A man is judged by the company he keeps, but it’s not always clear what the verdict will be when he chooses to retain a friend who behaves abominably. Consorting with rogues is hardly the hallmark of an honourable gent but, at the same time, someone who doesn’t stand by his pals when the chips are down is not considered much of a mate. So what’s a true friend to do?
ReadThe biggest problem with multiplying intelligences is that it opens the door for people to deflect criticisms on the basis that the critic simply lacks the appropriate one. “Spiritual intelligence”, for instance, cannot be a straightforward capacity since there is wide disagreement about what it means to be spiritual and whether all sorts of allegedly spiritual phenomena are real. Yet on some definitions, a materialist atheist would simply be spiritually thick. A substantive, contentious worldview can thus be disguised as an objective cognitive capacity. A clever move, but not one that can be described as truly intelligent.
ReadDOES MORALITY NEED RELIGION? – OXFORD, 16/17 MAY. I’m speaking at this conference, alongside, among others, David Baggett (Liberty), Nigel[…]
ReadGrowing up brings a sense of perspective and with it an escape from the infantile solipsism that makes children see themselves at the centre of time and space. It might seem odd, then, that many people have come to see this progression as a kind of degeneration and have advocated a return to childlike simplicity…
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