Activists point at cases. Four illustrations: (1) Black Lives Matter activists talk about Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, and a number of other Black people who have been killed in recent years. (2) MAGA activists and other anti-immigrant activists talk about the killing of Laken Riley, and a few other such cases. (3) Effective Altruists talk…

Over time, metaethicists have shifted from Definition 1: Moral realism is the view that moral facts are mind-independent to  Definition 2: Moral realism is the view that moral facts are stance-independent. I believe that this shift was motivated by recognition that moral facts clearly aren't entirely mind-independent. For example, the painfulness of torture is part…

All traditional religions should be abandoned, but if we are going to participate in any traditional religions at all, it seems to me that Quakerism is a pretty good choice for a typical American person. What I find most enjoyable is the way that meetings are conducted. Here is how it works in what are…

I doubt that the movement known variously as wokeism / identity politics / political correctness deserves much of the blame for Trump's victory. But in any case here are some of my current opinions about that movement, which I'll just call "wokeism":(1) Etiquette is about the regulation of language and meaningful gestures.(2) Violation of etiquette…

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You might think that people who support marginal politicians like Ralph Nader or Ron Paul have different values than people who support mainstream politicians like John McCain or Barack Obama, but that doesn't have to be the case.  Suppose I support Ralph Nader because I think he would make the best president.  And suppose you…

It's not easy to give an exact, non-controverisal description of the rights that libertarians say we have.  The phrase "individual rights" evokes a picture that is very rough, but is adequate for the present purpose.  But there's a further issue: although it is clear that libertarians like individual rights, it's less clear what that means.  Consider a familiar type of case: Suppose you could raise a bunch of…

I’ve decided to start blogging here again (though we’ll see how long this resolution lasts).  And as I see it, there is no better way to start again than by providing the internets with something they seem to lack (based on 5 minutes’ worth of googling): An irrefutable defense of Alanis Morissette’s widely criticized usage…

There are features of things which make moral judgments about them true.  For instance, in a certain case it may be that the fact that a given act is an act of killing-for-fun is the feature of it which makes it wrong.  It might be thought that there are some types of things which never…