Now, question the very foundation of moral philosophy and ethics itself.

• Do moral facts even exist?
  
• Are moral statements even capable of being true or false? Do they express beliefs or just attitudes like desire/approval? (E.g. it doesn't seem like 'Boo to murder!' is even capable of being true or false.)
  
• Are moral facts relative or absolute?
  
• What is the origin of moral properties? Natural? Non-natural?
  
• How is moral knowledge justified?
  
  Read Metaethics for a quick overview.
  
  For a super beginner-friendly book, read Metaethics: An Introduction by Andrew Fisher.
  
  ​
  
  More specifically, the names of the debates above are:
  
  
• Moral realism vs Moral anti-realism
  
• Moral cognitivism vs Moral non-cognitivism
  
• Moral relativism vs Moral absolutism
  
• Moral naturalism vs Moral non-naturalism
  
• Moral epistemology

read this

your options are basically

1. public health and policy
   
   
2. do the most lucrative thing possible and donate most of your income to charitable efforts
   
   
3. realize that this is a pretty bunk question even for an ethical utilitarian and choose the specialty that you like the most. because it's just a job and you can help a significant number of people in any specialty if you practice compassionately.

Link for the lazy

The ethicist Kwame Anthony Appiah identifies the two most basic general principles of what he calls a "Cosmopolitan" morality, though he really means any modern morality worth taking seriously: (1) all people matter, and (2) it's OK to be different.

These are the principles that cause us to value multiculturalism. If you don't agree with (1) or (2) above, it's going to be very hard to change your view here.

This doesn't mean we can't--as a society--pass judgement on ideas that violate these two principles. And it doesn't mean we can't--as individuals--show preference for some people or some lifestyles. But it does mean that we should value a society that, on the largest scale, allows all people to live the kinds of lives they want.

For practical reasons (not to mention for the sake of kindness and humility), we should withhold judgement about other ways of life unless absolutely compelled not to.

I think you will learn the most by reading five textbooks, such as A History of Philosophy, volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; or something like Metaphysics: The Fundamentals, The Fundamentals of Ethics, Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, and An Introduction to Political Philosophy.

If what you have in mind is more of a "Great Books" program to get your feet wet with some classic works that are not too difficult, you could do a lot worse than:

• Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, often published together under the title The Trial and Death of Socrates. Socrates is so important that we lump together all Greek philosophers before him as "the Presocratics," and this cycle of dialogues is a great window on who he was and what he is famous for.
  
• The Basic Works of Aristotle. "The philosopher of common sense" is not a particularly easy read. Cicero compared his writing style to "a flowing river of gold," but all the works he prepared for publication are gone, and what we have is an unauthorised collection of lecture notes written in a terse, cramped style that admits of multiple interpretations. Even so, one can find in Aristotle a very attractive system of metaphysics and ethics which played a major role in the history of philosophy, and holds up well even today.
  
• René Descartes, Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes is called the father of modern philosophy, not so much because modern philosophers have widely followed his particular positions (they haven't) but because he set the agenda, in a way, with his introduction of methodological scepticism.
  
• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. I think Elizabeth Anscombe had it right in judging Hume a "mere brilliant sophist", in that his arguments are ultimately flawed, but there is great insight to be derived from teasing out why they are wrong.
  
• If I can cheat just a little more, I will lump together three short, important treatises on ethics: Immanuel Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and Anscombe's paper "Modern Moral Philosophy".

Let's see. This'll be long, but I hope it helps out with the understanding.

"Bad things" is a bit of an understatement if we are talking about the experiences of black folks in this country throughout its history, as present day situations (i.e., discriminatory law enforcement and legal consequences, wealth gaps, gentrification, educational deficits, food deserts, etc.) are often the direct result of historic marginalization and oppression. Black folks are more likely to live in impoverished communities due to the recently-illegal-but-still-occurring practice of redlining that denied them the ability to purchase homes in certain areas. Funding for public services, like schools, are typically tied to the wealth of the community they serve, leading to underfunded schools in black communities that contribute to gaps in education and earning potential. High rates of poverty are always correlated with higher crime rates, and black communities tend to be the poorest. Since enslavement there has been a systematic effort to destroy and distort black cultural practices, with much of our current "culture" being derived from cobbled together pieces created during the darkest time in our history, and tinged with the poverty and crime in our communities. These negative messages are often perpetuated in mass media--as mass media is known to do--and regurgitated back to us as internalized racism; we accept that poverty, crime, and less-productive cultural efforts are what "real" blackness is (that last bit is my personal hypothesis, and what I'll probably be focusing on as I start work on my PhD).


I think revolting against the system is the plan for any manner of revolution, but the armed and violent kind is not the method being advocated here. Rather, we must do all we can to restructure the system so that it is just as beneficial to black and brown bodies as it is to white ones, and that is generally achieved through sociopolitical changes.

As for whiteness, I don't think there was an intent to portray "white folks as the devil", but more to think of how destructive the idea "whiteness" can be. To better understand this sentiment, one must understand how "whiteness" in this country came to be, a topic that I couldn't possibly go into in depth here, but I can give you the cliff notes. Essentially, European explorers and colonizers devised the idea of "race" as a method of categorization after nationality was no longer the biggest identifying factor. In other words, how can we fair-skinned Europeans differentiate ourselves from the darker skinned African slaves, and the darker skinned Native "savages". Notions of race and color were the simplest methods, but this became complicated when Mexico came into the picture (particularly the descendants of fair skinned Spanish colonizers, who were considered white), the approach to race and mixed heritage present in Louisiana, and the arrival of Asian immigrants. The idea of who was and was not white changed over time, but whiteness has always been used in this country as a way to differentiate those who were normal and could have things (land, votes, business, education, etc.) from those who were different and thus could not have. This divide was especially detrimental when it came to the idea of blacks, who were considered no better than property or livestock for a large chunk of our history. Today, the benefits of this system of classification are readily apparent, as whites outpace every other racial group in this country in nearly every positive metric, and white folks in this country continue to receive special favor due to the nature of the system underpinning our society. This favor is often unconscious and given without awareness, but it readily exists as privilege. A few really good books on this are The Racial Contract by Charles W. Mills, White by Definition by Virginia R. Dominguez, and Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi & Howard Winant.

So, the general idea of the speech simply echos many of the calls to action that have been made in recent years. It calls attention to the systems of oppression that have been put into place, the disastrous consequences of those systems for black and brown folks, the need for those in position of power and influence (regardless of race) to work towards dismantling unfair systems, the ongoing benefits white folks have in this systems (and the sense of complacency this gives rise to, since they of course stand to lose privilege and not gain much tangibly from equal rights), and the need for people rise up and fight for equality in oppressive systems.

yo dawg, i heard you liked Kierkegaard, so I figured i'd point you towards some dank bookskies.

Either/Or. is some good shit, too fucking long and meandering in total in my not so humble opinion, but some good shit to flip through, the individual essays are da baus, especially "the unhappiest man". Also, you may wanna check out Elliott Smith's album by the same name and blast it on your boom box while you're reading.

Fear and Trembling. Some other dank essays, I haven't personally gotten through all of it what with all the bitches that need my attention, but i've heard it's his best.

Hope I've helped a fellow brolosopher out.

Ninja edit: If I haven't, you can go fuck yourself.

Not looking to be superior. It's just a statement that in nearly all cases, when someone prefaces a statement with "Not to be racist," or "I'm not being racist," or "This statement might seem racist but it's not," then the statement that follows after is usually racist. It's a positive correlation, and there are many people that will back that up.

For example: a book about it, another book about it, a rationalwiki article about it, and a Washington Post podcast about it.

There once existed this philosopher named Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (most people just call him Hegel for short). Hegel was an extremely influential philosopher during his time, and many people considered themselves Hegelian philosophers. The thing about Hegel is that he's very difficult to understand, and his works were interpreted in many different ways. Basically, you had three schools of thought regarding Hegel (we'll call them the Post-Hegelian philosophers): right-wing Hegelians, left-wing Hegelians, and another group that was a reaction towards left-wing Hegelians. The right-wing Hegelians believed that Hegel was saying Christianity is basically true, but that the Bible speaks in metaphors. The left-wing Hegelians believed Hegel was saying Christianity wasn't true at all, and thus he was advocating atheism (Marx fell into this category). The final group believed that the left-wingers were correct, that Hegel was saying Christianity was false, and therefore Hegelianism is an evil fraud (Kierkegaard). The final group did not align themselves with the right-wing group, because they felt that the Bible is literal (doesn't speak in metaphors), and that the right-wingers were misled.

Marx puts forward a theory of alienation, where our internal issues can be fixed via society. Kierkegaard believes you can fix your problems by establishing the right relationship with God. However, Kierkegaard also believes that one must fix themselves before anything else. (Marx believes on must fix society, and the fixing of self will follow from that). So, Kierkegaard focuses on self rather than society.

Now, the thing that's kind of interesting about Kierkegaard is that he's not really a philosopher -- in fact, he despises philosophers. He is a literary figure in Denmark who happens to find himself in a Denmark that becomes very Hegelian -- even the religious establishment goes Hegelian. Kierkegaard makes religion the topic on which he constructs his literature, thus his literature espouses much of his religious beliefs.

