Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

The idea that there are lower and higher pleasures suggests that a person may be more or less receptive to pleasures of different sorts. Some people are dull and insensitive, and few things excite their hearts, and those that do are primitive amusements. So, what we have is that becoming the kind of person who [...]

Moore’s main argument against that aspect of utilitarianism which claims that pleasure alone is good seems to be that moral evil can co-exist with physical good. (Principia Ethica, 67) (By the same token, I might add, metaphysical evil can co-exist with moral good.) He doesn’t call these things “physical,” “moral,” and “metaphysical,” but that’s the [...]

Desire is only of a good not possessed; enjoyment can only be of something you already own which can yield services to you. Now if desire is painful, because it affirms the insufficiency of the lover without the beloved object (which is not itself), then why does it pay to desire at all? One answer [...]

Here’s a question I might ask my future students on a quiz: In Principia Ethica Moore holds that the term “good” cannot be defined, because the meaning of “good” is (A) self-evident (B) presently unknown (C) non-existent, as in the term “good” is meaningless (D) equivocal, as in “good” applies to numerous incompatible subjects Ah? [...]

The word blue is defined by m-w.com as “a color whose hue is that of the clear sky.” This is an ostensive definition or definition by “pointing.” Blue, we say, is the property of this thing, and of that thing, and so on. We continue this process until the meaning of blue has been narrowed [...]

G.E. Moore excoriates Bentham for the following error: Bentham, he says, claims that something is right whenever it is a right means to a certain end, namely, greatest total happiness, and from that deduces that the end itself is “right and proper,” which is a “perfectly invalid procedure.” (Principia Ethica, 17-19) Well, it seems to [...]

The problem with making aesthetic arguments in favor of preserving nature as it is, not treating it as a resource, and not transforming it for man’s benefit is that it is always open to one to say simply that he finds the cityscape of the New York City more beautiful than the sight of wilderness. [...]

Why is the Holy Spirit a person? It is understandable why the Son is a person: He is the image of the Father, the Father’s self-knowledge, that in which the Father sees Himself, proceeding from the Father as the word of the intellect, the full expression (“in words”) of the Father Himself. I have also [...]

The key about the tragedy of the commons is that I have a reason to grab as many resources in the commonly owned pool before others do the same. Those others think that I will consider them greedy and grasping, that is, narrowly self-interested, and so will try to grab the best stuff first before [...]

A few posts ago I expressed my admiration for the Don Marquis explanation of why it is generally wrong to kill. His idea was that by killing you deprive another human being of a valuable future, a future like that of yourself, and that’s the nature of the harm inflicted. He guarded himself by saying [...]

[This is a repost of an article of mine I wrote for lewrockwell.com.] Poor chickens. According to many animal-rights advocates, they live unhappy lives. Maybe they do. (Though perhaps they should still thank their human caretakers for the gift of life.) I’ll say right away that the evaluation of the ethics of animal rights is [...]

Living with animals is the next subject in the book I’m reading, so I’ll blog a little bit on that. The first point I want to make is against the following argument: It is true that humans possess reason including the ability to deliberate morally, will, wisdom, language, etc., while animals don’t. But we don’t [...]

Among all the things that proceed from the Father, whether by nature or by will, the only metaphysically perfect thing is God the Son. Everything else, that is, every creature, is metaphysically imperfect; moreover, it is essentially, necessarily such. No being which does not have a divine nature, including the universe as whole, can ever [...]

Singer is not without counter-arguments. Against my first point he can say that unless we save people from starving to death there will not be anyone to obey utilitarianism at all. It’s true that we don’t want to put people (and countries) on permanent welfare for the rest of their lives, but we do have [...]

I’m sure we’re all familiar with Singer’s “the shallow pool and the envelope” case. The idea is that most of us would save a child drowning in a pool if we can do it at little expense to ourselves, yet we routinely fail to donate money to charity whenever we get a letter from any [...]

Peter Singer regales us with the following “amazing” statistic: “People in the poor countries consume, on average, 180 kilos of grain a year, while North Americans average around 900 kilos. The difference is caused by the fact that in the rich countries we feed most of our grain to animals, converting it into meat, milk, [...]

Lawrence M. Hinman lists 5 arguments against the effectiveness of foreign aid. (Contemporary Moral Issues, 413) Of these, (1) administration costs of relief agencies and (5) local corruption seem less potent, because in the “market” for clear consciences people have an incentive to discover the best charities, and charities have an incentive to minimize their [...]

I want to examine a common argument in favor of the welfare state, namely that from a utilitarian standpoint taking $1,000 from Donald Trump and giving it to some poor person Smith is morally licit and even required, because Trump will barely feel the loss, while the poor person will rejoice greatly. This allegedly serves [...]

Here’s the original article. HT: Joseph A. Aquinas writes that non-human things, such as irrational animals, cannot be loved out of charity except as ordered to man’s welfare. (ST, II-II, 25, 3) So, according to him, humans are unique creatures in that the universe’s purpose is to be their home. The metaphysical goodness of the [...]

In Part I I wrote that “It is impossible to conceive of substantive morality that is not intersubjective.” Of course, that is not entirely true. For there are not one but two sources of morality, which I will dub (1) commutative and (2) distributive morality. The former indeed arises from agreement between equals. The latter, [...]