Simon Paynton

Kristina wrote:

relying on norms to govern behaviour has some questionable utility. I am sure there are cases where it is valuable, but I can also point to cases where it is causing harm. I would suggest that erring on the side of caution would be to rely on such norms as sparingly as possible, or at the very least to invest more in keeping…

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Kristina wrote:

But when it’s being posed as an ethical hypothetical, I do think it is important to not pander to normative values too much.

But what if it’s a potential reality?  There would be no transgressive benefit in having a picnic on someone’s grave, it wouldn’t benefit anybody, except that the people having the picnic would have a ni…[Read more]

The point of the article is that. as you say, religious and non-religious people process incongruent information, under experimental conditions, in the same way (the Stroop test).

Furthermore, it may be (in fact, it seems very likely), that the kinds of cognitive conflicts elicited by the Stroop test differ greatly in nature and severity to those…

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lol

I wouldn’t sit on somebody’s tomb and have a picnic, unless it was about 2000 years old.

Simon Paynton wrote:

others hold us to account.

Collaborative partners hold each other to account because they are each taking a risk by depending on the others.  We take this claim on us to be legitimate.  But I can’t quite figure out why each partner would see the claims of the other partners upon them to perform well, as legitimate.

Maybe i…[Read more]

Michael Tomasello says that we follow rules and ideals because we approve of them – we feel they are legitimate, so why would we not try and follow them?

I think it’s all about the collective self-regulation of the group, whereby we carry out our responsibilities for the good of others and ourselves.  At the same time, othes hold us to account.

To me it’s a good catch-all term that I don’t regularly use.  There are a lot of things greater than ourselves that we connect to: for example, social groups of some kind, and that old favourite, the biological pressure to thrive, survive and reproduce, and of course, these two are connected, because humans thrive and survive collectively.

But…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

finding spiritualism without employing magical thinking

For me, spirituality is about two things:  1) personal well-being, especially long term; 2) connecting with something bigger than myself.

It’s not spooky at all.  But if you think about it, when religious people talk about spirituality, they’re invoking these t…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

What is a minimally good life

What indeed?  Is it a life with “minimal goods”?  Minimal for what?  Minimal happiness?  Is a minimally happy life good enough?  It’s better than a wasted life I guess.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

What is a minimally good life and are you prepared to live it?

What is that?  Surely a minimally good life, since it is not wasted, is a great life.