Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

I don’t find your equation of the Right and the Left persuasive. The Right wants to force women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. The Left wants to tax people to pay for health care to benefit those who can’t afford it. Both things involve forcing someone to do something, but the degree of force…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. I didn’t actually want to start an argument over the morality of abortion … but I don’t think I can let this stand. The argument that pregnancy is involuntary servitude is bunk. Pregnancy is a natural and ex…

In reply to Michael Brazier. I understand the distinction you’re drawing. I don’t think anything I’ve written indicates otherwise. That said, I think your comment misses the forest for the trees. Regardless of which side one is on in …

I may as well point out that Dobbs, by overturning Roe and Casey, has declared merely that abortion is not a right protected by the US Constitution. In itself it hasn’t made abortion a crime anywhere; it says only that the several states may do s…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. Joining a boycott against Israel is, by definition, forming an intention to deny persons the enjoyment of goods, services, etc. under your control, because those persons originate from the nation of Israel. As national origin…

Somehow I missed this post when it came out. Or at least I don’t recall it (but my memory is mush these days). I’ll respond more fully when I have time, but just a quick point: I don’t think inalienability has anything to do with pa…

[…] In March 2020, I wrote a post responding to an anonymous writer, Catiline on the subject of abortion in cases of rape. This was very much an in-house discussion between two pro-choicers sharing basic normative commitments, and my aim was less…

[…] wanton slaughter of Palestinians at the Israel-Gaza border. Conservatives defended Williamson, so I wondered what their reaction would have been if defenders of Palestine had taken a similar line wi…. If it’s permissible to hang a…