Ethics of Piracy

piracy

The other day I got into a debate on twitter about the morality of sharing ebooks. Someone was posting free copies of Roger Zelazny’s books on kindle, and I replied that I was entitled to ebooks of the printed books I own. This writer challenged that assertion and asked for an argument. I refused to engage in his Empire-inflected moralizing, that the writer owned the medium his story is printed on, and used the Ship of Theseus example to deconstruct the notion of ownership.shipoftheseusargument

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Do you praise or condemn the dead?

Deader than a doornail

In passing, I made the argument that because an individual’s life project was closed, we no longer have any right to vilify him for his shortcomings – that we should be honoring his contributions of society instead, especially if we (media and public) have been vilifying him the entire time until his death.

Before death, an individual’s life is an open book, a project to be completed. That’s when we have free reign to disparage and criticize for the wrongdoings or failures. After death, the meaning of the individual’s life is complete, a closed book, and finished.

Michael Jackson’s death has closed off all his possibilities, and puts him at the mercy of others – us. As long as he was alive, he could, through his actions, change the meaning of his future, and his past as well. Continue reading Do you praise or condemn the dead?

Morality: the art of the phoney pious, the performance of the hypocritical demagogues, and the invention of the specious moralist

The title of this blog is but a poor attempt to capture Nietzsche’s contemptuous summation from his attempt at self-critique of Birth of Tragedy: a mere fabrication for purposes of gulling: at best, an artistic fiction; at worst, an outrageous imposture.

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Why Buddhism is superior to Christianity

Buddha statue at Kamakura, Japan

Lately I have been distinguishing Buddhism from Christianity in my recent readings. Although, at bottom, both religions are nihilistic and decadent, I have realized Buddhism is a much healthier and more realistic view of life and philosophically superior. Continue reading Why Buddhism is superior to Christianity

World as Will and Representation: Book IV

The fourth book, regarding ethics in general and particular context, is the “most serious” discussion, largely because it is the most relevant for everyone. However, Schopenhauer is perceptive enough to recognize how ineffective systems of morals are in the production of virtuous folk, just as poorly as aesthetic theories are incapable of generating geniuses in art. Consequently, “philosophy can never do more than interpret and explain what is present… “ (WWR, p 271 § 53) The only true method of philosophy asks about the what – instead of the whence, the whither, or the why – what lies beyond phenomena, beyond the PSR, what is the inner nature of the world. (P 274) Continue reading World as Will and Representation: Book IV

Why ethical judgments are nonsensical

This brief piece explains why all ethical judgments are essentially nonsense. Since ethical judgments are based on absolute standards, which themselves are independent of all other standards, they are neither rational nor irrational. Therefore ethics as the philosophy of morality is a useless passion, and does not have anything to do with truth or falsehood. Continue reading Why ethical judgments are nonsensical