LarrySanger.org

Category: Philosophy

  • 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 formulation—she was euthanized—caused outrage in certain circles. This is factually incorrect, they say. She was not euthanized. She took her own life. What are the facts of the case? She was sexually attacked and assaulted three times,…

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  • Talk back: Why should we have more restrictions on “harmful” speech on social media?

    Dear all, This is a different sort of blog post. Rather than me writing yet another essay to you, I want to open the floor to you. I want you to answer something for me. It’s like the subreddit “Change My View.” This is aimed specifically at my liberal and progressive friends who are very…

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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 because and to the extent that it bothers, annoys, dismays, infuriates, emotionally wounds—and, yes, offends—other people. You have the right to offend…

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  • An opinionated FAQ about Facebook’s censorship of the alleged “far right”

    A lot of people understand neither free speech nor what the far right is. Here’s a beginner’s guide. Yesterday, Facebook and Instagram, which are owned by the same company, announced a purge—a fair description—of accounts by a roster of famous right-wing figures as well as Louis Farrakhan. What are we to make of this? Who…

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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 was on the BBC’s list of “star performers” with humanities degrees, a sidebar of their article explaining “Why ‘worthless’ humanities degrees may…

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  • There are no NPCs

    International travel drives home that insight that, contrary to a put-down used by immature people, and consistent with Jordan Peterson’s frequent observation that our biographies are all fascinating, there are no NPCs in the world: the variety of human experience is stunning. Yesterday I was delayed (here in Tokyo) by a long, long queue of…

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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 answers—happiness or flourishing, meaningful work, benefiting mankind, love and family, and integrity—into a single narrative. Three parts below:

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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, “Is Western civilization collapsing?” 1. The conservative position. “Yes. And it’s a horrible thing. For one thing, elites have basically stopped reproducing.…

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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 event, an activity, which is a kind of property of the brain. Much of the ontological weirdness of consciousness stems from the…

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