What's the relationship of freedom to justice? Where is the balance between the two? Is freedom protecting the rights of individuals and justice protecting the rights of communities and societies against the wills of free individuals? Again, how can we find the balance and where is it?

I must honestly say that this question is beyond my capacity and perhaps beyond anyone's. I have my doubts that a clear, enduring point of balance between the two can be formulated--or even that it's meaningful to think about formulating one. Perhaps the best thing to say is that the important thing here is to understand the problem and to acquire some sense empirically about the kinds of abuse and failure that are likely to arise with different ways of addressing it. Having done this, a continuing conversation/argument/struggle/scrutiny of the current state of things should be sustatined. The answer then is not some particular point of balance but rather the establishement of a persistent means of deliberation, review, and revision of the issue. Consult the work of Chantal Mouffe on radical democracy on this score.

What books are most important for a neophyte philosopher to read?

I recommend Plato's Apology , Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy , Camus's Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays , Bryan Magee's The Story of Philosophy , David Cooper's anthologies, and perhaps The Philosopher's Toolkit .

Is the sentence of death really a punishment? Yes, the man/woman who committed the act loses their life, but doesn't it also mean that the person in the end gets away with the act that he/she committed? Wouldn't it make more sense to punish this person with life in prison without the possibility of parole? It just seems to me that the death sentence is just a way to show sympathy or mercy towards criminals. It seems that this would be a harsher punishment; just sitting in your cell day by day, for the rest of the person's life.

An interesting thought. My suspicion, however, is that most sentenced to death would prefer life in prison. That may not conclusively demonstrate much, but if true it at least shows that those convicted of crimes regard life in prison as a less severe punishment. Keep in mind that even inside a cell the mind may enjoy wide expanses, and if Aristotle is correct there are even very simple pleasures bound up with the mere act of living and perceiving the world. Then, of course, prison does offer some opportunities for sociability, for reading, for entertainment, and for contemplation. There is a sense, however, that you are right in saying that the criminal has still gotten away with it--namely, no punishment or repentance can fully restore the state of affairs that preceded the crime. Those murdered, for example, can never be brought back. In a sense, despite their defeat the Nazis did "get away" with killing millions and millions of innocent people. But this defficiency remains true of all options...

Hume lobs some pretty convincing skepticism at the entire discipline of philosophy in the last chapter of his Enquiry . Besides Kant, have other philosophers tackled these doubts head-on? Since his skepticism is not just about metaphysics, but about all philosophy, do contemporary analytic philosophers regard these doubts seriously?

Hume's skepticism is a fascinating thing, isn't it. For myself, I suspect you and I differ on what it means to say that his skepticism is about "all philosophy." In my view, while I think that in a sense that's true, it doesn't follow for Hume that philosophy is pointless. Rather, his skepticism undermines a certain species of philosophy, what he calls "false philosophy," i.e. a kind of rationalistic dogmatism. Hume endorses in the Enquiry and elsewhere a curious kind of what he calls "true" philosophy, which amount to something like, as he characterizes it, "the reflections of common life methodized and corrected" (EHU Section XII, 130 [162]; cf. Section V). That's what he means by his "mitigated" or "academical" philosophy. Although I don't fully agree with his account, may I recommend Donald W. Livingston's books, "Hume's Philosophy of Common Life" and "Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium." The account of scepticism in the latter is closer to my own, but the former lays out in greater...

I'm applying to very competitive doctoral programs in philosophy. Everything in my application package is stellar except for my GRE scores. How much do admissions committees at competitive programs weigh GRE scores? Does Math matter more than Verbal? Is there a general baseline score I should try to aim at getting over?

Unfortunately, GRE 's tend to be very important. Of course, the extent to which they matter or don't matter and the weighting of verbal and math (not to mention baselines) depends upon the specific institution, even the specific composition of the admissions committee, which will vary from year to year. Nevertheless, do what you can to improve your scores. In my experience, verbal tends to be more important. Try to score well into the 90s.
War

Dear Philosopher, If I and many others believe in true democracy, where everybody votes, why do we still have war, civil and with other countries? Tate Putnins, 13 yrs, Box Hill (Melbourne), Victoria, Australia

I might add two bits to Oliver's remarks: 1. Democracies actually exhibit a rather militant history. 2. Wars of aggression, even if supported by a majority, would still, I think, violate important precepts of democracy. Democracy is not simply, after all, majority rule. It also involves protecting minorities and individuals (including the individuals of other nations) from the predation of the state and of majorities. A war of agreession civilly or internationally would violate these prinicples. Wars of self-defense or for the sake of protecting human rights are another matter.
War

Are nuclear weapons kosher?

