Notes

I am reflecting on some assumptions behind my empirical theory of ethics. One was that a proper theory of ethics must harmonise our beliefs with our actions. Another was that a theory properly grounded in human nature would be like this. I can see now that the second assumption was definitely false. Just because something is natural does not make it harmonise with other natural things. Consider the pain — and often injury or death — that a woman endures in the process of bearing children. Genesis 3:16 claims that this was because Eve led Adam to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is really due to two different, natural but conflicting, requirements of human evolution: A baby’s head must be large to accommodate human intelligence; and A woman’s pelvis must be narrow to accommodate successful bipedalism. What has survived so far is a compromise, with all the sorrow that accompanies it. The compromise survives because the species has survived along with it. Human hypo

Wow! I haven't even thought about this blog in ages, and it's nice to see that it actually meant something to some people enough to actually leave me a few comments. I cannot help but be flattered, even if I do not agree with some of what has been said. Mamabeek left me an interesting comment to my Introduction post. I will not here repeat it, since you can visit the links if you're curious. I am familiar with the argument adumbrated by Mamabeek in her comment. I do not, of course, agree with it, but it does deserve some sort of reply. I can think of no better reply than the one of which I thought years ago now, when I read some of the article on Personal Identity in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . In this article, Eric T. Olsen draws a distinction between qualitative and numeric al identity. Think of a person as consisting of various person-stages existing over time. Numerical identity occurs when those person-stages belong to one and the same person. Qual