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Identity

Hi there! I wanted to re-open a question that was posted a couple of years ago, by probing a bit further. This is what "Mario" asked [http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/1142]: "Does the individual consciousness depend on the actual atoms or only on the configuration of the atoms? Suppose we have mastered cryo-freezing and atom-manipulation technology. We can freeze and unfreeze people at will. We freeze Sarah. We replace Sarah's atoms one by one. With all atoms replaced, we wake her up. Is it the "same" Sarah? (the same to herself, not just to us)." I'd like to add that I recently heard that over a few years, every single cell in our bodies is replaced, except for a few memory cells that last much longer. But given during our lives, we WILL eventually be composed of different atoms to those with which we started, and that it is generally agreed that we nevertheless remain the same "people"/"consciousnesses" throughout, where does that leave us? If it means that it must be structure/organization of...

The problem you are raising here is actually very nicely discussed in Derek Parfit's famous book Reasons and Persons (Part III). Parfit asks you to imagine tele-transportation, where your body is carefully scanned (and destroyed in the process), the data e-mailed to some destination, and a human being constructed at this destination who is an exact replica of you, including your memories and whim for hazelnut chocolate. You'd be scared to travel this way, but seeing that others do it safely all the time, you too do it and get used to it. Now one can ask whether the person getting out of the machine at the destination really is the same person as the one who walked into another machine at the departure point. As Allen Stairs wrote back then, something can be said for either answer. But there's a third thing one might say: once the story's been told, there is not further question to be answered. You can say what you like about sameness, the important thing is that you really have no serious reason...
Business

Suppose Big Company Inc. supports a controversial Initiative X, endorsing the legislation and donating millions to PACs in favor of it. I, for one, hate Initiative X, and have taking personal action (eg. protests, letters to my senator) to try and kill it. Would I be justified to boycott Big Company's products, in order to spite them for supporting Initiative X? Most people seem to think that's okay, or even commendable. But let's turn the situation around. Suppose I apply for a job at Big Company. Although I am the most qualified candidate, Big Company has heard of my actions to undermine Initiative X. They decide not to hire me, in order to spite me for my political actions. In this case, I seem to have a good reason to get angry, or even sue. From a moral perspective, are these two situations different? Or is the supposed discrepancy simply a result of our tendency to empathize with the weak (me), as opposed to the strong (Big Company).

I am not sure that the company would be legally required to hire you under the circumstances you outline. In many jurisdictions it may well be able to argue that -- qualified though you may be -- you are less suitable than other candidates because you are less likely to be loyal to the company and hence likely to be less effective at promoting its business interests. Be this as it may, there is a clearer and cleaner example of your asymmetry: while you are free not to buy from the company, it is not free not to sell to you. What's the moral rationale for this legal asymmetry? Strong versus weak may well have something to do with it -- and, relatedly, the fact that companies selling to individuals face millions of potential customers whereas individuals buying from companies may not have many to choose from (imagine you had protested against Microsoft and Gates then refused to license you to use Windows). A further point is that companies are artificial agents created pursuant to constitutive...
Ethics

I just saw an advertisement on a website, the advertisement features a poor African child who is on the verge of starvation. Is it wrong for me to think that a child of his standards should die, because if everyone would have the chance to live to their 70-80s that our world would over populate? I sound like an very immoral person, but if the end result is world overpopulation, then I would want to sacrifice the unlucky ones, for the sake of all others.

Suppose it is true that, if everyone had the chance to live to their 70-80s, our world would become very overpopulated. In this case, the best way to bring relief would be to get rid of an appropriate number of affluent people who, through their much greater ecological footprint, are imposing much greater burdens on everyone else than the poor African child does, whose existence would barely be felt by others even if she lived to 120. In numbers, while the consumption of US residents produces about 20 tons of CO2 annually on average, 60 poor countries have average annual CO2 emissions below 1 ton per person, and 11 countries even have annual emission below 0.1 ton per person. You would have to sacrifice about 500 unlucky people in one of those very poor countries to get the same effect as you would get from sacrificing one of us. Yes, this is beginning to sound a bit immoral. Fortunately, the choice is not this stark. If everyone had the chance to live to their 70-80s, our world would actually...
Ethics
Race

We recently learned about racial profiling in my social studies class. While I disagree that it is unethical (and plain old incorrect) to assume that all people of a certain race are criminals, there did seem to be some logic behind the idea that I didn't want to bring up in class. I am not a racist and am in fact involved in closing the achievement gap in my school district, so although this question is definitely not PC, I am hoping I can ask it here without being judged: If statistics show that for whatever unfair reason (maybe because of discrimination), a greater percentage of people of race A become alcoholics or grow up in poverty or something, and statistics also show that alcoholics or people who grow up in poverty are more likely to commit crimes, then isn't it only logical to conclude that a randomly-chosen person of race A is more likely to be a criminal than a randomly-chosen person of race B? I acknowledge that there is definitely some circular logic going on here, and saying "he's of race...

First of all, I think it's good you bring this up. Better to discuss such matters openly than to pretend they don't exist. One should be clearer, perhaps, about the step from belief to action. Surely many things correlate with race, gender, or religion; and we may notice these correlations and form beliefs about them and perhaps even test these beliefs through large-scale data collection. In some case, the mere researching of such correlations is morally dubious, by fostering contempt for a group even while serving no legitimate social purpose. But in the case of crimes, there is a legitimate social purpose: deterrence and apprehension. So it is hard to deny that knowing more about the people who tend to commit certain kinds of crimes can be useful. But then how useful such knowledge will be depends on what one would be able and morally permitted do with it if one had it. In the case of serious crimes there is, I think, a clear presumption in favor of using such knowledge and hence of...
Business
Ethics

In my work there are clear inequalities between colleagues for choosing the holidays period and for choosing morning or evening shift. The more senior a worker is the more privileges he has. Let’s suppose that one of the senior workers decides voluntarily to give some of his privileges to another worker even though other senior workers probably will not do the same. Should the junior worker feel and express gratitude for this action? Or, as the decision could be considered as a matter of justice and more equality, it is what everybody should do, and so gratitude is not necessary, and the senior worker should not be expecting gratitude.

