Good observation on scepticism

Via Rational Jenn, I came upon this short post that makes a good observation on scepticism1
These humanists have gotten rid of God, but they are still left with altruism, a religious morality. I’ve decided their epistemology is also a leftover. Skepticism is basically the desire for knowledge to exist without context. They want to know something without [...]

Book Review: The White Tiger

Aravind Adiga’s “The White Tiger” is a story of a man, Balram Halwai, born in some village in north India who goes on to become a driver in Dhanbad, robs and murders his employer and establishes a cab business in Bangalore. The story is narrated in the form of a letter written by Balram to the premier [...]

Where is the U.S. heading?

This post (via Gus Van Horn) shows how the government operates in the U.S. these days. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between it and a criminal gang. Except that unlike a criminal gang, it has the entire coercive apparatus of the state behind it. Scary.

Intuitions and a-priori knowledge

In a comment on my post on hypotheticals, Krishnamurthy asked:
When you say “Rationality means that man must instead find principles on which to base his actions “, the question arises about how to arrive at those principles. If he cannot use his intuition, and if he cannot do the complicated expected utility maximization, then he can [...]

The worship of suffering

I chanced upon this post at “Truth, Justice and the American Way”. Go read the post. Then read the comments. Then read this quote
I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering [...]

Why should values be agent-relative?

Heumer’s critique of Ayn Rand’s ”The Objectivist Ethics” begins with
…premise 1 [Value is agent-relative; things can only be valuable for particular entities] begs the question.
One of the central groups of opponents Rand is facing is people who believe in absolute value, and not just agent-relative value. The absolutist view is that it is possible for some things [...]

Hypotheticals, egoism, intuition and Heumer

Via this debate on Aristotle The Geek’s blog, I came across this critique of Ayn Rand’s essay “The Objectivist Ethics” on Michael Heumer’s website. After reading through the mind-numbing (primarily because of its length) critique and disagreeing with it, I took a look at some other pages on his site and found this critique of egoism. Heumer is [...]