For libertarians freedom is central: to act in whatever way we so desire as long as we do not infringe the fundamental rights - to life and property - of other people. Choosing to act one way or another requires freedom of the will: which means, contrary to determinism, that when we choose to act […]

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There’s something about the creationism-versus-evolution debate that makes me want to poke my own eyes out just so I have something to throw at the opposing sides. A plague on both their houses!
Now, let me clarify my view that the basic theory of evolution is generally correct. I’m not a scientist, but so far as […]

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With Easter upon us we enter one of the most religious periods on the year and, as with Christmas, we are treated to endless debates about the historicity and meaning of the events being celebrated. I’ve given our religious brethren a bit of tough time over the past few weekends so thought I’d turn my […]

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There is so much that is wrong about rights; more specifically the way people speak and think about them. The topic is becoming pretty hot here in Northern Ireland at present with a Bill of Rights creeping ever closer. At its most basic a Bill of Rights will be a contract obliging the government to […]

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“The Virtue of the Labour Government.” Now there’s a sentence I never thought I would write. Those who have followed our musings for even just a little while will have seen our denunciation of much of what the Labour government has done. But they’re not all bad. Most them are as rotten as a bucket […]

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In my short but colourful life I have almost died on one occasion (nearly drowned) and seriously considered killing myself on another (hadn’t chosen a particular method). I’m glad I didn’t in both cases. But there may come a time when death would be preferable to life and debate still rages as to whether or […]

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Michael Kinsley had an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times on January 12th entitled ‘Libertarians deserve a listen‘. I agree! And I was interested to see the story. The same thing appeared in the Washington Post on the same day titled slightly less favourably The Church Doctrines of Pope Ron Paul, […]

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Today is UNESCO World Philosophy Day 2007. Who knew?
And what is knowledge?

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My article on the virtue of rational self-interest stirred up a bit of debate between one of our regular comment-leavers, Dave Powell, and I. Finishing up his contribution to the debate Dave left a link to an article by George Monbiot in which Monbiot has a little pop at libertarians and libertarianism - or least […]

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A while ago, Crawley discussed an exchange (video) between theist Alister McGrath and atheist Richard Dawkins, recorded in a TV interview. During the exchange, Dawkins asked McGrath about the problem of evil: why would God not protect people from tornados? (Or, better yet, I’d add, steer the tornados away, or, better still, not create […]

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We’ve all experienced those moments of being caught in conversation with people we don’t really know and can’t really be bothered with, but find ourselves bound to make small-talk with regardless to avoid being labelled an ignoramus.
One of two points of conversation almost always come up: “So, what do you do for a living?” Why […]

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In moral terms I describe myself as egoist, one who acts in accordance with one’s own rational self-interest. Opponents tend to label it “selfishness”; and in fact some proponents of rational self-interest - such as Ayn Rand - take that label themselves. I agree with much of what Rand argued, but I think her acceptance […]

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Don’t ask me how exactly this happened, but in a cabin on a mountain over the weekend we got ourselves into the classic Liar-Truth Teller Enigma, later embellished by the brilliant logician Raymond Smullyan. It’s an old logic puzzle, which runs, basically, something like this. A man finds himself standing in front of […]

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I have lots to say on Oxford Professor Dr. Nick Bostrom’s ‘Simulation Argument‘, which postulates that there is a significant chance that we are living inside a computer simulation being run by some advanced civilisation. In the meantime a good introduction to the argument might be the interview I did with Bostrom by phone […]

 

 Nick Bostrom & John Wright: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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