Daniel Callcut
Freelance Writer and Philosopher, UK
Daniel Callcut is a freelance writer and philosopher. He is a former SIAS Fellow at Yale Law School. He has taught and published on a wide range of topics including the philosophy of love, the nature of value, media ethics, and the philosophy of psychiatry. He is the editor of Reading Bernard Williams (Routledge, 2008). He lives in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom.
Written by Daniel Callcut
essay
History of ideas
What are we?
On Paul Gauguin, authenticity and the midlife crisis: how the philosopher Bernard Williams dramatised moral luck
Daniel Callcut
essay
Virtues and vices
Against moral sainthood
As philosopher Susan Wolf argues, life is far more meaningful and rich if we do not aim at being morally perfect
Daniel Callcut
idea
Virtues and vices
If anyone can see the morally unthinkable online, what then?
Daniel Callcut
essay
Rituals and celebrations
Death by design
We can chose how we live – why not how we leave? A free society should allow dying to be more deliberate and imaginative
Daniel Callcut
Recent Comments
Ten degrees of strange
Daniel CallcutThis is beautiful, so full of hope and the instinct to live. Is it always wise to try to outrun the black dog, even if that feels necessary? Sometimes depression is a message-carrier that, hard as it is, has to be listened to and welcomed in.
But, in Flynn’s voice, and in the film, there’s no suggestion of shallow evasion of sorrow. It’s just that here the black dog is going to take you down unless you head towards life.
Death by design
Daniel CallcutThanks Jan Sand and Shawn B for the thoughtful comments. I would say, to Shawn B in particular, that it’s not intended satirically though I was aware that it could be read this way. It is an exploration of a line of thought and, as Shawn says, a kind of thought experiment. The question is: given the libertarian ethos behind many contemporary cultures, why shouldn’t chosen death be allowed? I am drawn to the idea that we should have this legal freedom much as I also fear (as the comments highlight) some of the possible consequences. If it’s an argument that turns people against libertarianism more generally, that’s interesting too. Thanks again for engaging with the essay.