Vastly Improved

As I was walking to check the mail, I was contemplating - as a good philosopher is supposed to do - how much better my writing has become since I began blogging. I even had one friend comment that he has noticed a big improvement in my blog entries since I first started. So to everybody who keeps me accountable to write, and sometimes more accountable than I want to be with respect to precision and clarity, thanks.

So, tomorrow I am turning in my second paper, and my last paper is due on Wednesday. This means that after I turn in my paper tomorrow I have time to do some serious reading again. This is cause for much joy and celebration. I am going to begin reading a book called Self Expressions. As you my loyal reader(s) may or may not know, in philosophy there is what is called an "AOS" area of specialty. As many of you already know, one of my areas of specialty is philosophy of religion, but my other specialty is mind & language (aka, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind). Self Expressions is a book on the philosophy of mind, concerning how there can be a meaning to life and any kind of ethical system if all that exists is physical matter. Immanuel Kant had an expression concerning ethics that was: "ought implies can." This means that if we ought to do something, we need to have the ability to do something. Hence, if we cannot perform any action, but for the action that we actually perform, then we are under no ethical obligations whatsoever, with respect to moral actions. If we live in a completely physical universe, then everything is the result of molecules bumping into each other, even our thoughts are the result of molecules colliding with other molecules. It's very difficult for the atheist to have any kind of morality if the universe is pure matter. This is why I am reading Self Expressions, I would like to see what the arguments for morality are if everything is physical and deterministic. Hopefully I'll get a lot of reading done tomorrow, I can't wait - WOO-HOO!!!