Tag Archives: values

A Bit of Advice for People Who Think They Ought to Have Others’ Approval–or God’s Approval–for What They Value

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Santi Tafarella

If you look around you and find that you’re the only person who values a particular thing, you need to have the self esteem to say, “It still has value for me.” And if you don’t value what others value–or what … Continue reading →

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With Marijuana Legalization In Colorado, The End Of The Drug War Has Begun

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Santi Tafarella

Social progress in the United States displays a decisive pattern: the right panics and presses every emotional button surrounding the horrible things that will ensue if x becomes law; x becomes law; nothing particularly bad happens (and if it does, … Continue reading →

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Ocean Fail vs. Space Fail: Is America the New China (Circa 1492)?

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Santi Tafarella

Speculating about counterfactuals is always dicey, but historians have long noted that, over the past 600 years, the course of human events might well have played out starkly different if China, in the 1400s, had not been so isolationist and uninterested in ocean … Continue reading →

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Agnostic and Atheist Values: How I Ground Morality Absent Religion

Posted on March 27, 2010 by Santi Tafarella

I am not responsible for bringing consciousness, happiness, or the sense of freedom into the universe, but now that they are here—and however they got here—I appraise them as very good things, and want them for myself and, by imaginative sympathy, for others. … Continue reading →

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Sam Harris cuts through the fog of Nietzsche’s fact-value distinction

Posted on March 23, 2010 by Santi Tafarella

In a powerful attack on Nietzsche’s fact-value distinction and the oft-repeated canard that it is dangerous to derive an “ought” from an “is,” in the video below Sam Harris argues that, in fact, we know perfectly well what things make for human flourishing, … Continue reading →

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Do Scientists Need the Ten Commandments?

Posted on January 28, 2009 by Santi Tafarella

Where do the ethical sensibilities and VALUES of scientists, in doing their work, come from? In other words, why do scientists (for example) value such things as VIGOROUS DEBATE and SEEKING OUT CONTRARY LINES OF EVIDENCE? In a science essay in the NY Times … Continue reading →

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