I’ve long been interested in linking to discussions I’ve taken place in which I thought were particularly insightful, whether they take place here or otherwise. I used to do this within my weekly link roundups. Though now, as the amount of these discussions went up, I’ve decided it better to take them out and into a roundup of their own. Thus, the “Discussion Roundup” series.

Discussion Roundups will no longer be weekly, but just cover the period from now to the previous roundup, in this case back on August 5.

On This Site!

Since August 5, this site has had 35 new comments. Here’s a summary of what I think are the interesting discussions in that period:

On “The Good of Religion”, we talk more about the difference between morally normative statements (appealing to moral standards) and practically normative statements (appealing to self-interested standards), and explaining why people would be interested in moral standards.

On “Defining Away the Ontological Argument”, I explain what it means for something like a god to exist “in all possible worlds”.

On “A-Unicornism and the True Definition of Atheism”, Michael Ross gets back to me in our atheism vs. Christianity/theism anything goes discussion/debate.

Elsewhere!

Over at The Warfare is Mental’s “Is It Moral to Kill Iranian Nuclear Scientists?”, I continue discussing the merits of utilitarianism as compared to deontology, and clear up some misconceptions about utilitarianism.

I discuss more about my view on normativity among the comments in Reddit’s r/philosophy discussion on “No Science Really Can’t Determine Human Values: A Reply to Sam Harris”.

I added sources to my past essay “Why Don’t People Help Others More?” and cross-posted it on LessWrong. I do post on LessWrong occasionally, but this was my first substantial essay — past discussions include “PZ Myers on the Infeasibility of Whole Brain Emulation” and “Richard Carrier on the Singularity”.

I do a cartoon for “A Good Cartoon”.