In Either/Or Kierkegaard puts forward two stages of human existence: the aesthetic stage, and the ethical stage. In order to better understand how Kierkegaard can reconcile his Christianity with his existentialism, it is important to understand these two stages. So, below I go into a very minor amount of detail on them, and in doing so I give you an incomplete picture. This is just scratching the surface, and if you find yourself interested in the subject I highly recommend reading the books I suggest at the end of this post.

The Aesthetic Stage

The aesthete is concerned not with the self, but rather with the world that they live in. They want the world to become a work of art. The aesthete lives for the immediate satisfaction of his senses, which conflicts with the aesthete's ability to reflect on his own life, and the way he in which he lives it. The aesthete moves from one pleasure to another, and enjoys himself, but he lacks introspection. The aesthete is not immoral, but rather pre-moral. Also, aestheticism does not equal hedonism. The aesthete abides by morals insofar as they are not boring or inartistic.

The Ethical Stage

To become an ethical human one first needs to take very seriously the norms of the community. The main thing that distinguishes Kierkegaard from Hegel here is choice. It's not a process of evolution that one becomes moral (Hegel), but rather you choose to be ethical. This means that you also have the choice not to be ethical (existentialism!). There can be no ethical life until you've chosen that there can be a difference between good and bad. In the ethical stage one can reflect on one's life, and thus is accountable for living a moral life (or not). The ethical person no longer sees the world as the most important part of living, but rather he now sees himself as the most important part of the world -- his inner existence is more important than anything else. The ethical person now has the choice to take control of his/her own life, or to not do so. The ethical person works towards being a moral and good person by shaping himself as a moral and good person, thus he is the most important aspect in his being, not society or any other external sources (existentialism!).

The Religious Stage

This is discussed in Fear and Trembling, not Either/Or. This stage is not reached by being ethical or anything else. In fact, it is my interpretation that Kierkegaard actually says the person in the ethical stage cannot reach the religious stage, but that's my spin and I could be wrong -- I didn't mention this, but Kierkegaard thinks that living in the Aesthetic stage leads one to despair, and suicide. However, it is my belief that in the state of despair in the Aesthetic stage, one makes the leap of faith to the religious stage, thus skipping the ethical stage entirely. Again, this could be wrong.

End Stages

So, we are still left with the question, if Kierkegaard looks to the external (i.e., God), then how can he be considered an existentialist? The point that Kierkegaard is making with these stages is that we have a choice in this stages, thus we are responsible for our own lives. We have the choice of being religious, or being an aesthete. We are in control of our own lives, therefore we are responsible for everything that happens to us. It's important to note that these stages are not like Freud's stages of development. An aesthete can choose to be an aesthete for his entire life, and never enter a different stage. An ethical person chooses the ethical stage. Kierkegaard believes deeply in personal reflection, and the fact that we are responsible for our own lives. This is existentialism.

TL;DR (and encapsulated for a 5 year old): It is true that Kierkegaard looks to God, but his work is still existential because he focuses on the fact that we are free to choose our lives, and thus are responsible for how our lives are going. As well, Kierkegaard places a lot of importance on reflecting on ourselves, and the importance of the self rather than the world.

Further Reading

Either/Or

Fear and Trembling

The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard - This book gives you a clear picture of Kierkegaard's religious beliefs. Also, gives a decent understanding of his philosophy, but not great.

Kierkegaard: An Introduction - This book makes things amazingly clear about Kierkegaard's philosophy.

Looks like it's also free on Kindle, if that's your thing.

The book I always recommend people start out with is Sophie's World, not because it's the most in-depth, but because it's the most accessible for a newcomer. It's also the most entertaining I've read. If you want something more in-depth, Russell's History of Western Philosophy is generally this subreddit's big recommendation, although I personally wouldn't say it's a great starting point. His reading of some thinkers is not great, and he's not quite as good at dumbing down certain ideas to an introductory level.

A good summary of philosophy will help you for a couple reasons. One, it will give you enough information to find out what thinkers and ideas interest you. If you're interested in a particular question or thinker, then that's obviously where you should go. Philosophy of religion? Logic? Aesthetics and art? Language? There's plenty written on all these topics, but it can be a bit overwhelming to try and just attack all of philosophy at once. Like any other field, there will be parts of it that click with you, and parts that don't really seem all that appealing. Find your niche, and pursue it. In addition to giving you an idea of where to go, a good overview will put ideas in context. Understanding Augustine and Aquinas will make more sense if you know that they're working with a foundation of the Greek thought of Plato and Aristotle. Descartes wrote his meditations during the enlightenment, and was a major contributor to much of the emphasis on reason that defined that era. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard's existentialist ideas become more powerful when you realize they're critiquing and challenging the technicality of Kant and Hegel. Ideas don't exist in a vacuum, and while you can't be expected to know all the details of everything, your niche area of interest will make more sense if you understand it's context.

As for easier texts that I'd recommend trying out (once you find an area of interest), here's a few that are pretty important and also fairly accessible. These are texts that are generally read by all philosophy students, due to their importance, but if you're just into this for personal interest, you can pick and choose a bit. Still, these are important works, so they'll be very good to read anyways.

Plato - Apology: not terribly dense, but an accessible text in which Socrates basically defends his pursuing philosophical thought. I'd recommend this as an accessible introduction that will get you to feel like philosophy matters; think of it as pump-up music before a big game.

Plato - The Republic: this is arguably Plato's most important work. In it, he talks about the nature of men, politics, education and art.

Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics: a text that deals with leading a life in accordance with virtue. Aristotle's style is a bit dry and technical, but he's also very important.

Augustine - On Free Choice of the Will: a dialogue similar to Plato's in which Augustine argues that the existence of God does not conflict with man having free will.

Aquinas - Selected Excerpts: he wrote a lot, so you don't wanna try reading a whole one of his works. This selects his key ideas and puts them in bite-sized chunks. He's a big Christian thinker, arguing for the existence and goodness of God and related theological concepts.

Descartes - Meditations on First Philosophy: Descartes uses reason to prove he exists, along with some other things. Pretty easy to read, although it sparked a revolution in thought, making epistemology a central problem of philosophy.

Kant - Grounding for Metaphysics of Morals: one of his easier works, but it's still one of the more technical works I'm recommending, in which Kant demonstrates that morals are a priori.

Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling: one of my favorite books, Kierkegaard writes about the nature of faith using the story of Abraham and Isaac as his starting point. A huge critic of Kant's obsession with pure reason, he is generally considered to be the first existential thinker.

Nietzsche - Beyond Good & Evil: Nietzsche is one of the more controversial thinkers in history. Also a critic of Kant, he is one of the most profound critics of religion. This book is one of his more important, in which he talks about his problems of religion, the culture around him, and at times points us in the direction he wants us to go. Know that he doesn't write in a terribly direct manner, so if you choose to read him, come here for assistance. He's a bit different to read, and can be challenging if you're not ready.

This list is by no means exhaustive, and having a good reference to help you along will be very helpful.

For Nietzsche, or for life in general?

I'll assume the first one. Read these in the order given:

Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, Walter Kaufman.

Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche

On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good & Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche

I would highly recommend getting the Kaufman translations. Thus Spake Zarathustra is collected in The Portable Nietzsche and Genealogy of Morals is collected together with Ecce Homo. Once you've read the ones I've listed, you'll already have his other important books if you want to read them. I'd read the Kaufman book first for two reasons: Understanding Nietzsche life and times helps to contextualize his philosophy, and Kaufman is terrific biographer, plus Kaufman gives a thorough overview of Nietzsche's ideas. And sometime it really helps to have a map of the territory before you plunge into the abyss. Nietzsche can be very challenging, especially to the 21st century reader.

Concerning Nietzsche versus Peterson: Nietzsche is an anti-realist about value [see Brian Leiter, Nietzsche on Morality, 2nd Ed, section on metaethics, anti-realism about value, pages 119-121], whereas Peterson is a value realist who believes that “transcendent values genuinely exist; that they are in fact the most tangible realities of being.” This is a direct quote from Peterson's Patreon. In contrast, Leiter writes that "Nietzsche’s central argument for anti-realism about value is explanatory: moral facts don’t figure in the “best explanation” of experience, and so are not real constituents of the objective world. Moral values, in short, can be “explained away” [p 120, ibid].

Sometimes birth control fails. Sometimes one’s environment shapes their desire to procreate. Some people do it because their lives are so miserable, that bringing life into the world seems like the only way to find meaning.

https://www.amazon.com/Every-Cradle-Grave-Rethinking-Suicide/dp/0989697290/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492819788&sr=1-1&keywords=9780989697293#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1507747201885

I enjoyed Sarah Perry’s Every Cradle Is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide.


https://www.amazon.com/dp/0989697290/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_m-G0Db09Z64PE

If money can buy you happiness, them presumably one is not choosing money rather than happiness. Instead, one is choosing more happiness over less happiness.

I can't think of any philosopher who has ever argued that it makes more sense to get money than to be happy, except for the ones who have argued that one has a duty to help others as much as possible, which entails earning lots of money and donating it to charity. See here and here for details. Apart from that though, the choice seems pretty easy: happiness, because money is only useful as a means to some other end, whereas happiness is an end in itself.

>Would one have to argue for why humor is subjective? Or for why beauty is subjective? Or is it understood that these are matters of opinion as they exist only as constructs of the mind?

I'm just asking for arguments that morality is subjective. Surely isn't ludicrous to request arguments for a person's beliefs. Consider the same tactic used by a moral realist:

"You mean I have to argue that the Holocaust or torturing babies is objectively moral!?"

