This site reflects my belief that Philosophy can make a difference in our world. That the way that we think about our world affects our actions, which in turn affects the social and physical conditions in which we make those decisions. Sometimes, our world can seem almost overwhelming, as if the problems that we face are insurmountable. But, while it is true that overcoming the most important challenges of contemporary life will require collective action, I believe that those changes can be sparked, at times, by individual action. So this web presence is my attempt to put my philosophy into dissemination in the hopes of making the world a better place for my children.
My overall philosophy is composed of several “spokes” that may seem unrelated at first glance, but ultimately intersect at the point of reason. It seems like all the major issues of our time – environmental destruction, the rise of the authoritarian right, the culture of misinformation, and the demise of the project of secularism – all have their roots in a fundamentally irrational way of viewing the world and our place within it.
To counter this contemporary nihilism, I advocate for 1) an epistemic framework that takes the insights of evidentialism seriously while being flexible enough to accommodate faith while not giving ground to Plantingan “Christian Foundationalism”; 2) a society-centered meta-ethical framework that reorients ethics as a social enterprise, directly contra the individualistic ethics that often dominate; 3) centering environmental ethics, so that our children might have the promise of a future; 4) the dignity and autonomy of children: centering my view within a causal view of parental obligation, I argue that underage children are rights bearers and that parents must show deference to their children’s rights and cannot legitimately encroach upon those rights to their own benefit.
Finally, I am an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. Obviously, LGBTQ+ issues have significant overlap with many of these same topics, especially those that have to do with the rights of children to education and autonomy, even if that education and those decisions conflict with the parents’ beliefs. Curiously enough, those parental beliefs are often based in religious attitudes, so there is also overlap there. And there is overlap with ethics as well, inasmuch as religion is often a contributing factor to some views that see a kind of tension between the LGBTQ+ community and ethical decision making. At all points, I aim to show that the parents’ views are not a legitimate basis for denying children access to education, nor should the autonomy of children be overridden by parental beliefs. I also aim to show that ethics are accessible to reason, and that ethical claims are outside of the scope of a faith that has been put in its proper place by a defensible epistemology.
Caleb Castaneda is an Instructor of Philosophy at Victor Valley College and Chaffey College. He has served at Victor Valley College since the Fall 2016 semester, and at Chaffey College since the Fall 2017 semester. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Pitzer College, and an M.A. in Philosophy, with a specialization in History of Philosophy, from Claremont Graduate University. His philosophical interests are in epistemology, ethics, early modern philosophy, and religion. He is the author of the Philosophy Field Guide, an open educational resource (OER) textbook that is freely available via a Creative Commons license.
