Fresh AiR

Evidence is often a hot topic, and one frequently misunderstood. I covered off a number of different types of evidence before in the post Dirty Words: Belief, Faith and Evidence and we have done a small podcast on the matter too BoPping to The Evidence. Even still, sometimes it is better to see if we can approach things...

The Truth is Out There! What is truth? How can we know if something is true? What is a truth-apt statement? Do all statements hold a truth value? How does truth relate to morality? Can we have a subjective truth? In this stream, we hope to cover off these questions and examine a few theories...

The Rationality Thesis We take a look at the rationality thesis and delve into the rationality debate asking; are humans rational creatures that make performance errors or irrational creatures that sometimes demonstrate rationality? Dave talks about slides in this stream which you can find here: To Be or Not Be Rational – The Video This...

Testified! Today we will be looking at testimony, and whether or not it is worth anything.   Are our memories to be trusted, or do they contain lots of false information? Can people create fake memories just by using words? How good are people at remembering other’s faces?  We will also be coving off a pet...

The Paradox of Negative Emotions Disgust, Fear and Sadness are all negative emotions we usually avoid.Why would rational agents want to seek out things that cause them such distress? We embark on a journey through the paradox of negative emotions to gain a deeper understanding of this very thing. Disgustingly Enjoyable – The Video To...

Philosophy of Emotion, how sweet it is! Are emotions just chemical reactions? Or can we consider them more than that? Come join us for a basic introduction to the philosophy of emotion! We are also joined last minute by our friend Bearded Heretic (Luke). We look at emotion both through the lens of Philosophy and...

Another Video Review? Yes, sorry, another one. Having been incredibly busy we thought we would do another video review. We thought that perhaps Haitham Talaat might have produced a better video than his last. It turned out worse. At least in episode 2 he seemed to be trying to engage in an open dialogue but...

Rationality and Hammers? We come back round to rationality, as well as hammers! What do hammers have to do with rationality? Tune in to find out! The conversation will include, but will not be limited to: What is Rationality? How does Rationality relate to Reason? Are there any tools that can help you with rationality?...

Moral Particularism and Value Pluralism Do particular circumstances affect the moral value of an action? Are there multiple values to assess when looking at moral judgements? Are there any particular standards we should base morality on or is it just what we feel is right at the time? Joi@kriss, @trolleydave and @davidian for tonight’s ethical...

Moral Realism Moral Realism states that there are some moral truths that are agent independent. Whilst not all moral judgements are necessarily objective, some are, at least under moral realism. We explore if morality can indeed be objective as well as answering questions and statements about moral relativism, subjectivism, and discussing truth-apt statements. Objective Morality!?...

Evidence and The Burden of Proof Evidence and the Burden of Proof are commonly talked about in discussions… Unfortunately, many people misunderstand these things so we hope to clear things up! In this stream, we cover: What is Evidence Claims of “not evidence” What is the Burden of Proof? Other Terms for the Burden of...

Is Mental Illness Real? We are joined by Bearded Heretic to discuss mental illness. Our conversation will include, but is not limited to: What is mental illness? The medical model of mental health Neurosis vs. Psychosis Everyday behaviour and mental illness Other models of mental illness Is Mental Illnes Real? – The Video This SciPhi...

What is ‘The Problem of Dirty Hands’? We discuss the problem of dirty hands, no, not the german porn star. We question if it is possible to do the “right thing” by doing the “wrong thing”? We also question if that makes the “wrong thing” a “moral action”. If you hadn’t guessed ‘Dirty Hands’ is...

‘God is Dead…’ “God is dead, and we have killed him”. Or so Nietzsche’s madman proclaimed. As atheism becomes more popular, Nietzsche’s madman becomes more relevant. We discuss the madman’s words, and how they relate to atheism in the modern-day. Many people misunderstand what Nietzche was trying to say with his ‘God is Dead’ statement,...

What is the Problem of Other Minds? We take a brief introductory look at solipsism and the problem of other minds, covering some of the popular arguments. You can also follow allong using this handy PDF The Problem of Other Minds – The Video This was originally a LIVE YouTube stream, so, if you prefer...

Philosophy in the Atheist Community We experience a number of bad takes on philosophy and philosophical concepts/arguments from our fellow atheists and we thought it would be good to do a stream to discuss these and the reasons why. We will be having a general chat about the disdain many atheists have for Philosophy and...

We had a discussion of new atheism and new atheists with Ozymandias Ramses II, both from the conception of the term and what it was meant to describe to how it now often used as an insult to a particular group of atheists who demonstrate a number of negative behaviours. This is one of our...

Free Will is often thought of as one of the “Black Hole” Conversations, and I understand why. When discussing free will we see folks really focused on the libertarian/non-causal free will, even within this stream where we start to talk about different types of free will we can see all of us inadvertently shift back....

Hello and welcome to the Fresh Air: SciPhi Show – I am sorry to disappoint you but this isn’t a full show but just a little thing I am putting together to explain what we are about. The SciPhi Show is hosted by Dave (TrolleyDave) and Joe (Davidian) of answers-in-reason.com – an atheist site searching...

Knowledge and Certainty Tonight’s chapter continues from the last on ‘Propositional Logic and Beliefs‘ but can be taken as its own entity. Like our last chapter this is also available as a VIDEO, but for the listener we have a PDF with all the information provided in said video. So what’s included in tonight’s show?...

