You're quite right about Kant. The purposiveness--orderliness--of organisms in particular and, indeed, of nature in general, while manifest in experience, cannot themselves, according to Kant, be proven from experience. In the Critique of Judgment (henceforth referred to as 'KU' and cited from James Creed Meredith's translation, revised by Nicholas Walker [Oxford University Press, 2007]), Kant explains that the principle of the intrinsic purposiveness of organisms "must be derived from experience....But owing to the universality and necessity which that principle predicates of such purposiveness, it cannot rest on merely empirical grounds, but must have some underlying a priori principle" (§ 66). Since, however, according to Kant, and in accordance with Kant's understanding of Newtonianism, nature itself is merely a realm of efficient causes, there is no room in nature for purposiveness (KU § 66), which leads to an antinomy of teleological judgment (KU §§. 69-78, esp. §§. 69-71), very roughly...

Philosophy has cast itself in the role of the 'queen of the sciences' which stands apart from all special fields of inquiry and yet pronounces on them, and at certain times in the history of philosophy, philosophers have made 'armchair' pronouncements about particular disciplines of which they had little knowledge. Historically, however, philosophers have been engaged with the culture--science, arts and letters, etc.--of their day, and I think that philosophers are now coming more and more to recognize the importance of engaging with the work of particular disciplines if one is to do good philosophical work on those topics derived from those disciplines. (Thus, for example, when I answer questions on this site, I either answer questions that have to do with topics about which I already know something--or think I know something--even if what I know is only about the history of philosophical treatments of the topic, or about which I can learn something before I answer the question.)

It's not clear to me that the question of whether one should undergo plastic surgery even falls within the scope of morality. (Following certain recent philosophers, such as Robert Adams, T. M. Scanlon, J. B. Schneewind, and Susan Wolf, I am inclined to think that the scope of morality is actually rather narrow.) Here's one way to frame the issue in terms of morality. If one thought that one's body has been entrusted to one by God to preserve, then one may think it impermissible, indeed a transgression against God's will, if one were to tamper with that body. But then, it would seem, such a person would also be unwilling to lift weights, use make-up, go to the hair salon, etc.. This, however, seems to me to be a somewhat implausible position, that would have all sorts of problematic consequences, especially when one considers medical care (Christian Scientists encounter problems on this score). To my mind, it seems that one has the right to do with one's body what one pleases, and the only...

One might argue for this conclusion as follows: the way things look, sound, taste, feel, etc.--what some philosophers call 'secondary qualities'--cannot be identical to any physical properties, because physical properties of things are either what philosophers have called 'primary qualities'--e.g., size, shape, motion, and the like--or they are more fundamental properties of physical systems, to which secondary qualities are not identical; consequently, secondary qualities are not reducible to physical properties. (Admittedly, this is a highly schematic argument. It should, however, be noted that someone who endorsed an argument like this might of course admit that although secondary qualities are not identical or reducible to any physical property, of course secondary qualities are related to physical qualities, perhaps even in a lawlike way, that admits of scientific investigation.)

The donkey in question is usually referred to as 'Buridan's ass' (although there is some question as to whether the example is properly attributed to the medieval philosopher John Buridan .) The early modern philosopher G. W. Leibniz was quite fond of this example, and appealed to Buridan's ass in order to elucidate his view that there was no such thing as a completely indifferent decision, that is, a decision made on the basis of no reason whatsoever. According to Leibniz, if the ass were in the hypothesized position and were indeed indifferent to the two piles of hay, then the ass would not be able to decide between them, and would consequently starve. Of course, the ass doesn't starve. Leibniz drew the conclusion that the reason that the ass wouldn't starve was because the ass wasn't actually indifferent to the bales of hay: according to Leibniz, there must be some difference between the two bales of hay, or in the ass's relation to the bales of hay--that is, some difference in the ass's...

I can understand the concern that one might have about causing sentient beings pain--which may be a reason not to kill or slaughter animals--but it's not clear to me that one should go so far as to claim that all sentient beings have rights, or at least the right not to be treated as property--perhaps all sentient beings have a right not to be harmed, or subjected to pain, but it's not clear to me why all sentient beings have the right not to be treated as property. Hence it's not clear to me that this is indeed a good basis for the decision not to eat eggs. It seems to me that some other justification needs to be given for veganism.

I think that only one person is in a position to grant forgiveness--the person from whom one is seeking forgiveness. When one seeks forgiveness, one is asking someone against whom one has trespassed in some way to absolve one of the trepass, and, thus to restore your relationship, and only the particular person is in a position to do so. Forgiveness thus, I think, belongs to the class of what the philosopher J. L. Austin called "performative utterances": actions, such as promising, christening, and marrying--there are many others--that are undertaken by saying something. And just as not just anyone can marry two people by saying 'I now pronounce you husband and wife'--in order for this to, as Austin says, "come off," the person who utters the words must have the authority to marry two people, and utter those words in the right circumstances--not just anyone can grant forgiveness by saying 'I forgive you' or the equivalent: only the person from whom forgiveness is being sought can grant forgiveness to...

I think that the answer to this question depends on what one take a thought to be. If by 'thought', one means an actual, occurrent mental state, then surely it is possible to have a thought that no one else has ever had: if sensory perceptions are thoughts, then every distinct event that one experiences is a thought that no one else has ever had (or will ever have again, for that matter); if thoughts are taken to be conceptually mediated, and hence--here I simplify--linguistically mediated, then, given that we often generate new sequences of words that have never been uttered before (as we learn from Chomsky), then surely many of our linguistically mediated thoughts will constitute new sequences of words, and, hence, be thoughts that no else has ever had before. But it is more likely that by 'thought' was meant the content of the thought--that is, what one was thinking about. Given that one may think about one's sensory experiences, it seems to be trivially true that the contents of one's thoughts were...

There are actually ongoing efforts, in Western Massachusetts, to teach philosophy to younger children. The practice was treated in a relatively recent New York Times article. (You might also check out the Philosophy for kids site.) On the basis of the work cited in the Times article, and on the basis of my own (relatively limited) experience with younger children, it seems to me that younger children are naturally inquisitive about philosophical questions. Whether teaching philosophy to young children would help or harm them in life, is, I think, more a matter of whether one thinks philosophy is helpful or harmful to life, which is itself a deep question about the nature of philosophy and its value that has provoked much disagreement from philosophers over the centuries. I myself am inclined to think that the kinds of inquiries that philosophy promotes can only be beneficial to anyone who engages in them, but I of course have a vested interest in holding that opinion!

If by 'feeling sorry' for an action, it is meant that the action is regretted, then it seems to me that one may sincerely regret an action and nevertheless for some reason commit a similar action. (That an agent repeats an action that s/he sincerely regretted may reveal something deep about the agent's character--for example, that s/he is unreflective--but I don't think that the fact of such a repetition undermines the sincerity of the agent's regret. After all, s/he certainly did feel regret, assuming that s/he correctly reported her feelings, and so the fact of her feeling regret cannot be called into question unless one is willing to attribute a very deep lack of self-knowledge to the agent.) I think that some of the philosophical significance of this question arises from its connection with the nature of apology, a topic that has received some attention from philosophers, albeit less than one might think the topic merits, given its deep and pervasive importance to human relations. At...