Remark. I’m not fully satisfied with how the paper turned out. To some extent this may be the fault of me making a bad argument. But I think there is also some element of this which is an intrinsic unavoidable property of philosophy: the “right answers”, assuming such objects even exist, are fairly slippery and hard to pin down.

There’s some kind of balance. I think a skeptical / non-commital approach to philosophy is wrong. We do know some things, we do have some ethical obligations, and so on. Just not asking the questions is wrong, as is avoiding logical inevitabilities that make us uncomfortable.

The fact that there are so many dissenting voices in philosophy might make the following approach (which is bad) attractive:

• Find some arguments for whatever life style and opinions I currently hold, and use those arguments to justify my way of life.

Seems like writing some philisophical appologies is probably a good idea to avoid the “not thinking about things” trap.

Anyways, what’s the point?

I think the important bottom-line principles are:

• If you know something is wrong don’t do it.
• If you’re unsure whether something is right or wrong, you should try to figure out.
• Imorallity in the past is no justification for future immorality. And also only worth obsessing about to the point to which it impacts the future.