Yes. Lots. That's the easy answer. The hard answer isexplaining how we could possibly learn anything true from a series offalse statements. One answer is that good works of fiction use falsestatements to describe deep truths about human nature, emotions,relationships, morality, and the meaning of life. They do so by creating a world of characters and events that does not actually exist but that shares enough common features with our world that we can learn from them. Most importantly, the fictions may share the deep (and general) truths about human nature, etc. with our world, and they may do so because the writer has a deep understanding of these truths. Fiction also explores the boundaries of the possible and teaches us to think about these possibilities. Philosophy often works in this way. By considering what is possible but not actual we learn something about our world and ourselves. Science fiction and philosophical thought experiments sometimes differ only in that the science...

You've picked up on an interesting case some philosophers have used to discuss "moral luck" (see, e.g., Owen Flanagan's Varieties of Moral Personality and I think Bernard Williams discusses this case). It seems like the moral value of an agent's action should not depend on factors that are clearly outside the control of the agent, such as whether the art Gauguin believed he could only produce by doing something bad is deemed to be so good that his action may be deemed a "necessary evil" that he was right to carry out. Your nice twist is to point out that the moral value of his action seems like it might change over time depending on how his art is perceived. (Another case of moral luck is exemplified by the drunk driver who hits and kills a child who happens to be crossing the street when a similarly drunk driver makes it home, though he would have hit the child had he been less lucky. We not only blame the "unlucky" driver more but we prosecute him differently with much worse legal consequences.) ...

Good question. And let's hope the answer is yes, since otherwise almost no one would be blameworthy for committing morally wrong acts. After all, it seems likely that Hitler, Stalin, Osama Bin Laden, Jim Jones (Jonestown massacre), dare I say, Dick Cheney, and many other people who have done manifestly wrong things nonetheless believed they were doing the morally right thing. So, it looks like we need to find a way to blame them for believing that the wrong things they were doing were the right things to do. We want to be able to say, "They should have known better!" (Such cases may be contrasted with people who do bad things because they are weak-willed and do what they believe is wrong--of those people we want to be able to say, "They should have tried harder!") In both the wrong-headed and the weak-willed cases, we sometimes mitigate responsibility and blame if we think it would be unreasonable to expect that they could have known better or could have overcome their, say, addictive or...

I think this is a very interesting question, one that has inspired some of my recent research. It has been said that it is just obvious that determinism rules out free will. Here is Robert Kane: In my experience, most ordinary persons start out as natural incompatibilists. They believe there is some kind of conflict between freedom and determinism; and the idea that freedom and responsibility might be compatible with determinism looks to them at first like a ‘quagmire of evasion’ (William James) or ‘a wretched subterfuge’ (Immanuel Kant). Ordinary persons have to be talked out of this natural incompatibilism by the clever arguments of philosophers. (1999: 217) Like you, I have been curious why philosophers have taken incompatibilism to be the commonsense view. So, the first thing I did, along with my co-authors, was to test whether non-philosophers actually take determinism to rule out free will and moral responsibility. Our studies suggested that most people (between 2/3 and 3/4) do...

I take a more pessimistic view than Professor Leaman. I think that an avowed atheist would have absolutely no hope of election to President or likely to any major office in any (or almost any) state, regardless of his or her other attributes or views, and that an avowed agnostic would have no hope of election to President or most major offices in most states, and that a candidate who did not strongly avow being a Christian (or perhaps Jew) would have almost no hope of being elected President. And I think that these facts are causes for concern for a number of reasons. For instance, it indicates a specific type of intolerance, one that I think is largely based on a failure to understand what atheists do (and can) believe. Though Professor Leaman's is correct when he says atheists are "believers in nothing" if he is referring only to supernatural deities, atheists can and usually do believe (often strongly): that life has meaning and purpose that there are moral truths or at least...

