DISSENT!

My friends call me Andruska. I am interested in political philosophy (the debate between liberalism and multiculturalism, the liberal theory), normative ethics (the problem of rights), metaethics (ethical intuitionism, noncognitivism, Richard Hare), and Descartes (Meditations, the doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths). I also like to read papers in bioethics (euthanasia, abortion) and animal rights (Peter Singer).

I consider myself a liberal (more exactly, a Kantian liberal) – although I am still thinking whether I should be an egalitarian liberal (and support the welfare state) or a libertarian liberal (and support the market economy).

I consider that the best weapon a person has is a knife with two blades: the first blade is called irony, the second blade is called self-irony. An intellectual should use both of them, against his dearest opinions and truths, as well as against other’s beloved opinions and truths.

Probably this is why many people simply cannot stand me: I always shake their believes, and show them that their truth is not “the” truth. I think that all kinds of fundamentalism are wrong: religious as well as atheist or scientific fundamentalism, political as well as cultural fundamentalism, and so on. In this kind of dialogues, it seems that I have a very analytical mind. My friend Alin says that when we have a dispute, he prefers to change the topic because I always have answers to every subject (yap, except my dearest friends, I found out that this attitude makes everyone very nervous).

Otherwise, I am a nice person (I guess), although I’m not making so easily new friends (with very few exceptions, all my best friends are old friends).

I believe in friendshiyp, fidelity and family (as you can see, I am a boring, traditionalist guy). I love to read, I love dogs and cactuses, fairy tales and cartoons. I’m crazy about the combination of good cheese and dry red wine. I believe that, most of the time, a good laugh solves many problems.

You can contact me by email here: andreistavila [at] gmail [dot] com

[Note: if you can read in Romanian and want to know more about my political opinions on the lef-wing and the right-wing politics, you may want to click here]