Criticism and Reviews on Philosophie-Delor

The Misconception of Utilitarianism

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0200

The Misconception of Utilitarianism

And the solution to the is–ought problem in light of evolution

Introduction

“If one has one’s why in life, one can cope with almost any how. Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows, § 12 (translation from the German)

People endure extreme suffering when they have a compelling why. They even risk their own lives for their children. When this why is missing, a more pleasant life itself becomes the supposed ultimate goal. This confusion shapes many contemporary ethical approaches.

Professor Hanno Sauer: The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality

Sun, 10 May 2026 08:00:00 +0200

The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality – How Professor Hanno Sauer Arrives at Wishful Morality Through Fallacies

Professor Hanno Sauer (2024), in his book The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality, claims to reconstruct the emergence of morality from evolution, cooperation, and culture in a scientific manner. He promises an objective derivation of how sanctions and norms made us what we are today. The book does not redeem this claim at any point. Instead of an open-ended reconstruction, Sauer engages in extensive cherry-picking among findings and theories in order to support a specific left-progressive moral philosophy. Whatever fits his worldview is elaborated at length; whatever contradicts it is ignored or pushed into psychology.

How not to Prove Hume's Law

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 17:45:33 +0100

A Proof of Admirable Consistency: Or How to Spend 30 Pages Proving a Definition

In Praise of Formal Virtuosity

It is a rare pleasure to encounter a work like Gillian Russell’s “How to Prove Hume’s Law” (2023). Over 30 pages unfold a monument of formal precision: indexical logic (IL), modal systems (S4, B, S5), Tense-Modal Logic (TML), Deontic-Modal Logic (DML) – each system with its own model theory, its own truth conditions, its own relations on model sets.