Also, assuming that these other kinds of value are subjective, how is that an argument for moral value being subjective? The argument seems to be this:

P) Most kinds of X are Y
C) Therefore, all kinds of X are Y.

But this is a fallacious inference; just replace 'X' with 'swans' and 'Y' with 'white'.

As for arguments for moral realism, The SEP article's on moral realism, moral non-naturalism, and moral naturalism would be good places to start. Moral Realism: A Defence by Russ Shafer-Landau and Taking Morality Seriously by David Enoch are two book length treatments.

I only mentioned the PhilPapers survey to suggest a bit of humility in discussing these matters.

I recently read a pretty good book that addresses basically this precise question. Highly recommended.

Side benefit: Helped me more clearly see the benefit of affirmative action.

>So racism is a combination of that inherent distrustfulness, tied together with cultural stereotypes about different groups. So maybe we'll never be truly rid of racism; the best we can do is teach our children about these negative thoughts, and learn to examine those thoughts for real truth.

I'm going to have to vehemently disagree with you on this point. While there is certainly a personal aspect to racism, to reduce it to a mere combination of "inherent distrustfulness" and "cultural sterotypes" is to ignore the vast systemic issues that constitute true racism. Under your definition, only persons can be racist. How then are we to critique - for example - the carceral state in America, in which blacks are imprisoned at a significantly higher rate than whites. According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) non-Hispanic blacks accounted for 39.4% of the total prison and jail population in 2009.[41] According to the 2010 census of the US Census Bureau blacks (including Hispanic blacks) comprised 13.6% of the US population. (Elizabeth Anderson recently wrote a very well argued book on this issue)

Any constructive discussion of race in America (which I am attending to specifically, forgive me if you are a non-American, it is the area in which I am familiar) must, necessarily, attend to systemic issues of economic exploitation, cultural devaluation, and political disenfranchisement as well as the personal prejudice and cultural stereotypes that underlie individual participation (not to discount apathy and fear, which play a significant role) in the maintenance of a system of racial domination.

Some critical race theorists whose work I find very prescient are David Theo Goldberg and Charles Mills.

(thanks for jump starting the conversation by the way, it is much appreciated)

Edit: realized they were Aussies, but I find that the point about focusing on individual prejudice rather than systemic oppression still stands.

It depends on what you want to get out of it. If you want a clear, intro-level overview of the subject, check out Shafer-Landau's Fundamental's of Ethics. It's a fantastic place to start, and it is the book I recommend if you really want to understand the subject and plan to read outside the context of a class.

If you want primary texts, I suggest that you get the book's companion, The Ethical Life.

If you want a textbook that is a little shorter and more engaging, check out Rachels' The Elements of Moral Philosophy.

If you want an introduction that's informative and fun to read but less informative than the Rachels or the Shafer-Landau, check out Sandel's Justice. You can also watch his Justice lectures online. This book, as opposed to the other two, is written for a popular audience.

>How the fuck did you you come to this conclusion

I studied ethics. If you are interested, here is a good overview: https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Theory-Anthology-Russ-Shafer-Landau/dp/0470671602

>Corporations create certainty that life and wellbeinbg are secondary to profit

That doesn't contradict anything that I said.

>Government" is a fleeting term that responds to its environment

Sure, but in all cases, what I said is still true.

>In a democracy, if people believe it's worth it, the government will enact it, and propaganda is all that is required to make people believe

That doesn't contradict anything that I said.

>Thanks for shitting on sincere public discourse

Cheers

>Edit: Sorry, that was unnecessarily aggressive.

ok! thanks for the note, have a good day.

Wish I had time to engage properly today but I don't. Here's some well regarded arguments for realism you can look into if you haven't already.

Enoch's Taking Morality Seriously Shafer-Landau's [Moral Realism: a Defense] (https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Realism-Defence-Russ-Shafer-Landau/dp/0199280207/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CNVDTNHGJW3FHXNR8821), Oddie's Value, Reality and Desire, Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism, Parfit's On What Matters Wedgwood's The Nature of Normativity, Cuneo's The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism.



And here's some free papers you can read (too lazy to name them all, sorry):
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard_Boyd5/publication/240034001_How_to_Be_a_Moral_Realist/links/556f6f4308aec226830aab09/How-to-Be-a-Moral-Realist.pdf


http://www.academia.edu/4116101/Why_Im_an_Objectivist_about_Ethics_And_Why_You_Are_Too_


https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=433000088031098030104101075089022124028072042008084011092124087113084016108098084005098003032035018116033080110110127020085084106080012039033080068103113067015099089032030091083096096084064089109093065079071016028099008078093021125125068072101086002&EXT=pdf


https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=207103102008006126082026003080087077015002001000090086121025066112086090029103080091030096049125038001052020081100031102121000046002046043009065006112075102115099049080048111067091106094117103109111097113120126103124079110093018090122114122112110007&EXT=pdf


http://www-personal.umich.edu/~umer/teaching/intro181/readings/shafer-Landau2005EthicsAsPhilosophyADefenseOfEthicalNonnaturalism.pdf


http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1007/s11245-016-9443-7?author_access_token=R2EN7zieClp6VWWEo8DyZPe4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY6_LyD8T3yNLLNQUBcKQRpfV5lbirZE36eSIc6PLipzIUjIvQrTe9aO4meFw0oJ_Dp784B0R9TnA9qTFaNLe9oWPQUaroxf3o-BsITKWjp_6Q%3D%3D


http://www.owl232.net/5.htm

I haven't read Subahibi, so I'm just going to take your question as "how do I get into philosophy."

Philosophy is one of the most diverse fields that we currently have. Philosophy is more than just pondering the meaning of life, it also is about uncovering the mindsets on discoveries and how people came about the knowledge we have today. You should start more simple over diving into people's work like Nietzsche so you can get the full picture on why they say what they say.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge, metaphysics is the study of existence (not to be confused with existentialism, which is even more meta and theoretical), Aesthetics is the study of art, Ethics is the study of morality, and there are philosophies of politics, mind, body, religion, and all sorts.

I would shy away from direct writings from philosophers, as contemporary books are the literal collection of all of their knowledge presented in an easier to digest way.

The primary text for the introduction to philosophy course is this one: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Life-Hackett-Publishing-Co/dp/0872204383/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458874442&sr=1-1&keywords=good+life+guignon

The primary text for the philosophy of law course is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Justice-Reader-Michael-J-Sandel/dp/0195335120

Both texts are supplemented with additional readings, lecture viewings, etc.

The Pig That Wants to be Eaten

Douglas Murray - The Strange Death of Europe, it is very well written and the author is very likeable but I, as a left leaning person, have said no to nearly every thought. But respectfully.

And then there is always Nietzsche. I love Nietzsche, he is my favorite philosopher. But his ideas - they are taunting, beautiful, mind boggling at times, very smart, unexpected, entertaining, funny. - hard to take for any person, especially a left leaning one. But I never liked it so much to be mocked.

The Genealogy of Morals - one of the best books I don't agree with I have ever read.

Piggybacking on /u/haplogreenleaf 's comment, if you're interested in learning more on why this is I'd suggest reading Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power and I'm Not a Racist, But..The Moral Quandary of Race

Fixing these imbalances is the honest to god real question here. What changes can we as a society make to facilitate equality between races. Really tough question. Obama is more the classist type, get people out of the ghetto and you remove the race problem. While others suggest focusing systemic changes based on a race specifically (the problem with this is whites historically don't vote for something that doesn't benefit their worse off).

Look you seem to have good intentions but you're completely immersed in the neoclassical economics bullshit.

So, I recommend taking at this particular book:


The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community by Harvard Economics Professor Stephen A. Marglin, who is also a reformed/ former neoclassical economist.


Philip Mirowski's book Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science, his book More Heat than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature's Economics and his latest The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information: The History of Information in Modern Economics deal with a lot of the bullshit coming from economics.


You can find a more anti-capitalist critique in [The Beginning of History: Value Struggles and Global Capital](http://www.lamarre-mediaken.com/Site/COMS_630_files/Beginning%20of%20History.pdf
) (I included a PDF to it).


As for books on what communism might look like:

• Omnia Sunt Communia: On the Commons and the Transformation to Postcapitalism by Massimo De Angelis.
  
  
  
• Living at the Edges of Capitalism: Adventures in Exile and Mutual Aid by Andrej Grubacic and Denis O'Hearn:
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Living-Edges-Capitalism-Adventures-Mutual/dp/0520287304
  
  
• “The World of the Gift” by Alain Caillé and Jacques T. Godbout:
  
  
  
  
  https://www.amazon.com/World-Gift-Jacques-T-Godbout/dp/0773517510
  
  
  
• “Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing” by Thomas Widlok:
  
  
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Economy-Sharing-Thomas-Widlok/dp/1138945552
  
  
  
  
  The economic mechanism that Thomas Widlok talks about in his book is very to what Peter Kropotkin calls "mutual aid" and David Graeber calls "everyday communism".
  
  
  
  

Good looks, bro. I ain't no nerd I can't get down with some 800 pages the second book Fear and Trembling sounds like it's right up my ally, that and I found this The Essential Kierkegaard

This emo dude and his existentialism is sounding right to me, thanks for the recommendations, bro.

> One of the hardest things to learn from a philosophical perspective when one is agnostic or atheist is that all morality is relative.