One relevant factor here is whether the seniority privileges you describe are unjust. If they are long-standing rules fairly administered, then they may not be. Unlike privileges based on race or gender or religion, such seniority privileges do treat everyone equally over time. Everyone is disadvantaged early in her/his tenure on the job, and everyone has an equal opportunity to be advantaged later on (but what about those who die early?). If the privileges are morally defensible in this way, then gratitude is appropriate when a more senior worker waives a privilege for the benefit of a more junior one. Now suppose that, for some reason, the seniority system is not morally defensible after all. Even in this case a senior worker may not be morally obliged to waive her/his privileges. After all, s/he is not responsible for the flaws of the system, and s/he is also not a net beneficiary of these flaws (having presumably gone through many years of disadvantage early in her/his tenure). Once again, then,...
Profession

In a discussion about philosophy as a profession I referred to one of the questions on this site to claim that the division of male and female philosophers is more equal than ever and it's not at all only male philosophers. But when we started thinking about it we could only come up with female philosophers who are doing practical philosophy (e.g. Nussbaum, Noddings, Gutmann, Warnock). So the question arose - are there at least somewhat significant female philosophers in for example theoretical philosophy or history of philosophy that you could name? Are there female philosophers in all the fields of philosophy?

Yes, there surely are (just look through the list on the right), though it's probably also true that women are better represented in practical philosophy than in philosophy generally. Outside practical philosophy, among the earliest in this country was Ruth Marcus who taught Saul Kripke, among many others, and had a very distinguished career at Yale. Leigh Cauman (even earlier) studied with Quine, taught logic, and was the managing editor of the Journal of Philosophy for many years. Women are very strongly represented in ancient philosophy, with Gisela Striker (Harvard) a good example. In the history of modern philosophy there's Beatrice Longueness (NYU) . If you look through the various departments -- www.philosophicalgourmet.com/overall.asp -- you'll find that most of them have one or more female philosophers outside practical philosophy, so examples could be multiplied. While the profession is still a long way from where we should and want to be, further progress is made likely by there already...
Education
Science

I would appreciate some recommendations on texts (for a layperson -- a nonprofessional philosopher) whose subject is the philosophy of science.

Perhaps start with a look at the entry "scientific explanation" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ( plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-explanation ). After that, I would get started with three classics: Sir Karl Popper: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959) Ernest Nagel: The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation (1961) Thomas Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970).
Mathematics

Parallel Lines: 1) I've been told that parallel lines never meet - except at infinity. 2) Also that a straight line is a circle of infinite radius. 3) Surely if you get two infinitely large circles such that they don't overlap, at their closest point they are straight (as per 2) and parallel yet must both meet (by 1) and not as per 3) - not overlapping. Any suggestions? (I'm confused!)

I think your #1 should go. If you drive a sled through the snow, the two lines you draw in the snow will never meet, never get closer to each other, even if you drive on forever. If you have two intersecting lines and close the angle toward zero, then at the limit the lines will have the same direction ... but at that limit they will also coincide (be identical) and hence not be parallel.
Ethics

Asymmetrical Morality Hello, I would like to know if there are ethical frameworks that can at the same time consider “good” performing action X, and not consider “bad” not performing it. The above does not seem possible with utilitarian frameworks. To give one example, it strikes me as odd that while many people would consider devolving a part of one’s salary to help the poor a “good” thing, they wouldn’t say that not devolving it is “bad”. Good if you do, OK if you don’t ... Thanks in advance.

Yes, there are such views. Some ethicists deploy the controversial notion of the supererogatory: of conduct beyond the call of duty. They might give an example such as this. If you risk your life to save a child from a burning building, you have done something very good. But if you decide not to risk your life for the child, you have done nothing wrong. Many ethicists also recognize imperfect duties. These are duties that leave the agent some discretion about when to act on the duty in question and how much to do. For example, we have a duty to help the poor. But we are not duty-bound to do as much as we can for every poor person. It is wrong (for a reasonably well-to-do person) never to help at all. But it may not be wrong to do less than one might and less than others similarly situated. There could then be persons who fulfill their imperfect duties alongside other, similarly situated persons who do more. The latter act especially well, but the former do not act badly.
Ethics

Hi, I'm writing about the Act-Omission idea within consequentialism. Is it the case that consequentialists would argue that there is no moral significance between an act or an omission if they cause the same consequences??? Therefore, one who carries out an action and causes a set of consequences is no different to one who causes the same set of consequences by omitting to perform an action?

Yes, this is the view of those who bring their consequentialism to bear upon conduct directly -- though they may also hold that there is reason to blame and punish omissions less because here blame and punishment are less effective. There are also indirect consequentialists. They bring their consequentialist assessment to bear on rules or on motives and then only indirectly on conduct. Thus they hold that we should follow the rules that are such that, if we follow them, the world will go best -- and we should follow these optimal rules even in those cases where a violation would make the world go even better. Motive consequentialists hold that we ought to have (and thus develop in ourselves and others) the motives that are such that, if we have them, the world will go best -- even though these motives will sometimes lead to conduct that is not optimal. Then there are institutional consquentialist who, like Bentham, bring their consequentialism to bear on the institutional structure of society....

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