I can't be sure whether the pronouns in Richard's second sentence are supposed to refer to me or to Dawkins. If he (Richard H.) is referring to me, I'm not sure why. I don't see anything in what I said that suggests I believe all religious people share the same beliefs or that I am "ignorant of the varieties of religious belief." To clarify, there are some religious people in this country--I would say, too many--who act as though atheism (or perhaps any other failure to share their own faith-based beliefs) is a sign of moral terpitude (e.g., of the sort that disqualifies you for public office). Of course, it works the other way too. I certainly hold it against a political candidate if he or she avows certain religious doctrines (e.g., intelligent design). On that note, I think another potential concern of the influence of fundamentalist religious organizations and individuals on politics in America is their ability to undermine scientific research and science education.

You cannot live an impact-free life. Our actions affect the environment, often for the worse. The goal should be to minimize detrimental impact. Another goal should be to try to influence others to minimize their detrimental impacts. You sound like you are doing a lot towards both of these goals. Taking fish oil or eating fish, in your case, seems to have greater benefits for you and your ability to work towards these two larger goals than any detrimental impact it would have. And it sounds like it is possible that the amount of guilt and anxiety you are taking on regarding these issues may end up making it harder for you to carry out your positive efforts. Good luck!

My own brief answer is that we cannot choose to fall in love or to re-ignite love, but we can make choices that will make it more (or less) likely that we come to love someone or something. For instance, at a bare minimum, if you believe that it would be good for you to come to love someone, you need to choose to be around that person and engage with him/her; if you believe that it would be good for you to come to love watching soccer (perhaps because someone you love wants you to love watching soccer with him/her), then you need to choose to watch soccer, perhaps with that person trying to convince you what is so wonderful about it (trust me, you will come to love it!). But once you actively engage with the person or activity, it seems to me that you cannot control whether you come to have the feelings of love towards them--figuring out what those feelings are is another philosophical/psychological issue. But I think you will find better answers than mine if you look at Eric Schwitzgebel's...

Your question taps into a big discussion in the current free will debates. First, your thought experiment can be used as a response to a very straightforward definition of free will that says: a person acts freely just so long as she acts on her desires. But your case suggests this definition is too simple (other problem cases include acting on desires that one acquired through hypnosis or brainwashing or desires one doesn't really want to have, such as addictions or compulsions). In the face of these problems, philosophers have developed more sophisticated accounts of free will. For instance, we might say that a person acts freely just in case she acts on desires that she accepts, or would accept, having. Some people presumably do not accept their addictive or compulsive desires, so on this account they would not be free when those desires drive them to act (against their will, we might say). And the "would accept" part of the definition might allow us to avoid the other problem cases. Were...

Philosophers have not produced a lot of concrete things like the technology that flows from scientific advances. But philosophers have produced a lot of abstract things of immense value. Here is an initial list which I hope others will continue: Formal systems of logic (and crucial concepts for proper argumentation, such as validity and norms for abductive reasoning). Important distinctions for moral reasoning, such as the distinction, put roughly here, between deontological (rule-governed) and consequentialist (outcome-based) systems, and the naturalistic fallacy (if only people could avoid the over-hasty moves from "it's natural" to "it's right" and from "it's unnatural" to "it's wrong"). Important work in the philosophy of science about the nature of theories, experiments, evidence, etc., and in particular branches of science, such as biology, psychology, and neuroscience. This work arguably helps scientists do better work and helps the sciences advance. Advancements in law and...

Wow, you have come up with a case I love to use in my philosophy of mind to connect issues of personal identity to moral responsibility and "moral luck." I have students read the Oliver Sacks' case of Donald ("Murder" in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat ). Donald took and, while high, killed his girlfriend. He had no memory of the incident (assume this is true for now) and was found not guilty by reason of (temporary) insanity. A few years later he was hit by a car and suddenly (re)remembered the gruesome murder (offering details only the killer could know). The case raises lots of questions: Is Donald on PCP (DPCP) the same person as Donald before (DBefore)? And is Donald at trial and the next few years (DTrial) the same as DPCP ? And is Donald after recovering his memories from the accident (DAfter) the same as ... and DTrial and DBefore?? And beyond these questions about personal identity, there's the question of moral luck: assuming that Donald before (DBefore) had no...