Or, perhaps it's better stated that many who experience a dramatic shift in their world view have yet to be exposed to the various ways of thinking about ethics (morality), and that our species naturally intuits a position to moral relativity when the obligating justifications for their previous ethics break down (e.g. no god means no justification for grounded objective morality, in their minds).

There are a lot of different ways to approach morality, and relativism is the lowest-hanging of the bunch, in my view. It's easy and doesn't require a lot of effort, but it's also the laziest way to approach morality and the least justified.

The various positions are typically these:

• Moral relativism: Here, right or wrong is a construct; a preference or cultural norm.
  
  
• Moral universalism: Here, morality is objectively the same for everyone; observation and rational inference allegedly lead rational thinkers to the same conclusions about right and wrong, regardless of any preferences or cultural norms.
  
  
• Moral nihilism: Here, morality is meaningless. Right or wrong is incoherent.
  
  
• Moral realism (objectivism): Here, morality exists in reality. There are objective facts about right and wrong. Statements about right and wrong can be true or false based on their interaction with those facts. Two categories here, moral naturalism (morality is reducible to biology, sociology, etc.) and moral non-naturalism (it's not reducible and doesn't require science).
  
  
• Moral absolutism: Here, morality exists and there are things one must or mustn't do, and in fact required that one must or mustn't do; no exceptions, no changies, no take-backs.
  
  All of these areas are contentious areas of debate. Most philosophers fall on the side of moral realism (including your guy, Russ Schaefer-Landau), but that hardly settles the matter. He does have an excellent book, Moral Realism: A Defense
  
  What's healthy is discovering that there are truth-apt areas in each of these categories, with tons of overlap.

I had a long response typed out, but then my browser crashed and erase everything. I'll post the links I was going to attach anyway. Thanks for being so helpful.

https://sexnotgender.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/fine_cordelia_delusions-of-gender.pdf

-

https://rosswolfe.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/barbara-j-fields-and-karen-fields-racecraft-the-soul-of-inequality-in-american-life.pdf

-

http://apcz.pl/czasopisma/index.php/THS/article/download/ths.2015.002/8179

-

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5420507_Deconstructing_the_Feminine_Essence_Narrative

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7735086_Early_History_of_the_Concept_of_Autogynephilia

-

http://www.annelawrence.com/autogynephilia,_a_paraphilic_model_of_GID.pdf

-

http://www.alevelphilosophy.co.uk/handouts_religion/ReligionFormLife.pdf

-

https://www.amazon.com/Worm-Core-Role-Death-Life-ebook/dp/B00VW7BJ9Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1497921511&sr=1-1&keywords=worm+at+the+core

-

https://www.amazon.com/Nietzsche-Morality-Brian-Leiter/dp/0415856809/ref=pd_sbs_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0415856809&pd_rd_r=W4KKPV25WWB20P0GM410&pd_rd_w=TSyC8&pd_rd_wg=iNVkH&psc=1&refRID=W4KKPV25WWB20P0GM410

For those interested: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pig-That-Wants-Eaten-Ninety-Nine/dp/1847081282/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500474451&sr=8-1&keywords=the+pig+that+wants+to+be+eaten+by+julian+baggini

If you want a best understanding of what Graeber provocatively calls everyday communism, I suggest you take a look at this book:

Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing by Thomas Widlok.


Thomas Widlok's book is the only book that I know of that talks about the issue of communism in any detail. He edited two books on the ethnography of equality that are also useful.

The anthropological term for that communism is "demand-sharing".


Demand-sharing is distinct from the gift, by the way. Demand-sharing is NOT a form of exchange (Widlok deals with this very well).

For Gifts, I would direct you to The World of the Gift by Jacques T. Godbout and Alain C. Caillé and Gifts and Commodities by C. A. Gregory.

Alain Caillé is the expert on the question of the gift.


P.S:

/u/LitGarbo

You deserve way more subscribers, this is some good quality stuff.

At least for Anarchists or other left-libertarians it should also be important to actually read up on some basic or even fundamental ethical texts given most political views and arguments are fundamentally rooted in morality (unless you're a orthodox Marxist or Monarchist). I'm sadly not familiar enough with applied ethics to link collections of arguments for specific ethical problems, but it's very important to know what broad system you're using to evaluate what's right or wrong to not contradict yourself.

At least a few very old texts will also be available for free somewhere on the internet like The Anarchist Library.

Some good intro books:

• The Fundamentals of Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau
  
• The Elements of Moral Philosophy by James and Stuart Rachels
  
• Ethics: A Very Short Introduction by Simon Blackburn
  
  Some foundational texts and contemporary authors of every main view within normative ethics:
  
  
• Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotles for Classic Virtue-Ethics. Martha Nussbaum would be a contemporary left-wing Virtue-Ethicist who has used Marx account of alienation to argue for Global Justice.
  
• Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel (or Emmanuel) Kant for Classic Deontology. Kantianism is a popular system to argue for anti-statism I believe even though Kant himself was a classical liberal. Christine Korsgaard would be an example of a contemporary Kantian.
  
• The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick for Classic Utilitarianism. People usually recommend Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill, but most contemporary Ethicists believe his arguments for Utilitarianism suck. 2 other important writers have been R. M. Hare and G. E. Moore with very unique deviations from classic Utilitarianism. A contemporary writer would be Peter Singer. Utilitarianism is sometimes seemingly leading people away from Socialism, but this isn't necessarily the case.
  
• Between Facts and Norms and other works by the contemporary Critical Theorist Jürgen Habermas may be particularly interesting to Neo-Marxists.
  
• A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. I know Rawls is a famous liberal, but his work can still be interpreted to support further left Ideologies. In his later works like Justice as Fairness: A Restatement you can see him tending closer to Democratic Socialism.
  
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche for... Nietzsche's very odd type of Egoism. His ethical work was especially influential to Anarchists such as Max Stirner, Emma Goldman or Murray Bookchin and also Accelerationists like Jean Baudrillard.
  
• In case you think moralism and ethics is just bourgeois propaganda maybe read something on subjectivism like Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong by J. L. Mackie
  
• Or if you want to hear a strong defense of objective morality read Moral Realism: A Defense by Russ Shafer-Landau orc

If someone is looking to actually buy the text, I might suggest: The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant- Pratical Philosophy.

For $20 more you get Mary Gregor translations for all of,

1. Review of Schulz's Attempt at an Introduction to a Doctrine of Morals for all Human Beings Regardless of Different Religions (1783)
   
2. An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784)
   
3. On the wrongfulness of unauthorized publication of books (1785)
   
4. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
   
5. Kraus' Review of Ulrich's Eleutheriology (1788)
   
6. Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
   
7. On the common saying: that may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice (1793)
   
8. Toward Perpetual Peace (1795)
   
9. The Metaphysics of Morals (1797)
   
10. On a Supposed Right to Lie From Philanthropy (1797).
    
    Unfortunately you would be loosing the specific introduction by Korsgaard, and gain a more general one by Allen Wood. Both are excellent scholars, but I've heard Korsgaard's introduction can be very helpful to someone first reading Groundwork. So there is that to consider.

I just started reading Larken Rose's "the most dangerous superstition"

He starts from basic principals and argues that authority and government are inherently immoral and the antithesis of rational human behaviour. (still early in the book so forgive me if I've misrepresented)

I like Rose because he has a way of explaining things that makes them seem so simple. You have a lot of those "a ha" moments while reading it.

http://www.amazon.ca/Most-Dangerous-Superstition-Larken-Rose-ebook/dp/B00UV41W2U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427297879&sr=8-1&keywords=the+most+dangerous+superstition

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

You recommend a book, I recommend a book. Only fair:

The Racial Contract by Charles W. Mills http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801484634/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_XUo8tb14PRS3F

>But if the students were really to learn something of the minds of any of these non-Western cultures—which they do not—they would find that each and every one of these cultures is ethnocentric. All of them think their way is the best way, and all others are inferior. ... Only in the Western nations, i.e., those influenced by Greek philosophy, is there some willingness to doubt the identification of the good with one’s own way.

This is a grand, sweeping claim. He quite literally says all other cultures are ethnocentric and believe their ways are the best way. Given that he's using a universal quantifier, one needs but a single counter example for this claim to be refuted. And I submit that Buddhism is that counter example, and any and all individuals acquainted with the basic tenets of Buddhism will instantly recognize the absurdity of his claim that all other cultures and belief systems are inherently self-described as superior to all others. This is quite simply empirically false, and he'd have an extremely difficult time finding much by way of anthropological evidence to support it.
Secondly, there's no need to tell me about the value of a philosophical education. I have one, up to the master's level. I'm set.

This is a book about that very thing: https://www.amazon.com/Every-Cradle-Grave-Rethinking-Suicide/dp/0989697290

I've been thinking about this. The works which first pop to mind are probably too technical for general interest as they are written to be read by other professional philosophers. I'm trying to think of what might be interest to the educated person who isn't a Philosophy major.
*****

Peter Kreeft

Peter Kreeft writes a lot of things for a general audience. He is a Catholic philosopher at Boston College. He often speaks at other universities, and has even been part of a debate with a former professor of mine, so he is at least pretty well-known in philosophical circles. He has a bunch of free readings on the "featured readings" and "more featured readings" pages of his site, which also has lectures and such. Here is his author page on Amazon. His books are also mostly intended for a general audience. I've read a handful of them, so if you're thinking of ordering one, or finding it at a library, let me know and I'll give you my two cents. The Sea Within: Waves and the Meaning of All Things is interesting. He is fairly old, and a lifelong surfer. In that book he draws analogies between the natural pull the ocean has on us and the pull God has on us. He also has many Socrates Meets... books which don't have so much to do with religion, but provide accessible introductions to various philosophers (e.g. Socrates Meets Sartre).
*****

Alvin Plantinga

Alvin Plantinga is a very prominent philosopher, and a Christian. Much of his writing is intended for the professional philosophical audience, but some if it might be accessible to a general audience. Here is his Amazon author page. Let me know if you're thinking about checking out any of his stuff. Like I said, a lot of it is more technical than Kreeft's. Also, he is in the analytic tradition, whereas Kreeft is more in the continental tradition. I think that further distances him from the casual reader.

