Author: Russell Blackford

Should We Abolish Morality? Prominent philosopher Joel Marks has published a new book on the topic of moral skepticism: Ethics without Morals: In Defense of Amorality (Routledge, 2013). Marks was formerly a moral realist with essentially Kantian intuitions, but in recent times he has had something of a (de)conversion experience, coming to the view that …

In his new book, Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious (Beacon, 2012), Chris Stedman asks for kinder, gentler expressions of atheism. For Stedman, the current level of hostility among atheists toward religion and religious people is not only uncomfortable but also, more important, counterproductive to the achievement of shared humane goals. …

As I write, the latest issue of New Humanist (July/August 2012), the magazine of the United Kingdom’s Rationalist Association, has come out with an article by Richard Smyth titled “Down With Secularism.” Smyth thoroughly rejects ideas of a separation of church and state, or as we might rephrase it, of keeping religion out of government …

Here in Australia, as in many other parts of the world, there is an ongoing public debate about proposals to extend marriage to same-sex couples. As marriage falls within the federal jurisdiction under the Australian Constitution, this has led to public consultation processes involving the federal houses of Parliament (the House of Representatives and the …

One fashionable criticism of outspoken atheists is that we demonstrate the vice of scientism—whatever that is exactly. This criticism comes from many theologians, such as John Haught, but also from some secular philosophers. The critics seldom define scientism, and I doubt that they can agree on a definition. Is it skepticism about specifically religious “ways …

A problem with the current debates about emerging technologies is that they really are debates—plural. Reasonable policy approaches to embryonic sex selection, for example, or to human reproductive cloning, if it were available, might not generalize to more radical technologies that could reverse the aging process, dramatically increase our cognitive capacities, alter the gross morphology …