About us
The world is in chaos. Societies are fragmented. People can no longer speak to one another. They talk at each other, but there is no growing and deepening awareness of what is good, true, and beautiful. We are not even speaking the same language.
--Much of this chaos in society is the result of bad thinking and ungrounded conclusions.
--Everyone is a critic before they have something healthy to say.
--Instead of discussion about what is real, true, good, and wonderful (which is philosophy), discussion today is a tool to corner and shame your opponent, it’s a war, not a search for what helps us thrive and understand.
We may not think we are Aristotle, Galileo, Marie Curie, M L King, C. Jung, Solzhenitsyn, or Thomas Aquinas. But we are by nature philosophical animals.
We search for principles and answers to explain our experience and our world. Both philosophy and science are driven by a desire to explain reality and find its ultimate foundation—it’s a search for wholeness, receiving the wholeness of all that is real around us, receiving it by thought and action.
How we answer these important questions shapes everything we see in the world around us.
--Are people just a bag of chemicals, or do we have a soul?
--What does it mean to be a person?
--What is real? Is truth real?
--What is truth, or is it just true for you?
--Do humans have a built-in purpose and value, or do we make our own purposes and values?
--Do we discover right and wrong, or do we create right and wrong?
--What constitutes a just government, and what is its role?
--Is there evil? Should you resist evil?
These are important questions and the best way to approach these questions is to begin with “wonder”:
“Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.”--Plato
“It is owing to their wonder that people began to philosophize.”—Aristotle
Wonder is a beautiful fascination and curiosity about with what surrounds us. This initial attitude sets the tone for later questions. We can ask questions like a critic/pundit or like a wondering explorer and child.
Scientists, children, artists and the philosophers approach the world with this sense of wonder. But if you examine our world only as an analytic critic, you will find nothing valuable. You may discover a formula, but you will never discover the wonder of a human person or grow in your personal life quest.
Certain ideas and knowledge rightly belong under a critical microscope, but some truths cannot be explained by a test. Those basic foundational truths are the beginnings of philosophy and metaphysics. And they may be difficult to explain neatly.
“We can know more than we can tell,” says Michael Polanyi (chemist, quantum theorist, friend of Einstein and later philosopher).
The ancient Greek philosophers were scientists, humanists, musicians, moralists, and existential theorists---all at once; they were looking for all the truth that could be known; we should try to be like them.
“My sense of god is my sense of wonder about the universe.” --Albert Einstein
“I give infinite thanks to God, who has been pleased to make me the first observer of marvelous things.”—Galileo.
This is the aim of our group, to approach important questions as if we were sitting in a circle with Einstein, Galileo, Marie Curie, Aristotle, Gandhi, M L King, Carl Jung, Solzhenitsyn, and Aquinas.
If you would like to discuss important questions in a manner that would interest these giants, please join us.
Upcoming events
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Ethics: Do we create right and wrong or discover right and wrong?
Newport Beach Public Library, 1000 Avocado Ave, Newport Beach, CA, USEthics Discovering Right and Wrong Pojman
In all the world and in all of life there is nothing more important to
determine than what is right. Whatever the matter which lies before us
calling for consideration…will meet the situation, and be demanded to do right and avoid wrong.
C. I. LEWIS, THE GROUND AND NATURE OF RIGHTWe are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live.
SOCRATES, IN PLATO’S REPUBLICSome years ago, the nation was stunned by a report from New York City.
A young woman, Kitty Genovese, was brutally stabbed in her own neighborhood
late at night during three separate attacks while thirty-eight respectable,
law-abiding citizens watched or listened. During the thirty-five minute struggle,
her assailant beat her, stabbed her, left her, and then returned to attack her two
more times until she died. No one lifted a phone to call the police; no one
shouted at the criminal, let alone went to Genovese’s aid. Finally, a seventyyear-
old woman called the police. It took them just two minutes to arrive, but
by that time Genovese was already dead.Was this a moral failing?
Join us in these discussions over the next months. Here is a PDF of the book we will use. Read the first two chapters for the next meeting.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xezj7FPddS3dyGF0kbmpF8C4RId_GtCE/view?usp=drive_linkMoral precepts concern norms; roughly speaking, they concern not what is, but what ought to be. How should I live my life? What is the right thing to do in this situation? Should I always tell the truth? Do I have a duty to report a coworker whom I have seen cheating our company? Should I tell my friend that his spouse is having an affair?
The practice of morality need not be motivated by religious considerations. And moral precepts need not be grounded in revelation or divine authority—as religious teachings in-variably are. The most salient characteristic of ethics—by which I mean both philosophical morality (or morality, as I will simply refer to it) and moral philosophy—is its grounding in reason and human experience.
Morality is also closely related to law, and some people equate the two practices. Many laws are instituted in order to promote well-being, resolve conflicts of interest, and promote social harmony, just as morality does, but ethics may judge that some laws are immoral without denying that they are valid laws. For example, laws may permit slavery, spousal abuse, racial discrimination, or sexual discrimination, but these are immoral practices.
It is arguable that he has a moral obligation that overrides his legal obligation and demands that he act to save the innocent man from execution.TRAITS OF MORAL PRINCIPLES
A central feature of morality is the moral principle. We have already noted that moral principles are practical action guides, but we must say more about the traits of such principles. Although there is no universal agree-ment on the traits a moral principle must have, there is a wide consensus about five traits:Prescriptivity
Universalizability
Overridingness
Publicity
PracticabilityPrescriptivity refers to the practical, or action-guiding, nature of morality. Moral principles are generally put forth as injunctions or imperatives (e.g., “Do not kill” “Do no unnecessary harm,” and “Love your neighbor”).
Universalizability Moral principles must apply to all who are in the relevantly similar situation. If one judges that act X is right for a certain person P, then it is right for anyone relevantly similar to P.
Overridingness: Moral principles have hegemonic authority. They are not the only principles,
but they take precedence over other considerations, including aesthetic,
prudential, and legal ones. The artist Paul Gauguin may have been
aesthetically justified in abandoning his family in order to devote his life
to painting beautiful Pacific island pictures, but morally, or all things considered,
he probably was not justified.Publicity: Moral principles must be made public in order to guide our actions. Because
we use principles to prescribe behavior, give advice, and assign praise and blame, it would be self-defeating to keep them a secret.Practicability; A moral theory must be workable; its rules must not lay a heavy burden on agents. It might be desirable for morality to enjoin more altruism, but the result of such principles could be moral despair, deep or undue moral guilt, and ineffective action. Practicability may cause the difference between ethical standards over time and place.
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