Some of Plantinga's works which might be good:

• God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God is pretty much what it's long title says.
  
  
• I see a brand new book, which I might get myself! It's on a topic which often comes up in this very forum, science and religion. (Anybody want to read it with me?!) Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. Publisher's blurb:
  
  >This book is a long-awaited major statement by a pre-eminent analytic philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, on one of our biggest debates -- the compatibility of science and religion. The last twenty years has seen a cottage industry of books on this divide, but with little consensus emerging. Plantinga, as a top philosopher but also a proponent of the rationality of religious belief, has a unique contribution to make. His theme in this short book is that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord.
  
  *****
  

  Søren Kierkegaard
  

  
  If you're thinking more historically, I think Kierkegaard can be very interesting. He is considered by many to be a proto-existentialist (a sort of existentialist before existentialism existed as a movement). Fear and Trembling is relatively easy to read, short, and probably his most read work. I recommend it. Also, here is his Amazon author page.
  
  *****
  

  Others
  

  
  Those three were just a few of the many Christian philosophers I find interesting. There are a whole lot more, some more accessible than others to a general audience. This is still just a fraction of the historical Christian philosophical scene, but I think it will give you a good start. These are all of them off of the top of my head whom I have studied to some extent.
  
  

  Contemporary:
  

  
  

• John Hick (Amazon) (Website) (Wiki): Primarily a philosopher of religion and theologian, comes from a rather liberal, mystic Christian perspective.
  
  
• Bas van Fraassen (Wiki): Doesn't actually do much on religion, just a prominent philosopher who happens to be a theist. In fact, many would not guess him to be a theist due to his ultra-empiricism.
  
  
• Peter van Inwagen (Wiki): A prominent philosopher in both philosophy of religion, and other areas. Some would argue he's even a better philosopher than Plantinga (heresy among some Christian philosophers, lol).
  
  
• J.P. Moreland (Wiki): Christian philosopher, does a lot of apologetics.
  
  
• William Lane Craig (Wiki): Well-known, but not well-liked by many philosophers, does a lot of apologetics and travels the world doing public debates with atheists. Has also done a good deal of publishing.
  
  
• Cornell West (Wiki): Awesome guy!
  
  
• Richard Swinburne: (Wiki) (Amazon Author Page): Has written many books more geared towards a general audience I believe.
  
  

  Historical
  

  
  

• Francis of Assisi
  
  
• Augustine of Hippo
  
  
• Peter Abelard
  
  
• Thomas Aquinas
  
  
• Renee Descartes
  
  
• John Locke
  
  
• George Berkeley
  
  
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  
  
• Blaise Pascal
  
  
• Johann Gotlieb Fichte
  
  
• Immanuel Kant
  
  
• William James: One badass mo'fo in my humble opinion. Early twentieth century American philosopher, part of the pragmatist school, and a defender of faith.
  
  ****
  Author's Note: I've been working on this entry for about 45 minutes now. I hope someone reads some of it. Time for a break. If you have any questions, or wanna talk philosophy, let me know, it's in my blood.*
  
  

You are confusing the way one finds out what is objectively moral (epistemology) with the independence of the moral value. Lots of atheists believe in objective morality.

Shoot me a PM and I'll send you an email address you can send it to, if you're comfortable with that. It'll probably be the best way to send me your thesis. Or, upload it into dropbox to share. I should state: some advisors do push students to guard your thesis carefully. If you're on your way to a Ph D or reworking the material for publication, I would be careful of distribution. I'm an American Labor historian, my studies in cosmopolitanism are not yet professional, but one of curiosity.

​

I assume you've read this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Cosmopolitanism-Ethics-World-Strangers-Issues/dp/039332933X

Kwame Anthony Appiah's Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers

If not, it is an absolute must. Appiah makes an argument for westerners to be able to hold a cosmopolitan worldview all the while rejecting imperialism. It's a fine line to walk. I would think if you're making the claim of cosmo + nationalism you would need this as a foundational text. The next step would be to state that a given place, i would think, can hold a standard of values/beliefs cohesively (a nation) and that can be valued by the individual, all the while a global/cosmopolitan set of values can be held for an international cohesion. Appiah belies certain Marxist tendencies and Socialist critique of capitalism. While he doesn't explicitly state he is a Marxist Cosmopolitan, he's close, and at least his enemies would likely label him as such.

​

Few Marxists, in my experience, the single best text is Gilbert Achcar's Marxism, Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism. It's a collection of Achcar's essays, the last of which is titled Marxism and Cosmopolitanism.

https://www.amazon.com/Marxism-Orientalism-Cosmopolitanism-Gilbert-Achcar/dp/1608463648/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=marxism+orientalism+cosmopolitanism&qid=1564057114&s=books&sr=1-1

​

I hope this helps illuminate your journey!

Let me save you time and money. There are lots of good readings in this anthology on the good life by Charles Guignon. And it looks like you can get it cheap if you buy used. I love teaching this book.

Also, Epicureanism isn't easy to combat. Not in its strict form as the Epicureans actually practiced it. Read "Letter to Menoeceus." Epicureanism basically says that the goal of life is to make sense of the universe, which helps you not to be afraid of death or fortune. Happiness, foremost, is about avoiding bodily pains and psychological anxieties. Then, it's a matter of savoring the simplest pleasures in life. Epicureans think that if you're thirsty and hungry, a banquet of water and barley cakes is about as good as it gets. And if you're feeling sexually frustrated, you should masturbate. If you can get better things (wine, cake, sex), fine. But you never ever pursue those if they give you more to worry about or take your focus away from what matters.

Seems like it relates to the stuff about leaving behind narrative thought in Living in the Epilogue from The View From Hell (written by Sarah Perry, who's an editor at ribbonfarm and author of Every Cradle is a Grave).

I've read four intros to metaethics. I highly recommend you begin with Fisher's intro and then read Miller's intro.

If you're interested in reading more radical perspective on the commons, I recommend reading the work of Massimo De Angelis:

Start with his book The Beginning of History: Value Struggles and Global Capital, here: http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=62F323FC4073EA6CF2C6586F50806911

Then his most recent book on Commons: Omnia Sunt Communia: On the Commons and the Transformation to Postcapitalism, here: http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=961FEA9AF31094CA0280E0F92B353AF7



As for good non-market stuff, I recommend taking a look at:




Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing by Thomas Widlok:

https://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Economy-Sharing-Thomas-Widlok/dp/1138945552

The World of the Gift by Jacques T. Godbout and Alain C. Caille:

https://www.amazon.com/World-Gift-Jacques-T-Godbout/dp/0773517510

http://www.mit.edu/~allanmc/godbout1.pdf

> should i read critique of pure reason now?

No. Critique of Pure Reason is not about ethics and requires a lot of background and effort to understand. If you want to continue reading about Kant's ethics, Cambridge has published an excellent collection of Kant's books and essays on ethics and political philosophy in a volume titled Practical Philosophy. Maybe read Metaphysics of Morals next.

I regret that I have but one upvote to give.


The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose. I believe Part I (of IV) is available in preview on Amazon, as well as on Good Reads.


Unless, of course, OP wants to ease his friends into libertarianism, rather than jumping into full blown voluntarism and morality. :D

>However, I still don't see why this or any moral theory posed on atheism for that matter would be objective in any way. To me, morality and meaning in a Godless universe both seem arbitrary sans a foundation to rest on.

Consider an example: utilitarianism. To be good, an action must increase overall utility (pleasure and the absence of pain). Whether overall utility goes up is objective--if we had the technology, we could just measure it. It doesn't depend on what anyone thinks about it. Thus, the moral property of goodness is objective too. The same result holds on most interpretations of Kant and of Aristotle.

>What do you think is the objectively right way to live?

I'm more convinced that there is one than of any particular option, but my favorite theory is in Derek Parfit's new book.

>I think you would need a stronger reason for saying Christianity or religion in general is false.

Absolutely. I didn't focus on that in the video. And I think there's a lot more to be said here.

I really enjoyed this thread and the civil discussion.

For me, how I understood it is atheism can be thought of as an empty container in which you fill with your own personal values (I consider myself influenced by Cosmpolitanism).


Because atheism is simply defined by what it is not (I don't believe in god) rather than what it is (a set of values), it is thus absurd to call us "Fundamentalist atheists". It's simply a comical contradiction of terms. If anything, atheism celebrates the diversity and threads within itself rather than pressures others to conform to the 'correct' atheism. This is why it's not proper to classify it as an -ism.

I think Fry recognizes that religion has the potential to give individuals a sense of belonging, community and identity, thus participants willingly sacrifice some responsibilities and obligations to religion for that sense of membership. This is fine. The moment of objection, however, is when the power of church or religion supersedes Individual Rights of choice, freedom and self-discovery. One should freely choice a set of beliefs such as a church, but should also be allowed to leave anytime without threats.

