In the wake of some discussions of Sam Harris’s The Moral Landscape I’ve been dipping into a few other books on morality, all of which are (frankly) much more rewarding to read than the Harris book. Mary Whitlock Blundell’s Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: a Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics, for instance, the title of which is self-explanatory. Matt Ridley’s The Origins of Virtue, which summarizes a lot of research in a number of fields. And Bernard Williams’s Morality. From the chapter on Utilitarianism:

For we are going to be able to use the Greatest Happiness Principle as the common measure of all and everybody’s claims, only if the ‘happiness’ involved is in some sense comparable

Five out of six men accused of gang-raping Mukhtaran Mai in 2006 have been acquitted by the Pakistan Supreme Court.

Nine years after the gang rape, Mai’s struggle for justice ended with the court ordering five of the six accused to be freed. A distraught Mai, who has won international acclaim for her bravery in a deeply chauvinistic society, said that the release of the men had put her life in danger.

It was such a pretty story. Her 12-year-old brother was accused, falsely, of having sex with a woman from another clan. To punish the brother, the village “elders” sitting as a tribal “court” decided Mai should be gang-raped, and so she was. 14 men were accused of carrying … Read the rest

The New Statesman has a lot of articles on religion. This is old news; I just thought I’d mention it.

It has a lot of Name people saying why they believe in god. Why? Because

In our increasingly secular society, many religious people feel their voices are not heard.

So the Staggers hands them a microphone. The bishops in the House of Lords and all those “faith” schools aren’t enough; their voices have to be even louder.

Cherie Blair, barrister
It’s been a journey from my upbringing to an understanding of something that my head cannot explain but my heart knows to be true.

See…that’s why we get irritated. Her heart doesn’t know it to be true. Hearts don’t know … Read the rest

I mentioned that interview I did for Humanistpodden the other day; here it is. Johan is remarkably knowledgeable about inter-atheist quarrels, among other things.

Update: And another thing, as long as I’m in me me me vein. I’m now a columnist for Free Inquiry. The first column will be in the August-September issue.… Read the rest