I hesitate to make an absolute declaration, but for nearly all purposes the answer must be "no." They are simply too indiscriminate in their application, destroy disproportionally on too vast a scale, and cause too much suffering and too much environmental damage. There may well be, however, rare occasions when their use is warranted. In the case of bombing cities, I can't imagine a situation that would warrant their use, though that may say as much about my imagination as about nuclear weapons. With regard to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, besides the alternatives of conventional warfare and negotiated surrender, one might I think make a case for dropping the weapon over the sea or on an unpopulated land mass before using it on human populations.

Why isn't Christianity considered evil? After reading the Bible, I noticed that homosexuality is 'abominable', that if anyone chooses to work on a sunday then they should be 'put to death', that slavery is fine, animal sacrifice is fine and that the mentally-ill are possessed by the devil. Why then, do we not actively supress Christianity? How can a Christian legitimately believe that homosexuality, for example, is fine and still call themselves a Christian, despite what it says in the Bible? It seems to me that it is an evil moral theory to subscribe to.

A good and courageous question in my book. First, you should know that there are quite a few philosophers who have regarded Christianity as morally unsound. Nietzsche is perhaps the best known among them. For myself, I have argued that common Abrahamic conceptions of God are immoral (see "The Moral Imperative to Rebel Against God"). But your question calls for some qualification of its own: Don't assume that the Bible defines Christianity. It's true that some Christians hold that the Bible is literally true and inerrant in every statement and command. Most, however, don't accept this view of Scripture. Rather, they hold that some parts of the Bible are today inapplicable, other parts erroneous, and other parts metaphor, symbol, or fable (including the portions you cite). From this point of view, it's not the Bible that defines the Christian church but the church (or community of believers, anyway) that decides how to interpret and what to do with Scripture. Remember that in the early days...

I think that religion is just one's way to answer their own questioning of the meaning of life. Those without religion (like atheists and even agnostics) I believe do not have that internal need to find a meaning, so they do not turn to religion. Believing in God or a god gives a shorthand answer to life: that we were created to live. What are your thoughts?

Religion is a terribly important and interesting affair, isn't it. For myself, I'm a bit unsure about the "just" of your first sentence. I think that simply on empirical terms there can be no question that religion gives a sense of meaning to some people's lives. I have my doubts that religion is "just" or only that. I think that there are many, many (perhaps countless) factors that play into the existence and persistence of religion, among them a projection of parental authority, a desire to explain natural phenomena, an unwillingness to live with ambiguity or to accept human finitude, fear of death, compelling personal experiences, loneliness, custom, peer pressure, the instruction of authority figures, a need to come to terms with suffering, a desire to feel that one's own views are true and good, etc., etc., etc. You may be right about atheists and agnostics--that they lack some need that the religious have. But I also think that atheists and agnostics may simply find (or create) meaning...

What are the most important similarities and differences between "Literature" and "Philosophy"? Akbar Baharlou

First, I would like to say that I don't think there's a clear or distinct line marking the difference between "literature" and "philosophy." Rather, I think that philosophy is a type of literature, or better a family of sub-types of literature. My own sense is that for any specified criteria distinguishing philosophy and literature, significant exceptions can be found. Plato and Kierkegaard use characters and plot, Kundera writes essays, Nietzsche is poetic, Berkeley wrote dialogues, Heraclitus and Wittgenstein are oracular, aphoristic and paradoxical, Dostoevsky uses arguments, etc. Having said this, as a rule one might say that philosophy uses fictitious character, plot, setting, and poetic trope in a less central way. It's easier to think of philosophy without plot or character or metaphor than it is to think of fiction or poetry. One might also, I think, say that philosophy has more often aspired to formulating general truths and doing so through modes of argumentation, while other forms...

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