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Forum: Diavlog comments 12-24-2011, 02:03 PM
Replies: 54
Views: 13,573
Posted By Mike
Re: The Week in Blog: Lightning Is Delicious (Bill Scher & Kristen Soltis)

Ah yes, the classic case of different standards. I would never claim that my judgements of Hitchens are generous. To be fair, I am no more generous in judging my own thoughts, perhaps why am not...
Forum: Diavlog comments 12-24-2011, 03:20 AM
Replies: 54
Views: 13,573
Posted By Mike
Re: The Week in Blog: Lightning Is Delicious (Bill Scher & Kristen Soltis)

I was sort of making your point, in that I was trying to moderate ohreally's post blaming Hitchens for misrepresenting philosophers like Aquinas and Anselm, along with not knowing Gödel's ontological...
Forum: Diavlog comments 12-23-2011, 10:50 PM
Replies: 54
Views: 13,573
Posted By Mike
Re: The Week in Blog: Lightning Is Delicious (Bill Scher & Kristen Soltis)

The vos Savant case always made me cringe and laugh at the same time.
Forum: Diavlog comments 12-23-2011, 10:21 PM
Replies: 54
Views: 13,573
Posted By Mike
Re: The Week in Blog: Lightning Is Delicious (Bill Scher & Kristen Soltis)

The impenetrability of ancient philosophers is not quite to the point (and Aquinas and Anselm are not technically ancient, they are Medieval). Most of the problem comes from translating the medieval...
Forum: Diavlog comments 12-23-2011, 05:59 PM
Replies: 54
Views: 13,573
Posted By Mike
Re: The Week in Blog: Lightning Is Delicious (Bill Scher & Kristen Soltis)

The Gödel argument is very good, but I can give Hitchens a pass on not knowing that one. You need a fairly sophisticated understanding of higher order logic to formalize it, for one. Anselm and...
Forum: Diavlog comments 11-16-2011, 06:30 PM
Replies: 213
Views: 20,229
Posted By Mike
Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)

I would like to see this happen too. Unfortunately the lazy argument in this debate is simply to say we should not kill children and a fetus is a "child" (however you wish to parse the word), then...
Forum: Diavlog comments 11-16-2011, 04:14 PM
Replies: 213
Views: 20,229
Posted By Mike
Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)

The tautology is not quite the same as the infinite recursion you try to cite. The First Rule of Tautology Club is the First Rule of Tautology Club does return a value, true in this case. Infinite...
Forum: Diavlog comments 11-16-2011, 04:03 PM
Replies: 213
Views: 20,229
Posted By Mike
Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)

I always respect an xkcd reference. Although what you cite is not technically a tautology. Things might be getting worse and yet still be good, provided they begin at a sufficiently high point on...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-27-2011, 11:50 PM
Replies: 283
Views: 26,105
Posted By Mike
Re: On Moral Progress

Testing consistency is actually quite easy. You just need to ensure that no contradiction is derivable from a set of propositions. General decision procedures returning true or false in appropriate...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-26-2011, 04:30 PM
Replies: 283
Views: 26,105
Posted By Mike
Re: On Moral Progress

The issue of simply knowing whether a state of affairs is good is very deep and difficult to solve. If that is where you wish to go, I think you have a very profound point. I tend to think that it...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-26-2011, 03:01 PM
Replies: 283
Views: 26,105
Posted By Mike
Re: On Moral Progress

I am familiar with the saying. Where do you find the absurdity, in the cyclical nature of change described or in the existential ramifications it might present?



So my criticism centers around...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-26-2011, 02:28 PM
Replies: 283
Views: 26,105
Posted By Mike
Re: On Moral Progress

You can worry about the definitions of pleasure and pain and those people within the universe of moral agents (those whose pleasure and pain matters). But notice utilitarianism is still very...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-26-2011, 01:15 PM
Replies: 283
Views: 26,105
Posted By Mike
Re: On Moral Progress

I'm not so sure that this is the best way of attacking it. You can define moral progress so long as you have a well-defined way of comparing different states of affairs in time. And notice there...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-26-2011, 10:53 AM
Replies: 92
Views: 11,168
Posted By Mike
Re: Two Cheers For New Jersey! (Mark Schmitt & Kevin D. Williamson)

Sorry, just a slip. I will edit it to eliminate the mistake.
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-26-2011, 02:07 AM
Replies: 283
Views: 26,105
Posted By Mike
Re: On Moral Progress

I might have been a little liberal with the language, I considered it a big deal because I think the debate between noncognitivism and realism itself is a big deal, and any change in its state to be...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-26-2011, 01:30 AM
Replies: 92
Views: 11,168
Posted By Mike
Re: Two Cheers For New Jersey! (Mark Schmitt & Kevin D. Williamson)

I think I might have communicated poorly here. I just meant to use the phrase equivalent labor to tidy up the reasoning on the part of firms. Clearly if a worker is willing to provide the same...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-26-2011, 01:20 AM
Replies: 92
Views: 11,168
Posted By Mike
Re: Two Cheers For New Jersey! (Mark Schmitt & Kevin D. Williamson)

That is fine. I was sort of taken aback at first, but following a tangent is certainly fair game if you feel it is an important point.



The statement in question was if there is competition...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-26-2011, 12:41 AM
Replies: 92
Views: 11,168
Posted By Mike
Re: Two Cheers For New Jersey! (Mark Schmitt & Kevin D. Williamson)

What exactly was the policy recommendation that I made? I did not positively state one, I just pointed out that there were certain weaknesses in the support of another. Also, it's pretty easy to...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-25-2011, 11:28 PM
Replies: 283
Views: 26,105
Posted By Mike
Re: On Moral Progress

I really thought this was fascinating, along with his admission that he feels ready to renounce noncognitivism (belief that moral statements do not hold truth-value). Peter Singer is known as a...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-25-2011, 10:34 PM
Replies: 283
Views: 26,105
Posted By Mike
Re: On Moral Progress

[QUOTE=stephanie;229524]I think the question whether one can demonstrate moral progress, what it means, where it comes from, how it can be explained is interesting, and I do share some of Rob's...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-25-2011, 09:02 PM
Replies: 92
Views: 11,168
Posted By Mike
Re: Two Cheers For New Jersey! (Mark Schmitt & Kevin D. Williamson)

Sure, if that is all we are considering, my point is off. I thought he brought in the part about Europe and Japan to show that after the end of WWII, America was the largest manufacturing nation in...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-25-2011, 08:05 PM
Replies: 92
Views: 11,168
Posted By Mike
Re: Two Cheers For New Jersey! (Mark Schmitt & Kevin D. Williamson)

I am pretty sure that is not the crux of what foreign competition is doing. It is not that firms can't afford to be generous to employees, it is that they increase profits by paying foreign workers...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-25-2011, 12:33 PM
Replies: 283
Views: 26,105
Posted By Mike
Re: On Moral Progress

I thought Singer claiming a switch from his early noncognitivism was interesting. Also, the way in which Singer seemed to want to use reason to ground out moral claims was interesting (I could find...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-25-2011, 11:37 AM
Replies: 283
Views: 26,105
Posted By Mike
Re: On Moral Progress

But what does such discussion accomplish? For the most part, all you can accomplish from demonstrating moral progress in a civilization is a sort of pat on the back. And the inverse would yield a...
Forum: Diavlog comments 10-25-2011, 01:11 AM
Replies: 283
Views: 26,105
Posted By Mike
Re: On Moral Progress

I think that points about progress is not the key elements to Singer's thinking. What is more important to Singer is: evolution has given the ability of reason, and certain moral truths are...
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