Category: Ethics
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An Interview with Swingers
by Jason Stotts This is a compilation of an interview I did with friends of mine who are swingers. The interview originally appeared on the old Erosophia in two parts, separated by about 2 months or so. In the second interview, my friends adopted the names Wendy and Stan to make it clearer who they…
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Use Somebody
by Jason Stotts In dealing with sexual issues, I frequently hear the objection that X is wrong because it involves “using somebody.” This argument is so painfully silly that it vexes me every time I hear it trotted out as the coup de grace that X is immoral. So, let’s analyze this little Kantian silliness.…
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Peter Singer Loves Animals (Too Much)
An Application of Objectivism to an Issue of Sexual Ethics by Jason Stotts There are many taboos in our society. Some taboos come from sex-negative religions that denigrate the body in favor of an alleged immortal soul, while other taboos exist for valid reasons. Now, among the later class are things that are perverse: that…
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Shattered Illusions
by Jason Stotts There is no god. There is no “after life.” We will all die. Once one comes to accept each of these truths, to accept them as absolutely true and internalize them as completely real, a curious situation arises. The problem can best be called the “existential crisis” – but really, it’s only…
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Divine Purpose
by Jason Stotts Everyone needs something to believe in. It is a fact of human nature that we seek to know, to understand, to have meaning in our lives. We search for this meaning, some of us spending their entire lives trying to find it. We have created gods to give us meaning; we have…
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Life and Values Elaborated
by Jason Stotts I recently wrote a short piece called “Life and Values” where I argued the following: 1. Values are that which contribute to one’s life; disvalues are things that harm or retard one’s life. 2. In order to say that you value X, you mean that you judge that X will improve your…
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A Hymn to Death
by Jason Stotts I am going to die and I’m glad of it. I have never understood those who live their lives constantly dreading their mortality, as though the fact that they were going to die meant that they should never actually live. While clearly death is the end of life, death is not antithetical…