All articles from Moral Law Within
The Idealist and the Dogmatist
People forget that I am in love with a man named Johann Gottlieb Fichte. When I read Kant, it's like reading Newton: a really smart guy conveying important truths that I wouldn't have been able to figure out by myself. But when I read Fichte, it's like I'm reading my own thoughts. This man is my sou
Intuitions as truth-vectors vs. intuitions as empirical data
Here's a question: suppose there are two philosophical views, A and B. Both of them equally well predict everything we see, including our intuitions about various philosophical matters. They also both have the same theoretical virtues—simplicity, unity, explanatory power, etc. To a detached observer
Two quick announcements
Quick post for just two announcements!I'm nearing 1k subscribers, and conditional on me getting that, I'll do an AMA. If you want to ask a question, either leave a comment here or reply to my post on X (formerly Twitter), which you can find here. You are allowed to ask me anything, though I will not
The quickest possible introduction to Bayesian decision theory, pt. 2 : Expected Utility
Okay. I'm sorry. The quickest possible introduction to Bayesian decision theory is ending up longer than I expected. Part 2 will itself be a In my last post in this series, we covered some basic probability theory, including probability functions, updating & Bayes' theorem, and "Dutch book" argument
Proof that God doesn't exist
I come with unfortunate news: in my investigations, I have stumbled on a completely decisive proof of atheism. I know, me even saying this is proof enough to convince you, but you should at least read the argument since it's a good maxim to think for yourself. Take some time to emotionally adjust, a
A post about Mary's Room
So, let's talk about Mary's Room. The thought experiment is this. Mary is a super-genius who likes to study the science of color vision. She reads a bunch of text books, internet sources, and academic papers about the subject, and even remotely performs her own experiments on color. Indeed, she is s
How to be a successful Substack author
Hey everyone! I've had a bit of success on this site, hitting 900 followers in less than a month. Presumably follower growth is exponential, meaning that in just a few months every human on Earth will be reading my posts. I do not want to be alone in my success, and therefore, I'll share some tips o
But what if the constants are necessary?
Before you are prejudiced, please note your answers to the following question. @hat is your credence that the physical constants are necessary, e.g. that there is no possible world with the same laws of physics as ours except where the fine-structure constant has a different value than it does? Writ
What's wrong with every moral theory
Just what the title says. Obviously, addressing each of these positions deserves its own blog post (no less and no more than that, except in one case). I'll be a bit loose here, talking about normative ethical theories as well as metaethical theories that are sufficiently close to being normative et
More on analyzing concepts
I wrote a post about what action is while also attempting to convey some general lessons about analyzing concepts; one of those "Flo thinks Lovers of Wisdom should be quiet until they have mastered real analysis" posts. Stacker of Subs Jack Thompson wrote a post replying to it. Here I do not so much