Wednesday Philosophical Query #7
Proposition: There are knowable absolute moral truths that exist independently of the mind. If true, can they be known absolutely? If not, how does one know they are absolute? If false, is moral relativism...
Journeys in Alterity
The Terror of Drones
Conor Friedersdorf summarizes a recent report on the consequences of U.S. drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan. While one occasionally hears about nameless dead innocents, the full terror caused by these drones...
Reinventing Ethics?
Howard Gardner has it that traditional morality, which he defines as the “goods” and “bads” outlined in the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule, provide little if any guidance in contemporary situations. We all...
Loneliness and Loss
Not so long ago, I met a young couple who had unexpectedly lost their newborn baby shortly after birth. Upon my first seeing them, their heads were bowed and their eyes were downcast. Both...
Human Sexuality and Religious Norms
Decades after the sexual revolution, many religious conservatives remain fiercely committed to preaching, if not always living, an absolute and absolutist understanding of human sexuality. Mainstream biologists, psychologists and sociologists, building on the science...
Thursday Theological Inquiry
I’ve been told that I know shit about theology by one who, being a priest impressively learned in the subject, would know. Nevertheless, I would like to begin weekly posts offering propositions from that...
Wednesday Philosophical Query #6
From Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity: It must not be forgotten that there is a concrete bond between freedom and existence; to will man free is to will there to be being,...
To Hell with the Other
Mitt Romney’s “not elegantly stated” remarks expressed a disposition that’s not exclusive to him or to his base. As I wrote previously, disdain for otherness–a deep-seated and disordering belief that being other is bad–remains...
No, Mr. President, We Are Not The One Indispensable Power in the World
Yesterday President Obama, in a 30 minute campaign speech in Las Vegas, idolized the United States as the much needed “one indispensable power in the world,” demonstrating once again that the fantasy describing him...
