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What Freddy said: If, however, we jump out of Sullum’s utilitarian circle for a moment and try to comprehend the idea — central to nearly all abortion opposition — that killing human beings is intrinsically wrong, then it becomes entirely possible to see why people can abhor the life-work of George Tiller while condemning his [...]
Concerning a discussion of evidence for moral codes among non-human animals, Lee writes: I think our resistance to seeing animals as in any way “moral” might be rooted in the Kantian legacy of modern moral philosophy. Roughly, for Kant, you’re only acting morally when you’re acting for the sake of the moral law, and in [...]
Filed under: morality, philosophy
Responding to what I take to include my criticisms of laws defining “hate crimes” against the homeless, Ordinary Gentleman Will writes: Obviously, intent matters. If someone is attacking people of a particular religious, ethnic or sexual orientation in an effort to harass, provoke or intimidate members of said group, it may be a good idea [...]
Filed under: government/law, morality, philosophy
by JL Wall [EDIT: I really need to be better about remembering to sign my posts over here when I first put them up. For future reference, if they talk about being in Chicago and being Jewish, it's probably me. -- JLW] I remember when the “Body Worlds” exhibit was in Chicago a few years [...]
Filed under: morality, religion, science/tech
Damon Linker has up a response (check the second update) to my latest post at the Scene, in which he grants the importance of “hard-nosed analysis of whether the Bush administration was justified in torturing terrorist suspects in the specific, concrete circumstances it faced after 9/11”, but then objects: … I think thought experiments like [...]
Filed under: morality, philosophy, torture
At the Scene, I explain why thinking clearly about torture means thinking clearly about real circumstances, rather than imaginary ones.
Filed under: morality, personal, philosophy, torture
A lengthy e-mail exchange with a reader who took issue with the tone of this post and some others made it clear to me that I ought to state my position on the relevant issues a bit more clearly (and calmly). In no particular order, then: (1) I do think it’s possible for people of [...]
Filed under: government/law, morality, patriotism, torture
by JL Wall Last week, a Northwestern University Police Department officer pulled over a man on suspicion of drunk driving; in the process of trying to identify him, it came out that he was in the United States illegally. So they turned him over to the proper federal authorities for a deportation hearing. This has [...]
Filed under: government/law, immigration, morality
How would history have judged a man who could have saved thousands of American lives but chose instead to adhere to some misplaced and misguided sense of idealism? – Michael Goldfarb I’m sure that there are others who could do a better job of this than I, but for the time being how about: likely [...]
Via Will, Julian Sanchez tries to explain to Michael Goldfarb that the fact that Harry Truman was a war criminal does not mean that Bush and Cheney weren’t. Here’s key graf: I realize it’s probably not a position taken often at the offices of the Weekly Standard, but the suggestion that the bombings of Hiroshima [...]