For something light but thought provoking try The Pig that Wants to be Eaten

Yes, some have taken steps in the direction of unmasking the ruse. The one who has gone farthest isn't even an academic (to the shame of academics as far as I'm concerned): Larken Rose. Check out The Most Dangerous Superstition. PDF at http://www.mensenrechten.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/the-most-dangerous-superstition-larken-rose-20111.pdf, but I encourage you to support his work and buy a copy at https://www.amazon.com/Most-Dangerous-Superstition-Larken-Rose-ebook/dp/B00UV41W2U/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

I'm taking the next step. Past anarchists still clung to the concept of authority, such as Bakunin in his well-known essay (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/authrty.htm) Rose limits his critique to state authority, i.e., government. I'm critiquing the concept itself regardless where or how it's brought to play.

Not sure about the story, but there's a book called "The pig that wants to be eaten" about moral and ethical dilemmas, in which this exact problem is discussed. Maybe your teacher turned it into a story for the lesson?

Edit: Here is a link to the exact page.

Second Edit: It actually gives the source as The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams; one of the books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, as another commenter suggested.

As others have said, you've got a solid base. You are definitely prepared to read any of the material. Some other people have recommended reading the third Critique, and while that might help, I definitely don't think it is necessary at all. You will get plenty out of it anyway. Doctrine of Right is Kant's primary political work, but he also has other essays, including "On the Common Saying: That may be Correct in Theory but it is of no use in Practice" and "Perpetual Peace" that are about politics. (All of these are included in the Cambridge edition of Kant's Practical Philosophy. I highly recommend buying this. It is a good deal, and it's the academic standard for Kant work.)

I'd recommend reading the SEP article on Kant's political phil. first just to get a feel for what he's trying to accomplish and what he's drawing on. I'd probably start with the Doctrine of Right after that to get a thorough understanding of his system. But Theory and Practice is more directly related to your interest I think. You'll do fine either way since you have a handle on the first two Critiques and the Groundwork.

Eudaimonic Ethics is an area you might research, especially the volume of that name by Lorraine Besser.

Charles Guignon's The Good Life is also a place to look.

"On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy" might be the place to look for an answer to this question. (I can't vouch for this particular translation; I just found it with a quick google search. The standard translation is probably the one in the Practical Philosophy volume of the Cambridge edition of Kant.)

over9000plateaus has basically got it right, though.

I have to recommend [The Good Life] (http://www.amazon.com/Good-Life-Hackett-Publishing-Co/dp/0872204383/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322329443&sr=1-1) -- it covers the pre-Socratics through some of the contemporaries. Excellent intro text, and should help show you which areas of philosophy you'd like to explore further.

For metaethics, Andrew Fisher has what I've heard is a good introduction, and Alexander Miller has a more advanced introduction that I like.

For political philosophy, Ian Shapiro's The Moral Foundations of Politics is a great introductory lecture series, and he has an introductory textbook based on the lecture series.

For anthologies, I'd recommend Ethical Theory for normative ethics, Moral Discourse and Practice for metaethics, and What's Wrong? for applied ethics.

The Kindle edition is free on Amazon, what a pleasant surprise!

You should read the book [Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers] (http://www.amazon.com/Cosmopolitanism-Ethics-World-Strangers-Issues/dp/039332933X) by A.K. Appiah, an ethics specialist at Princeton (or is he at Columbia now?), the reason being that your understanding of the term multiculturalism is confused, and the exercise of organizing the multiple ideas and questions you have in some systematic way will certainly clear up some of your concerns. The part of Appiah's book that doesn't deal with terminology will give you something to think about in regards to questions that aren't answered by filing, and then you can come back and ask a more precise question on CMV.

> One thing I would have liked seen addressed in Singer's essay is the worth of an individual human or non humans 'right' to keep existing.

He addresses the specific question of whether death constitutes harm elsewhere, but the argument comes down to what I outlined in my previous post. What were your thoughts on the idea that being deprived of the rest of your life constitutes a harm? I assume you would prefer not to be killed, so what are the reasons for that preference?

> If I were to extend the equal rights, in the manner specified in the essay, to all other animals, my life would technically be of equal worth as pretty much any species we chose as it would have to capacity for pain, interest and impact on others. However, this really seems like a gross simplification.

I think a lot of people get misdirected by the title of the essay. He's not actually arguing for equal rights, or that a human life is worth the same as a given animal. I think he specifically addresses that actually. So it's not equal treatment but rather equal consideration, as in, our consideration of their preferences ought not be biased by speciesism. But that doesn't mean ignoring their capacities. We would factor in those capacities when making moral decisions.

> He also does little to address egoism. With the principles he discussed, how can I morally justify spending $10,000 to go to the hospital to get a cast on a broken arm, when I could save several human or even nonhuman lives.

That's actually something he's written several books about, e.g. He would argue that while this egoism exists, it doesn't mean it's moral or that we should value it. He discusses all the ins & outs of this at length, including what people are willing to sacrifice and what's actually practical without turning people off the whole idea of altruism.

> It feels like he presents an argument that cherry picks when to use human nature. For example when he described someone who is permanently retarded and how we would not suggest to off them based on intelligence but doesn't mention that owning a pet would conflict with animals having equal, appropriate rights.

Yeah, the idea of pet ownership is interesting, and he does address that elsewhere too. The answer isn't straightforward either, from a consequentialist point of view. He's definitely not cherry-picking -- the example of killing a mentally handicapped person is just a way of illustrating our speciesist bias given a similar level of cognitive function.

> > No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering

> just ignores that all suffering is not equal

The key phrase there is "like suffering", meaning suffering of an equivalent kind & severity. It's not saying that all suffering is equal regardless of kind & severity.

> > To mark this boundary by some characteristic like intelligence or rationality would be to mark it in an arbitrary way. Why not choose some other characteristic, like skin color?

> doesn't explain why those characteristics are arbitrary and uses skin color as if it is equivalent. In fact, mental traits and the lack of disparity in them were the driving force in many of the equal rights movements.

He's just saying that they're arbitrary in the sense that these metrics don't determine "the capacity to suffer or experience enjoyment or happiness", which he asserts is the "only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others". In that sense, IQ doesn't determine these capacities any more than skin colour. Intelligence might be roughly correlated with these capacities over the broader spectrum of species, but the point is that the thing that matters to the moral question is the capacity to suffer & experience happiness.

> What makes us, us? Is it the suffering, the interest and the fact that we can positively impact other people? Or is there more to it?

I think you're asking, "what makes us qualitatively different to other species". I suppose it's lots of things. You identified, "the fact that we can positively impact other people" which is a great point. In terms of consequences, perhaps it does make sense to treat people differently according to their capacity to do good. When Singer said in that essay that the only defensible boundary of concern is "the capacity to suffer or experience enjoyment or happiness", that's not actually a complete / accurate representation of his position. Many of the utilitarian thought experiments ask you to choose between killing a medical researcher vs. an unemployed junkie, for example, and Singer acknowledges & discusses this elsewhere. To be honest I'm not sure why he excluded this capacity here. But it's certainly something to factor in between species.

Which factors would you say are grounds for justifying different treatment between humans and, let's say, dolphins?

> Thanks for having this conversation by the way. It is very interesting and educational.

Sure, I'm enjoying it! I love talking philosophy. Moral philosophy / utilitarianism is interesting to me, perhaps because of the practical relevance.

Also, apologies for the novel-length reply. Don't feel like you have to respond to any of it or to continue the navel-gazing on my account, I know these long discussions can get draining.

> I admit these positions seem odd to me because whether one be a compatibalist, hard determinist or fatalist it seems as if each is committed to the thesis that mental states are determined by the initial conditions of the universe such that in your fatalist example the fatalist was determined to be a fatalist, and thus determined to believe his actions had no causal influence over the future, whereas the determinist was determined to believe differently- all regardless of the truth or falsity of the respective positions (given determinism, obviously).

This is all correct.

>I guess a follow up question would be whether those that adhere to these positions think that "reasons" have any influence over a persons beliefs. Can people believe anything "because it's true"? Do people who hold these positions think our beliefs can track truth? It seems as if the determinst wants to say that the beliefs they have they have been fated to have since the beginning of the universe- it could not be otherwise, and the beliefs others have which contradict their beliefs, too, those people could not have had otherwise, such that there is no room for truth or reasoning.

These are really good questions, and the answers depend a lot on how you interpret what exactly it is to say that reasons might "have an influence" or that we might have beliefs "because" they're true. I'd say that most philosophers (determinist or otherwise) think that beliefs can track truth--that is, that it's possible to have a belief that is true or false--at least to the extent that they think we have beliefs at all. Someone who was both a determinist and an extreme eliminativist about mental states (think Paul Churchland, maybe) would reject claims like "reasons can influence our beliefs" and "our beliefs can be true" in virtue of the fact that he rejects the existence of things like beliefs and (psychological) reasons in the first place. For people without that kind of eliminativist view, determinism doesn't usually imply anything in particular about the truth-functionality of beliefs, and I'd say that most determinists think we can have true beliefs, though the explanation for how that's the case is more controversial and messier. The basic correspondence theory of truth gives a nice (if somewhat overly simple) account of how this might work, though there are others. In the context of this discussion, "reasons" probably means something like "justification." That is, you're asking whether or not justification plays any role in belief formation. A justification, though, is really just a different kind of belief, what philosophers call a "second-order" belief--it's a belief about a belief. This sort of question, then, can get subsumed into the question of how determinists deal with the connection between beliefs and actions more generally, I think.

