One reason people often disagree about what's immoral is that they have different values. But there's another important reason that I think few are aware of: there are at least four different kinds of moral evaluations of behavior, and it's easy to conflate them. I argue that only one of these categories is actually sufficient grounds for judging an *action* as immoral, despite many people using the other categories to evaluate the morality of actions. I think they are making a subtle (and comm...
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generalizations
What’s helpful and what’s unhelpful about postmodernism, critical theory, and their current intellectual offshoots?
More often than not, I find that postmodernist thought obscures rather than illuminates. But I also see useful elements in it. Here's my very un-postmodern attempt to "steel man" (i.e., find the value in) ideas related to postmodernism:
1. Narratives Serve Power - powerful groups do tend to have a substantial influence on narratives, beliefs, and what's "normal." Something "obvious" or "objective" or "a fact" may just (invisibly) be a part of the narrative you're immersed in and sub...
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Eight common, slick-sounding claims that I think are misleading – and their clunky alternatives
Written: November 3, 2018 | Released: July 23, 2021
Here are eight common and slick-sounding claims that I think are misleading, along with a very clunky alternative for each that I think is truer and more useful:
"You'll regret the things you didn't do more than the things you did" -> don't try to minimize the amount of regret you'll have - try to maximize the total amount of the things that you value."Opposites attract" -> birds of a feather flock together (in fact, only a few typ...
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