Can we learn anything from fiction?

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...

The painter Gauguin abandoned his wife and family. Which seems a pretty rotten thing to do. Eventually he went to the South Seas to paint. He painted masterpieces. So now his abandoning of his family doesn't look so rotten after all. However, if aesthetic opinion changes and Gauguin's work comes to be classed as second-rate, his abandoning of the family once again takes on a sinister aspect. Can the consequences of an action determine its moral value so clearly?

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.) ...

If a moral agent (a person) commits an act that he/she believes to be a morally right act, but it turns out the act is morally wrong, is that person blameworthy for committing it?

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...

It seems to me that people are strangely concerned that determinism means that they don't have free will. Could you explain why this view is common? Even if a decision is a result how the universe was before they made someone makes their decision, part of the universe was them. So if they are the person who wanted to make the decision, how can they believe that they didn't have a choice. They did have a choice, they just made the one they wanted, because they didn't want the other choice. In short, why is determinism seen as so incompatible with free will?

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...

Having just read Dawkins's The God Delusion I was appalled to learn how reviled atheists are in America. In Europe a person's stance (including politician's) on religion is largely irrelevant unless they draw attention to it. What is going on in America? What should skeptics and atheist philosophers do there to point out that atheism is a reasoned and logical viewpoint that doesn't presuppose immorality, etc.? It beggars belief that all presidential aspirants have to (in some cases as Dawkins remarks) probably pretend to be Christians in order to have any chance of being elected. I know of the Atheist's Wager, acceptance of which seems braver to me than blindly accepting the religious promises of heaven as dictated by those who brought you up. And what place do 'faith-based initiatives' have in an ostensibly secular government where church and state are separate under the constitution?

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.

I am a recent vegetarian, as well as a lifetime determinist with an anxiety disorders, which typically manifests itself in obsessions with my health and my obligation to myself to maintain physical health without unnecessary detriment to my mental health and the lives of other animals and the environment. Since becoming a vegetarian, I find myself in a bind regarding the amount of stress that has been placed on me, in concern for my health, compared to the rather small impact my vegetarianism has on the environment. I CANNOT, in keeping with my principles, eat a terrestrial animal that suffers as I do. However, my reasons for not eating fish are mostly environmental. Since my stress would be mostly alleviated by the inclusion of fish oil in my diet, over say flax---which, like soy, messes up my estrogen levels, thereby exacerbating other psychological problems, and the alternative (flax instead of fish) has such a minimal effect on the fishing industry and the environment, is it ethically justifiable for...

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!

"And whoever forces himself to love anybody begets a murderer in his own body." (D.H. Lawrence, 'Retort to Jesus'). Self-help books advise that we can fall in love with whom we chose, that we can choose to love, to re-ignite love, etc. What is your opinion?

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...

If I had a device that could manipulate people's wants (like make them want to give me free money for no reason) would that take away their free will?

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...

Can you give me some good examples of things that philosophers have produced throughout history. The reason I'm asking this question is this: I can think of many things that scientists (including mathematicians) have produced but I cannot think of any thing that philosophers have produced. Ahmet Thanks

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...

Suppose a man commits murder and is then promptly involved in a car crash that leads to complete loss of all his memories prior to the car crash. The police have indisputable proof that the man did indeed commit the murder. Should they prosecute? If you conclude that they should because in some sense he's physically the same person what if a murderer somehow makes a copy of themselves and then commits suicide, should the copy be prosecuted? If you conclude that they shouldn't be prosecuted because the person after the accident is a different person from before the accident what if there's indisputable evidence that all of their memories will return in 5 years? 5 weeks? 5 days? To my mind the person after the accident is a different person from the one who committed the murder and should therefore not be prosecuted. If the memories return then they should be prosecuted but we shouldn't punish them for a crime "they" didn't commit. But I am unsure as to how much of their memories need to return before...

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...

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