Value Fictionalism Paper Updated

I've incorporated some of the things I learned from my PGF and my presentation at Princeton-Rutgers into a new draft of my value fictionalism paper, "Imaginary Values and the Cult of the Untrue". For anyone interested, it's online here. Comments are very welcome.

Clues that maybe you ought to re-assess

Ray Mummert, a pastor and parent in Dover, PA, discussed the debate over teaching creationism in public schools with AFP. Mr. Mummert opposes efforts to keep religion out of public high school science classes, saying, "if we continue to indoctrinate our young people with non-religious principles, we're headed for an internal destruction of this society." But I find this quotation particularly thought-provoking. Mr. Mummert described his political opponents in this matter as follows:

We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture.

Yeah, seriously. What do they know?

Workplace morality

My friend Shari was asking the other night whether morally-motivated vegetarians should have a moral problem with working somewhere where a requirement of the job was to serve meat. My answer: probably. For someone like me, anyway, the reason I'm a vegetarian is that I think it's morally wrong to support the factory farm industry. Eating meat is only one of many ways to support that industry. So I guess that means I'd advise anyone to think hard before accepting a job that requires you to promote a practice that he or she finds immoral.

LIVE STREAMING VIDEO XXX

Ok, not the XXX part*. The reason I haven't been posting much of late is that I've been travelling back and forth to Houston, where I'm performing in the Rice Light Opera Society production of Patience. And you can watch it on the world wide web! Tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Central Time. Details at hailpoetry.com. *Although I could tell stories about a show I was once in at Rice that went awry...

Value and Inquiry Conference

My paper on imaginary values has been accepted to the University of Toronto Value and Inquiry graduate philosophy conference. May 13-15. That's three papers at five conferences this semester, which is, I think, plenty.

AIM and Privacy

I find this deeply troubling, and need to spend some time deciding what to do about it. Frankly, removing AIM use from my life would be a non-trivial lifestyle change; I have many, many friends with whom my primary mode of keeping in touch with them is Instant Messenger. The newest version of the Instant Messenger Terms of Service includes this passage:

Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this Content. In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.

The one thing I'm sure of is that everyone who uses AIM needs to be aware that AOL has given itself the right to record, inspect, and publish your Instant Messenger conversations. What I'm not sure of yet is whether I can learn to live with that.

Why can't they all be like this?

I am 100% behind this evangelical Christian movement.

The National Association of Evangelicals, with 30 million members in 45,000 churches, opened a debate on Thursday on a document intended to expand the political platform of evangelicals beyond the fight against abortion and same-sex marriage. ... The document urges evangelicals to address issues like racial injustice, religious freedom, poverty in the United States and abroad, human rights, environmentalism and advancing peace through nonviolent conflict resolution.