In How are We to Confront Death, Francoise Dastur gives us a framework for dealing with death. It is tripartite, with a bundle of observations under the headings Overcoming Death, Neutralizing Death and Accepting Death.
Continue readingImplications of The Doctrine of Double Effect in Captain America: Civil War
The movie Captain America: Civil War contains a battle scene that serves as a case study on the mechanics and implications of the Doctrine of Double Effect (DoDE). The DoDE was developed to determine morally permissible responses in situations that lead to both good and bad consequences. The DoDE entails trade-offs, where the good outcomes favor the actors (those committing the responses), and the bad effects are to the detriment of all others.
Continue readingThe Problem of Evil
In God and the Problem of Evil, B. C. Johnson offers arguments for and against the goodness of God, concluding that considerations of the latter surely cast Him as not all good.
Continue readingWho is most affected by death?
Regarding the operative question, I’ll discourse on the Platonic dialog Menexenus, followed by the chapter from Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, then share my conclusions.
Continue readingAffirmative Action and The Black Panther
The policy I’m going to explore is affirmative action in the context of The Black Panther franchise. I haven’t tracked the through-line of this theme in the comic book series as I am not an avid reader, but I have done a little bit of research.
Continue readingIf Determinism Were True…
If determinism were true, in the radical sense that all moral choices are predetermined by hard and fast rules—on the order of the laws of physics—then free will would not exist.
Continue readingMoral Circumstance or Luck as Determinants of Blameworthiness in Sentencing
I’ll weigh-in on whether praise or blameworthiness can be affected by moral luck based on my 43 years of experience as director of a not-for-profit serving people who are either reentrants (from prison) or in recovery (from addiction).
Continue readingArguments Against Moral Determinism
The premise of determinism is that, just as the physical laws of the universe prescribe all matters of cause and effect (past, present and future), by extension, morality is predetermined. We do not exercise free will, rather, we act according to baked-in moral principles (known or unknown), that mechanistically trigger consequents based on given antecedents.
Continue readingAre Possible Worlds Concrete or Abstract?
Concretism, ala David Lewis (et al), is the view that all objects in the physical universe stand in relationship to one another in space-time, from beginning to end. The “actual world” we experience is an “indexical” of all other possible worlds. While other (concrete) worlds are possible, the “me” in this world is different from a counterpart in another world. If two worlds were to “collide”—a plotline in some writings—they would constitute one and the same world. In the spirit of Occam’s Razor, this view does not require some other invention to explain the state of affairs in one world versus another.
Continue readingLegal Opining: Why Transparency and Oversight are Important Democratic Norms–for Superheroes and the Rest of Us
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Though transparency and oversight are important democratic norms, and a tripartite system of checks and balances was put in place to foster them, there are cases where they have failed. The Edward Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg affairs serve as exemplars.
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