capable can be simultaneously a tot...

I think it’s reasonable to challenge arguments from tradition. If someone says something is a matter of tradition, I think the first response should b...

Ha ha! Well if I'm going to go, let it be Zoroastrianism.

You’re welcome to be skeptical, makes no difference to my disbelief.

I’m an atheist and I mostly enjoyed him, but I wouldn’t say Hitchens was deep or insightful, he simply recycled the usual secular free thought ideas t...