√
I’m stealing that punchline.
Amazed this still needs saying, but some don't seem to have got the memo. If calling me 'transphobe' and 'fascist' was going to scare me out of speaking up for women's rights, it would have happened years ago. Whatever the square root of not giving a fuck is, that's where I am.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 17, 2024
cf. https://theworld.com/~swmcd/fm.jpg
Behold the field where she grows her fucks. See that it is dead and barren.
Rowling illustrates an important point here. An essential part of dismissing an idea is to first label it. Once the label is stuck on, the rest of the dismissal process becomes much easier. This school of thought can in its own right be labelled the ‘Boo-Hooray Academy.’ Actually, I am pretty sure someone inclinbed to waxing philosophical has done this already.
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199264797.001.0001/acref-9780199264797-e-281#:~:text=Apt%20nickname%20for%20crude%20version,’%20or%20’Hoorah!
I had a hard time with emotivism and any other form of ethical non-cognitivism as an undergrad, because I just couldn’t believe that any adult’s mind worked like that. I’ve since come around to the view that emotivism is an accurate account of how the vast majority of humanity interacts with morality.
In Latex, it would be $\sqrt{\text{not giving a fuck}}$.
The Wikipedia article on emotivism also says it is “colloquially known as the hurrah/boo theory”.
I might be interested in reading a book surveying meta-ethics. Perhaps one of you might recommend a couple? I’ve read pretty much nothing about philosophy.
I don’t know why comments on this post are not showing up when I look on the web page. I see several in my RSS feed, but only one on the web page.
Huh. I’m seeing 1-6 on the web page.
Sackbut this post by Brian Leiter has a bunch of recommendations from readers.
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2019/12/best-introductory-texts-in-moral-philosophy.html
In LaTeX, $\sqrt{\text{not giving a fuck}}$
They weren’t for me — I posted about in the Miscellany Room — but now I can see them