Whether or not a determinist thinks that reasons, beliefs, desires, or anything like that can play anything like a causal role in our actions depends a lot on how he understands the relationship between mental and physical states more broadly. For someone like me--that is, a non-reductive naturalist who thinks that psychological states are real, not reducible to particular physical states, and causally efficacious (in a sense)--the fact that our mental states are determined by past states doesn't imply that they're irrelevant. They're just as relevant and important as any other facts about the natural world, and (for some purposes) matter more to us, since they're facts that are very "close to home," so to speak. They play the same sort of role in our actions that other kinds of natural processes do. I don't like the language of "causation" for these discussions, so I prefer to talk about "constraints." I think it's right to say that psychological patterns (or laws) constrain our behavior just like any other natural laws do, though the argument for that assertion is quite long and would take us rather far afield from this discussion.

>It seems as if the determinst wants to say that the beliefs they have they have been fated to have since the beginning of the universe- it could not be otherwise, and the beliefs others have which contradict their beliefs, too, those people could not have had otherwise, such that there is no room for truth or reasoning.

This is the basic intuition behind hard determinism: if you don't even have any freedom over your beliefs and desires, then that's the ballgame, and there's no room for anything like free will. Still, there seems to be a meaningful distinction between an action that's in alignment with your own mental states and an action that's the result of coercion by some other agent. It might be true that all of our beliefs are the result of deterministic natural laws playing out, but it still seems odd to say that there's no real difference between a case when I take your wallet because I felt like it, and a case where I take your wallet because someone has a gun to my head and says "take that guy's wallet or I'll blow your brains out." It's quite common for compatibilists to endorse a version of "free will" on which the criterion for acting freely is something like "acting in accord with your own beliefs, desires, and reasons, rather than because of external coercion."

Many of us (i.e. people with determinist leanings who reject hard determinism) think that the only reason to really care about free will in the first place is for attributions of moral responsibility, since it's hard (though, again, not strictly impossible) to see how we might hold someone praiseworthy or blameworthy for actions that aren't freely taken. John Martin Fischer has a position he calls "semi-compatibilism" that's explicitly designed to address this sort of issue, and I think he does it pretty well. These sorts of accounts broadly are called "reasons-responsive compatibilism", and tie attributions of freedom (or, less strongly, moral responsibility) to facts about the explanation for some action or another. A "free" action on this view is one that's explanatorily related to an agent's reasons in the right ways.

Again, though, this sort of starts to brush up against some questions in the metaphysics of mind and the philosophy of science. If you don't think that reasons (or other mental states) are the kinds of things that can play a robust explanatory role in events, you'll reject this whole line of argument from the get-go. This is (at least in part) why I'm personally interested in giving a strong account of inter-level causation and emergence--it opens the door to these sorts of things in lots of areas.

>It seems like if determinism is true we have no means to determine the truth of anything, as our beliefs/reasoning do not aim at truth but are simply the inevitable result of the universe playing itself out.

Well, even if you're a hard determinist you might think that there's an evolutionary reason to think that our beliefs aim at truth--you'd just think that the thing doing the aiming is natural selection, not any kind of personal will. If our sensory apparatuses weren't at least somewhat reliable (and if they didn't tend to produce beliefs that were at least approximately true in many cases), we'd have a very hard time getting along in the world. We might think that being able to generate and maintain roughly accurate internal models of the world is one of the necessary preconditions on the evolution of organisms as complex as we are in an environment that's as complex as the one we find ourselves it. Things that can't do that tend to get hit by falling panes of glass, fall off cliffs, eaten by tigers, or otherwise fail to reproduce. None of that changes in the face of determinism.

I could say a lot more about the philosophy of science facet of stuff here, but if you're interested in digging into this (i.e. the connection between reasons, rationality, moral responsibility, and freedom) from the ethical side of things, that's not really my area of expertise. However, I can recommend a few great books on the subject. The first is Tim Scanlon's Being Realistic About Reasons, and the second is Derek Parfit's On What Matters (which is a two-volume set that also includes his Reasons and Persons). Both of these are classics in this literature, and go into these topics in great detail.

I personally wouldn’t recommend Kaufman’s book on Nietzsche. I find his reading of Nietzsche too sanitized.

As for what you should read—well, that really depends on what you’re interested in with respects to Nietzsche. I find him most compelling as an ethicist, and I think that Brian Leiter’s book is an excellent entry into the secondary literature on that topic. Nietzsche’s critique of the thing-in-itself/noumenal reality and how that relates to ideas of truth is another popular topic; Maudemarie Clark’s book is an excellent starting point there.

Nietzsche is a highly unsystematic thinker, and this can often make him difficult in the beginning. (Although he’s always a joy to read. His rhetorical abilities are delightful!) I would certainly recommend using some secondary literature to get grounded, but do give his writings more of a chance—particularly his later writings: Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morality, Twilight of the Idols.

Are you talking about what to study this summer?

I haven't read through that guide too much but here's a few points:

The first three bullets under "background" are probably very useful in a wide range of contexts and problems. Definitely you can't go wrong starting there, and you probably should. And when you've mastered that, honestly, you can just go further into AI and ML methods (by the time that you finish, you should have a really good idea of what else you are interested in and what else there is to read about, and you'll be asking "where can I learn more about the theory behind nonlinear SVMs" in r/machinelearning rather than asking us for a general syllabus). You really won't go wrong if you spend 90% of your time just learning how to do these things really well, IMO. And practice implementation of these things so you have practical skills you can demonstrate and so that you remember it all really well. Now maybe you won't be on top of everything in the AI safety field the way it's currently going, if you just do this, but you'll be flexible to work on lots of things, and you can get up to speed on those things later on.

Also there's a lot of stuff there, so you can specialize. It's okay if you decide that you really don't understand game theory and just want to learn about programming and statistics, for instance. But you should at least start to explore every subject just to see what it's about.

Then if you want to go into value learning in particular, you'll want to look at preference inference and reward engineering in that syllabus. I'd recommend getting to at least the majority of the priority-2 stuff in the first 3 categories before turning to this stuff, though it's okay to explore it earlier. Also there is some contemporary work on machine ethics, much of it listed here, but I'm honestly not too impressed by it (unless I'm wrong or there are some modern papers which I haven't seen, it seems to be very much stuck in technical methods which are not cutting edge in the least), and I don't think it's important to learn, but you can take a look at some of it when you like. It's probably a good idea to look at Wallach and Allen's book at some point, or at the very least to look up what people mean when they talk about top-down vs bottom-up morality and the arguments for each. I think Allen has a paper summarizing it which you can probably find.

The moral theory section in that syllabus is pretty poor. At least, it's not an actual overview of the relevant aspects of moral theory; it's just a collection of odd papers and ideas which AI safety folks have happened to find interesting and useful, and some of it is other areas of philosophy besides moral theory. If you are new to philosophy, I worry it will give a skewed picture of what it's really about, and you won't be able to interpret them correctly if you don't have some experience understanding and discussing the bodies of philosophical work where there is already lots of secondary material and experts who can readily check your ideas and understanding (e.g.: you read Reasons and Persons, then since lots of people have talked about Reasons and Persons and there's lots of reviews and discussions about it on the Internet, you'll be able to talk about it and lots of people can tell you if you have a good understanding of philosophical writing and theory. Compared to starting with something like Ord's paper on moral trade, where you'll immediately know more about moral trade than 90% of philosophers do, which is great for your confidence but not so great for your education in philosophy). And on a higher level, there should be more diversity in philosophical views than just the things that these people are currently interested in. This is more important if you want to research value learning and alignment, and less important otherwise.

If you want to really understand moral theory well enough to talk about and design systems which learn it, I recommend this collection (have not looked at it, aside from a few of its readings, but I researched and asked opinions to determine that it's probably the best for this purpose): https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Theory-Anthology-Russ-Shafer-Landau/dp/0470671602/ref=pd_cart_vw_2_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=BE9N6J1887PCY9HH5PE4 If you want something shorter and/or free, you can go to plato.stanford.edu and read about whatever moral theories you feel interested in ("consequentialism", "virtue ethics", "deontological ethics", etc). Reasons and Persons is good too (haven't read it either but I'm familiar with many of its ideas). Now the papers in the Berkeley reading list are still worth looking at, if you read other stuff too.

But unlike /u/TheConstipatedPepsi, with respect, I don't recommend starting with moral theory rather than the technical stuff, because it really won't teach you how to do math and computer science, it will just delay the point at which you finally learn those mathematical and computational foundations. (Though some of those papers do contain bits of math, and in that respect they can get you a little accustomed to how math is applied and notated in research papers, which is a decent skill to develop early on, so that might be a decent exercise to spend ~5% of your time on.)

Also make sure you're on top of your scheduling and habits etc so you don't get off track. Check out Thomas Frank's channel on Youtube for advice on that. Not specific to AI at all, but still. It's good to know about. Hope that helps.

Have you been reading Peter Singer? He talks about this in The Most Good You Can Do. Regardless, here, here, and here are some quick reads on kidney donation.

