Category: Philosophy
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Is letting a 17-year-old die morally equivalent to killing her?
A spate of news articles appeared yesterday, reporting that Dutch 17-year-old mental patient Noa Pothoven was euthanized. This formulationâshe was euthanizedâcaused outrage in certain circles. This is factually incorrect, they say. She was […]
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A Free Speech Credo
I. Free speech is nothing if not offensive. Free speech just is the right to say offensive things. Popular, safe speech needs no protection; only unpopular, unsafe speech does. Free speech needs protection precisely […]
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BBC claims my career illustrates the value of a humanities degree
I was quoted by the BBC explaining the purpose of the liberal arts: The BBC article quotes this 5-year-old post from the very blog you are now reading. A few days earlier, I […]
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Protected: Ad Astra Per Aspera
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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The Meaning of Life
…just in case you haven’t figured it out yet. In this old answer, which I still believe and endorse wholeheartedly, I integrate many of popular answersâhappiness or flourishing, meaningful work, benefiting mankind, love […]
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Is Western civilization collapsing?
A perennial topic for me (and many of us) is the notion that there is a deep malaise in Western civilization. There are, it seems to me, three main camps on the question, […]
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Why is consciousness mysterious?
So why, precisely, is consciousness mysterious? What is it, anyway? My view on this, in short, is that the weirdness, the mysteriousness, of consciousness lies primarily in the fact that it is an […]