Philosophy and reasoning links

Jul 09, 2010 09:00

About reason being a tradition in Western thought.

Examining recent critiques of Hannah Arendt.

Sam Harris and Sean Carroll disagreeing over when you can infer an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. Sean Carroll putting the case against. Which is the correct side of the argument: ‘oughts’ are always about preferred states of the world, and there is nothing ( Read more... )

philosophy, links

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marycatelli July 9 2010, 01:59:54 UTC
Today in the United States, far too many in the political class willingly help the victims of social injustice, but only so long as they agree to play the victim role and to keep playing it so long as politicians need their votes

But if you fix their problems, what would you do next? Try to keep your moral superiority by quotidian goodness? But that's a lot of work, and what's more, often makes you no better than your neighbor.

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Status incentives erudito July 9 2010, 02:41:58 UTC
Creating welfare bureaucracies whose remit is to deal with poverty means they do not have any incentive to actually abolish poverty (and put themselves out of business).

As you say, neither the political or the status incentives are helpful.

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