I'm not knowledgeable enough, from a medical perspective, to give you a definitive answer, but I would encourage you to research, in particular, the risks of donating a kidney at such a young age. You should make sure that kidney donation won't affect your development. If you find any legitimate concerns there, you can simply wait until your mid-20's.

Looking beyond its medical aspect, you should ensure that donating a kidney will have minimal effects on your family. Specifically, you should thoroughly research its financial implications. I don't think it's likely to happen, but you certainly don't want to saddle your parents with a lot of medical expenses.

Ultimately, because it's such a major decision, I would urge you to give yourself adequate time to ensure you don't regret your choice to donate a kidney. After doing research, assuming you decide that you want to go through with it, consciously choose to put off acting on the decision for a set period of time. Maybe six months, perhaps a year (3 years?) - I don't know that there's an ideal length of time, but give yourself that time to ensure that you are confident in your decision, as you won't be able to reverse it. If you remain fully committed to the idea at the end of that predetermined period, go for it.

For the second half I'd recommend Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici as a good starting point. It's going to respond to a lot of other thinkers, including Marx, so it can be a good starting point for further investigation on all the subjects I mentioned.

The first half isn't going to be the thesis of any works that I know of; but more of a truism that appears throughout a ton of works. I'll respond in part with an explanation and recommend some basic readings that might flesh out the ideas more.

The word "economy" comes from the Greek "oikos" meaning "home" and "nomos" meaning which refers to the function of it. It's very similar to the word "ecology" which is the combination of "oikos" and "logos", or the logic of the home. As a result, for the ancient Greeks, "economy" referred to the functioning of the household. The house and surrounding land in Athens was referred to a "demo" and constituted a single economic unit run by a single family. A government built with these units was called a "democracy", or a nation of "demos". You can read more about this in The Ancient City by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges to understand the basic terms and theories going into the structures of our society today, which are based heavily on the ancient Greek language and understanding of the world (as the article above indicates as well).

A fun book that discusses the theme of economics and the formation of society is Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. It's not full of references or citations, but more of a thought experiment on the subject that I think lays some good groundwork for understanding some of the motivations for the creation of a society. A more specific analysis on the goals and aspirations of an economy can be found in the general cannon, like Smith's Wealth of Nations and the critical response from Marx in Das Kapital. These are both introductory texts on the subject and a little outdated of course. If you want a more contemporary understanding of economic systems and what they do today, I'd recommend Wolff's Contending Economic Theories. These books aren't about why economies come first in society (other than the Genealogy of Morals), but they are a knowledge foundation as to why societies are organized in order to create an economy.

The credit situations he was referring to were gift exchange situations:

https://www.amazon.com/World-Gift-Jacques-T-Godbout/dp/0773517510

http://www.mit.edu/~allanmc/godbout1.pdf


There's also the non-market and non-gift stuff he calls "communism", or as Widlok calls it simply sharing:

https://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Economy-Sharing-Thomas-Widlok/dp/1138945552

"gift economies" are not a past thing that is no longer. Most of our economic activities among families, friends, lovers ...etc are "gift economies".

https://www.amazon.com/World-Gift-Jacques-T-Godbout/dp/0773517510

This is exactly what you're looking for. I've got two copies. It's good.

That was a happy coincidence haha, if you want more details on deontology and this whole universalization principle, Kants Grounding for the metaphysics of morals is a great book.(Dont know if amazon links are allowed but: http://www.amazon.com/Grounding-Metaphysics-Morals-Supposed-Philanthropic/dp/087220166X )

>Well, what's your argument for the "maybe not"? Where else would you propose moral intuitions come from?>

I personally wouldn't make any argument for it yet as I'm not informed enough to, but I plan to read a few books on the topic in the coming months. Have you ever checked out this article?


>we probably find a case where your emotional response/moral intuition can be shown to be a bad reference for value judgments. Or would you disagree?>

I wouldn't disagree. But again, I'd like to look a little more into the issue.


>I don't think that's a good thing, but it shows me how my moral intuitions/emotions/empathy doesn't reflect the reality of what's right and wrong because I know the pig is every bit as morally relevant as a dog.>

No, I think you're right actually. I'd probably get extra upset if I read that someone was abusing a white bulldog. And that makes sense, but not a lot of sense.



>Usually when people talk about ethics/morals they're talking about intentional choices to do some sort of good. This is a bit of a tangent, so probably no important. Just thought I'd mention that.>

I was kinda joking about the vultures and rats. I don't think they can be ethical like humans can be. That said, we're learning more about animal cognition all the time and I think we still have a lot more to learn. Have you ever read this article before? That and the other related SEP articles about animals are certainly worth checking out.



>Pulling the lever is what saves more people than simply leaving it, right?>

Right. A lot of people belittle this thought experiment but I think it's fun.

>So you'd argue that the conductor shouldn't save the several people on the tracks at the expense of the one fat guy or whatever?>

Right. And I think you phrased it right by saying shouldn't save. It boils down really to what one thinks about doing vs allowing harm. I think a consequentialist would say the difference between the two isn't morally relevant, right? If so, I understand where the consequentialist is coming from, but I might disagree. Again, I'm giving opinions about things like this when I shouldn't be, not having done my due diligence by reading more into ethics.

>Cute... In a hideous sort of way!>

That's the English Bulldog for ya. The English have a weird sense of humor.

>I haven't really thought about non-cognitivism specifically, but I have thought about moral anti-realism. It seems like non-cognitivism is a subset of that.>

There are some differences. The biggest being that moral anti-realism is a cognitivist metaethical theory and non-cognitivism theories like Emotovism are, obviously, non-cognitivist moral theories. I don't know if you require this, but I'll copy and paste something here for you:

>The cognitivist argues for two claims. The first is that when someone makes a moral claim they are expressing a belief. The second is that moral claims can be true or false; this is part of cognitivism because beliefs are the sort of thing that can be true or false. Philosophers call the potential for a claim to be true or false truth-aptness . Because beliefs are thought to be descriptions, cognitivism is sometimes called descriptivism.>

>Potential misunderstandings • Cognitivism is not the view that moral claims are true, since it is quite coherent for the cognitivist to hold that all moral claims are false (see Chapter 3 ). This is a common mistake and it is best avoided by remembering that cognitivism is a view about truth-aptness and not about truth.>

>Non-cognitivism The non-cognitivist argues that if a person makes a moral claim they are expressing a non-belief state such as an emotion: for example, to say that “killing is wrong” is to express disapproval towards killing. Put crudely, it is as if you are saying “Boo! Killing!” Consequently, because expressions of approval or disapproval are not the sort of things that can be true or false, the non-cognitivist thinks that moral claims are not truth-apt in the way that the cognitivist thinks moral claims are truth-apt.>

>Potential misunderstanding • Non-cognitivism is not the view that moral claims are about our own mental states. For example, it is not the claim that “killing is wrong” really means “I disapprove of killing”. In fact, this would be a form of cognitivism, which asserts that when we make a moral claim we are describing a mental state, in this case my disapproval of killing>

>Error theory in morality derives from three plausible views. The first is cognitivism, the view that moral judgements express beliefs and aim to describe some sector of reality and are consequently truth-apt. The second is non-realism , the view that there are no moral values that correspond to our moral beliefs. The third is that truth involves correspondence to facts. These three views lead to the radical conclusion that moral claims are systematically and uniformly false.>

>Moral error theory is a radical position. It is the view that all these statements are false : • Abducting and torturing children is morally wrong. • Providing famine relief to starving families is morally good. • Locking people in a church and throwing petrol bombs through the window is evil. • It is morally right to save the boy trapped in floodwaters. The error theorist would be quick to remind us that he is not saying that it is right to torture children, bad to give money to charity, wrong to save a boy trapped in floodwaters. For he argues that there is no moral truth at all.>

Moving on now.


>I think there is also factual evidence for morally relevant values. Those values being, as I mentioned before, positive and negative mental experiences.>

I think, but don't quote me on this, that another way of saying this is moral properties can be reduced to natural properties, and by "natural" philosophers mean the subject matter of the natural sciences, which include psychology.

Moral psychology would be an interesting project to look into.





>Here's a little thought experiment: Suppose we lived in a universe with no positive or negative mental experiences. So no suffering, no depriving another of happiness, no ability to be distressed or stressed. All mental experiences (if they existed) would be neutral. Could morality or ethics still exist? You couldn't hurt or help anyone. I'd take the position that it couldn't, there would be no morally relevant way to affect anything.>

I mean, I think that sounds certainly plausible.



>since we naturally will value our own positive/negative mental experiences, if we're being objective we couldn't discount another individual's positive/negative mental experiences. To be consistent, we'd have to value them similarly to our own. To place value on our mental experiences and discount another's, even though the experiences are comparable would be irrational. I don't think that helps with the "should", it just works with a motivation that already exists. There's no traction on people that aren't committed to being rational in the ways I described.>

Right. The only thing to my mind at this point is to say -- one ought to be rational. But I couldn't give you a decisive reason right now why we ought to be rational. As Walt Whitman said defiantly, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." He practically made a (rather benign) ethos out of that statement.

It is more or less provided in the table of contents found here.

If this stuff interests you, check out the book by Larken:

http://www.amazon.com/Most-Dangerous-Superstition-Larken-Rose-ebook/dp/B00UV41W2U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427313190&sr=8-1&keywords=the+most+dangerous+superstition

Collected Writings of Thomas Paine, On the Geneology of Morals, Prejudices: The Complete Series, and Arguably

I'm not a racist, but...