was that documentary about the long island family, where it seemed pretty evidne that the charges were trumped up? (if so, amazing documentary ....) ... anyway i just posted an answer to a question about the possibiilty of truly unconditional love, which seems relevant here ... so check it out, when you have a moment! ... best, ap

Hm, good question. But does your question have an implicit premise -- that we do, or think we should, 'force' such people to change? When your conditions are truly met -- they're happy, not dangerous, and, presumably, adequately self-sufficient -- I'm not sure many people DO think we should treat them 'just for the sake of sanity' .... There's a nice novel called "Unless," by Carol Shields, that partly explores these themes -- a young woman suddenly decides to adopt a very alternative lifestyle and her very conventional mother can't help but think there must be something 'wrong' or 'mentally unstable' about her -- raises the question of when does 'difference' become 'illness' -- which I think is just underneath the surface of your question .... hope that helps-- best, ap

Hm, good question. But does your question have an implicit premise -- that we do, or think we should, 'force' such people to change? When your conditions are truly met -- they're happy, not dangerous, and, presumably, adequately self-sufficient -- I'm not sure many people DO think we should treat them 'just for the sake of sanity' .... There's a nice novel called "Unless," by Carol Shields, that partly explores these themes -- a young woman suddenly decides to adopt a very alternative lifestyle and her very conventional mother can't help but think there must be something 'wrong' or 'mentally unstable' about her -- raises the question of when does 'difference' become 'illness' -- which I think is just underneath the surface of your question .... hope that helps-- best, ap

Great question. You might try reading Peter Singer's recent book, "The Life You Can Save." In my view, once you start thinking this way then the most natural conclusion is that you should be, basically, a saint. That is, at almost every moment you are choosing what to do, and beyond providing for your necessities in life everything else is superfluous, or at least not necessary; and when you compare doing what is merely 'nice' for yourself with 'helping someone else in need,' you'll end up concluding, for almost each and every moment, that you should be doing nothing but helping others, once your basic minimum needs are met. But do you really think that you are morally obligated to renounce everything not absolutely necessary in your life, in order to help other people? If not, then there must be some cut-off point, some balance point -- helping others in need is obviously to be commended but it is not, at all moments, to be commanded ... (And put the other way around: if EVERYONE followed the...

Thanks for this thoughtful question, and I'm sorry for what you're all going through! However I'm not convinced this is, in the end, a 'philosophical' matter -- it sounds more like one that's for the professional psychologists and therapists .... and I wonder if it might be useful even for YOU to consult with one, to get some useful advice about how to deal with this complicated situation! (There are some philosophers with some psychology expertise, but I don't know if any of the panelists on this site are those!) best of luck! ap

Hm, your question is so deep yet so brief that one wonders what is motivating it. But perhaps a brief question initially warrants just a brief answer. I imagine that racism is a position that holds (1) that (physical) race is a meaningful/legitimate category or way of classifying human beings and that (2) different qualities tend to be found in people of different races and that (3) some of these qualities are more valuable than others. Having stated it so baldly and so roughly it is NOT obvious why it is wrong; in fact it may well be correct (although actually proposition (1) is definitely a hard one to defend empirically, and proposition (2) is so statistical in nature, admitting of so many individual exceptions, that it is probably useful as a practical guide to behavior, if that is how people who endorse (10-(3) probably want to use it.) But of course what makes it "wrong" to most people is that it is (a) factually wrong (ie either one or more of those three propositions are false, or perhaps...

One can perhaps say a similar thing re all attempts to gain knowledge: "what we judge to be true of the world is ultimately a product of our (current) standards for gaining knowledge, the theories/procedures we currently judge to be best. Those standards may be relative between cultures, and almost certainly are relative between different times/eras." But here we typically DO say "so what?", in effect: we believe whatever our current best theories tell us to believe, recognizing that later theories may tell us to believe something else. And if that's good enough for knowledge in general, why shouldn't it be good enough in ethics as well? (I take your phrasing of your question to suggest you don't think the 'so what?' answer is quite good enough; my response is meant to shore it up a bit by noting that it's all we ever have, in general, so it better be good enough or else!) hope that's useful. ap

great question, and much ink has been spilled in addressing it! ... I can't speak for hte 'many people who believe that ...', but it does seem to me that you must argue rather vigorously to support the claim that without God everything is permissible -- indeed it seems more obvious to me that whatever insights we DO have into morality we glean pretty much w/o reference to God whatsoever, and so the burden of proof is on those who think morality requires some grounding in God ... (for excellent thinkers on that question, see of course Kant and more recently George Mavrodes and also Robert Adams -- I summarize some of their ideas in my recent book "The God Question") -- Moreover, sadly, I'm not sure I accept the second premise of your question either -- there have been many cultures which not only accept but have actively supported pedophilia in its various forms (and there is a vibrant subculture alive in the US to this very day), so what you're calling "raping a child" they would indeed defend as...

nice question; but obviously answering it depends on many things ... for example I assume we're talking about an adult (though of course there's no clear cut-off age for adulthood), and you'd certainly want to clarify the mental state of the person (depressed? crazy?) as well as the physical state (ill? suffering from terminal disease?) as well as whether, most abstractly, the person has good reasons ... (financial distress? about to be murdered by Nazis? etc.) .... Since you chosen to spell out the word 'G-d' I assume you've got a religious background, so of course you may want to consult your religion -- but then again it's rare that there's absolute consensus even within a religion about specific cases -- generally major western religions at least frown upon suicide, but that fact leaves open whether others have obligations to stop a suicide in progress ... Finally, we might also distinguish the case where suicide is predictable v. suicide IS in progress -- ie it's easy to argue we may have...

I would also recommend Daniel Dennett's recent book re religious belief "Breaking the Spell" -- he has an excellent treatment of the relationship between religion and morality, which you might find useful. Another thing to consider -- not what you asked about -- is whether there is any genuinely coherent way to ground morality in religious belief, for if there isn't, then the theist has no advantages over the atheist and they both have to find alternative frameworks. And there is plenty of precedent for challenging the religious basis of morality, dating back to Plato's Euthyphro dialogue -- where Plato explores the question "are the morally right things right because the gods approve them [basing morality in religion], or do the gods approve them b/c they're right [thus basing them in something else]?' ... In my recent book "The God Question" I present a number of philosophers' views on the precise relationship between religion and morality ... and finally let me add: there is a TON of literature on...

Hm, are you asking an ethical question here? (ie it might be wrong to use your 'connections' to get into a 'better' school than you 'deserve'? I put all that in scare quotes because I think a lot of work would have to go into posing that question clearly, as an ethical question.) Or are you really asking the more practical question, "what would be best for me overall"? Re: the latter, I'd say get into the "best" school you can legitimately (ie ethically) get into -- for being surrounded by very bright people, not only faculty but especially your peers, would stretch you as far as you are capable of being stretched ... Of course you can get an excellent education in lots of different places, esp. if you are motivated and dedicated and go out to acquire it yourself -- but unless you are the type to be cowed by very accomplished peers, to feel diminished by them, then you ought to surround yourself with the best you can in order to become the best you can ....