Propositional Logic and Beliefs Season 3 is all about trying something new. As you might have seen we have been running the SciPhi show on YouTube but in the background we have been planning and producing a bigger and better season 3 for you. Our last episode was on scepticism, and ties in nicely with...

Scepticism and Self Reflection Tonight we discuss scepticism and how Cartesian scepticism can be applied introspectively. We speak about meme culture and commonly held opinions that might not stand up to scrutiny, but are often ingrained in to various communities. Further Reading Descartes, Scepticism, and You Denialism and Pseudoscepticism Fresh AiR – S01:E04 – Scepticism...

What a great season we have had. We’ve discussed personhood, morality, moral theories, Nietzsche’s critique of morality, free will, a conversation about objective vs subjective morality, ethics in politics, etc. Season 2 Season 1 Personhood Personhood was the characteristics that make us a person, and what that applied to. Aspects of Personhood Life – intrinsic...

In our last episode of political ethics, at least for this season, we discuss political ideologies and how we would run political systems within our own country could we go for a total reform.

Political Ethics: Legislation Our penultimate episode on political ethics covers legislation, what it means, how we do it and a number of other topics. We also have discussions about weird laws, psychopaths, going psychotic and other random segues What is Legislation? What is law? Constitutions. Amendments. Who can see this? Weird laws! Insanity/Temporary insanity! Psychopathy...

What is Freedom? Types of Freedom– Political– Personal Is freedom a natural right or a political right? Primary definitions of (political) freedom Freedom From (religion, violence, government interference) Freedom to (be religious, masturbate, get an education) Freedom of (speech, movement, expression, choice) Satrean Freedom is apolitical – “physically free to do whatever” Freedom misconceptions (e.g....

What is Justice? (e.g. is it simply fairness?) Cardinal Virtue / First Virtue of Social institutions Kantian Justice – The preservation of human dignity, respecting a person as ends in themselves rather than a means to an end. Rawlsian Justice (aka Distributive Justice) – The fair and equal distribution of goodsThis includes more than just...

What is Legitimacy In simplest terms this is a justification of validity, but how does that apply to politics? Theories of Legitimacy There is no legitimacy: political Legitimacy implies the right to use violence and the idea that some are worth more than others. This is immoral and untrue and thus itself illegitimate. Legitimacy by...

Obligation – Political Philosophy Chapter 2 We continue our second multi-chapter epiosode with a walk down Obligation. At the start we say we are going to be covering legitimacy and obligation, however we ran out of time, so will be covering off legitimacy next week. So what’s in this weeks episode? The key aspects, but...

What is Political Ethics? We ask the question tonight, ‘What is Political Ethics’ and discuss topics such as: Why is Morality important (to all parties) Legitimacy (covered in a later chapter) Perception of Voters Do all parties act in accordance with their moral compass at all times? We also cover off our what chapters to...

Subjective? Objective? Something Else? It is common to hear many reduce morality to it either being subjective or objective, but how accurate is that? Are people defining these terms properly? Are there correct definitions for the context? If one part of morality is subjective, does that make it all subjective? Well, tonight these two atheists,...

Free Will Having discussed moral theories at length over the past few weeks we chosen (seemingly) to do a post on free will, and are determined to work out if it truly exists or not, as well as the impact it has on morality. Our Discussion on Free Well includes (but is not limited to):...

Nietzsche’s Critique of Morality To finish our conversations walking through the various moral theories in the last 11 chapters, we felt we should provide Nietzsche’s Critique of Morality, largely from his book ‘On the Genealogy of Morality‘ We Discuss: Morality through power struggle. Whether different types of people need different standards of morality. If suffering...

Tonight we embark on our last chapter of specific moral theories and our penultimate chapter of episode 2. Moral Subjectivism and Relativism We discuss a number of topics around subjective and relative morality. What these terms actually mean. What it would mean if morality was wholly subjective or wholly relative. Common misconceptions folks have about...

What is Virtue Ethics? Tonight we discuss virtue ethics, covering topics like: What is a virtue? Which virtue is the most important? How do we apply virtues? If you apply one virtue too much, e.g. bravery, are you still brave, or do you become stupid? And of course we segue into a number of topics...

What is Divine Command Theory? This is generally applied to the Abrahamic god speaking of Judeo-Christian morality but could technically be applied to any set of rules or morals that come from a Divine being. One of the key problems with DCT is that for it to be valid we need to prove that deity...

What is Rule Utilitarianism? Rule Utilitarianism is just like Act Utilitarianism but with a twist. It is deontological. That means that following the rules are what is important regardless of the consequences. So why is a typically consequentialist brand, utilitarianism, under the banner of deontology? How does that work? What are the differences? Find Out,...

What is Kantianism? Kantianism or Kantian Ethics is the moral theory coined by Immanuel Kant. It is our first deontological moral theory, but it is not absolutely deontological as it builds its rules based on absolute consequences. e.g. if everyone stole from everyone, if everyone lied all the time, if everyone killed, if everyone raped...

What is Welfarism? Welfarism is our next consequentialist moral theory, following on from last week’s Preference Satisfaction Utilitarianism. Welfarism is our last consequentialist moral theory in the series, but how does it differ from the others? What are its strengths and weaknesses? What else do we need to know about it? Find out tonight on...

Preference Satisfaction Utilitarianism Our next moral theory is Preference Satisfaction Utilitarianism, which is also a consequentialist moral theory. It is similar to Act utilitarianism but holds a few differences as well, and is a much newer theory. What is Preference Satisfaction Utilitarianism? How does it differ to Act Utilitarianism? What are the problems it has?...