Official Website for Amitabha Palmer
Preamble: I’ve been working on this paper for longer than I care to admit but I have to turn it in at some point. I’ve written about 4 or 5 different versions of it all with different solutions or non-solutions to the puzzle I present. Anyhow, a few notes: (A) For some reason the footnotes […]
Read More Cilantro, Moral Truth, and JustificationFor a couple of years now I’ve been perplexed by the following problem: What counts as evidence for or justifies a moral belief? Even in asking the question I’m a bit confused because are two possible interpretations of the question (possibly more). We might say that what justifies a moral belief is that it is […]
Read More What Counts as Evidence for a Moral Belief?IntroductionThe major debate in ethics is whether there are objective moral facts. There are a variety of defenses and objections to either position. Those who say there are objective moral facts are called “realists” while those who deny realism are called anti-realists or nihilists (there are actually more positions such as constructivists and non-cognitivists but […]
Read More Review and Summary of "Ethics and Observation" by HarmonProblems with Various Desert BasesWhat would it mean for someone the get the wage they deserve? Our answer will depend on the desert base; i.e., in virtue of what are things deserved? Probably the most intuitive answer is that “I deserve my wage because I worked hard for it,” implying that effort is the basis […]
Read More Moral Desert and Economic Desert Part 1Introduction For the last half-year or so I’ve been thinking about the ethics of eating animal byproducts. Here’s what I mean: Let’s suppose that you believe that it’s unethical to eat factory farmed meat and dairy (or any meat or dairy–nothing important to my argument hangs on this). As someone who lives according to your […]
Read More Can Vegans Make Broth from Dead Vagrants?This post is a summary of “From Experience to Metaphysics” by Jiri Benovsky.Check it. We’z about to go to da deps of filosofy: metaphysics. Metaphysics be about da fundamental nature of reality. It’s not that new-age crap about pyramids with eyes you see in book stores. It’s even deeper!!!!1!!!!11!1!!(I know, what could possibly be more […]
Read More From Experience to Metaphysics: A SummaryThe first question of philosophy is “how should I live my life?” Sometimes this is also presented as “what is the good life?” because the trivial answer to the first formulation is “the best way possible.” However you want to frame it, it eventually boils down to the same thing. For the purposes of this […]
Read More Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics: A Common MisunderstandingI’ve talked about Gettier before and much of what I say here will overlap with what I’ve already said. It turns out I’m much more comfortable lecturing on something if I write about it the night before. Hopefully this won’t always be the case ‘cuz it takes up a lot of time… Why Should You […]
Read More Gettier RevisitedSo, I’ve been experimenting with a new way to explain major philosophical concepts and issues by video and dialogue (aka, Socratic method). I think dialogue is a much more intuitive way of understanding things. I’m not able to embed the video but here’s the link. Let me know what you think:https://plotagon.com/12235
Read More Cultural Relativism Vs Moral ObjectivismDedication: This article is dedicated to my first philosophy professor Prof. Gordon (Langara College) as well as Prof. Sommers (UH) whose courses caused me to lose many hours of sleep for all the right reasons and whose teaching I try to emulate. IntroductionHere are some of my thoughts on teaching philosophy. Later in the post […]
Read More Teaching Philosophy and Truths To Live By
Wrestling with Philosophy 