Expertise and Moral/Epistemic Culpability
Alonzo Fyfe, the Atheist Ethicist, wrote an excellent article on Epistemic Negligence in Teaching Religion. I have just one quibble.
The article over-emphasizes the epistemic crimes of experts while ignoring those committed by ordinary people (i.e. parents). Fyfe points out that in some cases, non-experts do not deserve the same moral condemnation for making mistakes [...]
Libertarianism, Consequentialism, and Deontology
A recent post on Daylight Atheism explains why Ebonmuse is not a libertarian. But I think he bungled it . Aside from Ebonmuse’s support for military draft, I see no objections to calling him a libertarian. My bio page says I’m a “consequentialist libertarian”, and I think it’s time for me to [...]
Altruism & Egoism
Marc Andreessen points out a most enlightening interview in Der Spiegel of a Kenyan economist on the topic of development aid.
One might look at this as just a very bad case of unintended consequences, but I’d like to suggest that there is a deeper moral here: we need to stop assuming that altruistically motivated actions [...]
