Moral Reasoning and Miscellany

This morning I gave an address to the Melbourne Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on Promising, Forgiveness, and Redemption, where I discussed the importance of the first, the virtue of the second, and how the third completes a circle. Whilst bits and pieces of the presentation have been slowly put together over several months as I've mulled over what promises are meant to be and what caveats they come with. Whilst I had to cut it down significantly from what I had on a first draft, being asked to present came at a good time, not the least because I've been watching quite a bit of The Good Place on the recommendation of Janie G. It's quite clever in its design, presenting itself as a light-hearted sit-com but with some tangents into serious moral philosophy can be, one must acknowledge, a fairly dry subject at times: "Boring but important", I suppose. I was rather taken when the nerd character correctly describing the entire history of moral philosophy as essentially Virtue Ethics, Deontology, Consequentialism, and Nihilism. The latter is really an amoral philosophy, driven by temporary concerns of self-interest where gaslighting and manipulative behaviour would be quite acceptable. I suspect that such people would be very successful indeed, until they are exposed, and it will all come crashing down. Maybe I have the beginnings of another presentation here!

Apart from that, I've basically been enjoying the circumstances of my new life with all sorts of miscellany. I finished an article for the Polish Journal of Aesthetics on Abstract Expressionism as bullshit art, in contrast to the lying art of Socialist Realism. There is an interesting distinction between "lies" and "bullshit", where the former seeks to conceal the truth, the latter breaks down concerns about the validity of the difference between fact and fiction or, in this case, between art and non-art. On a vaguely related note the Wild Arts Social Club, which I am treasurer, has apparently received approval to be an incorporated association, website and more social events coming soon. In other academic pursuits, I received my grade for the macroeconomics course at the London School of Economics, hooray for a pass from that grueling six-hour exam. Now I need to complete the econometrics and microeconomics units and I'll have another stiff piece of cardboard for 2022. Finally, I've been powering my way through software installs at work and pushing a large number of build scripts up to the EasyBuild repository, and been amused and impressed by the work of Reginald (I followed the naming suggestion of Margaret-Mary Cashin) the new robo-vacc.