To what extent do our words influence our perceptions? Is the whorfian hypothesis completely wrong? Does referring to "mail carriers" or "mailperson" (as opposed to "mailman") contribute to the increase of woman mail carriers? Or, does a change in our thought result in a change our words?

I hope others will add to what I have to say here. But it seems to me that the actual question you ask here is really more one for social science than for philosophy--in other words, the answer to your questions, as framed, strike me as likely to come from empirical study (which is not the main province of philosophy). My own hypothesis, for what it is worth (probably little!) is that the way we speak very much DOES influence the way we act. If I am right about this, then a legitimate philosophical question would be: How should we speak?

What, traditionally, have philosophers said about the widespread practice of 'anthropomorphizing' or 'personalizing' the powers of nature? Consider, for example: 'it was a "killer" hurricane,' or 'this year we saw evidence of the wrath of Mother Nature,' and so forth and so on. I can't quite explain why, but this way of speaking about weather-related natural phenomena has always irked me. Thank you.

I'm not sure "killer hurricane" is anthropomorphizing--"murderous hurricane" would be. "Killer" does not imply motives, just deadly effects. But to answer the rest of your question, I'm not sure I see why metaphorical language of this sort is a problem, as long as there is no reason to think that those who are talking this way--or those who are listening--are likely to take such expressions literally. Few people are so ignorant as to make this mistake, however--except, perhaps, when the powers of nature get subsumed under the powers of dieties, the result of which is a kind of ignorance that has plagued humankind since pre-history.

What is a reason (to do or believe something)? Suppose that someone who kills another person should be punished and that Ann killed somebody. Are there two reasons or just one reason to punish Ann?

Seems like one reason to me. Reasons (and reasoning) can be complex, of course, but there would be no reason to punish Ann if she did not do a punishable act, and there would be no reason to punish her if acts such as the one she did were not punishable. So the way to count the (single) reason seems to be this: Ann committed a punishable act (namely murder--not all killing seems to me to be punishable, which is why I changed your wording).

Why is it considered morally wrong for a man or a woman to have a romantic or sexual relationship with someone significantly younger than themselves?

I generally gree with Heck and Leaman have said, but would add a proviso: I am inclined to think that there is something (not without exceptions, of course--even numerous exceptions) in the kind of suspicion that people tend to have when they consider relationships between people who are unusually far apart in age--a suspicion that grows considerably more acute when the younger one is very young (i.e. a legal minor). In another response I made (on a question about animals), I noted how significant the value of reciprocation is, as a measure of relationships. People very different in age can, of course, enjoy fully reciprocal relationships. But differences in age usually also tend to be associated with differences in perspective, in interests, in worldly wisdom, and in lots of other areas that are profoundly important in relationships. So, when one tends to be suspicious of romantic relationships between people of very different ages--and all the more so when one partner is extremely young--it...

What is ethical and right - Going for someone you love or for someone who loves you a lot? (Assuming that none are one sided relationships.) - Paenna

Not quite sure I get this one: If the relationships you have in mind are not one-sided, then neither description you have provided is entirely accurate...right? So it is difficult to pin down here exactly what you are asking. Is the "someone you love" someone who also loves you back--but does not seem to love you as much as the "someone who love you a lot"? And on the basis of exactly what do you determine that one loves you less, and one loves you more? As much as I might wish to urge you most of all to choose to love--to love as much and as completely as you can--on the ground that loving grounds greatness in one's life far more than does being loved, I am also inclined to a degree of caution here. Loving another who is incapable of loving in return will not bring greatness to one's life; it will bring only misery. Loving another who merely "likes" one in return is barely better. Your specific circumstances in life are also significant--is the love you are talking about also connected...

In the UK there are the 'Page 3' models (in case you are unfamiliar with them, they are topless models that appear everyday in The Sun , usually with snippets of text about how young they are, and suggestive speech bubbles). Because The Sun is such a widely read publication and because that particular page is so popular, Page 3 is readily accessible on the bus, in the tube, on the kitchen table, in the newsagents, etc., etc. A while ago the politician Clare Short tried to get Page 3 outlawed because she said that it promoted sexism. She quickly got shouted down by other politicans and by the public who mocked her for being unattractive and whining. It seems to me that Clare Short had a point. If people, especially young kids, see this type of woman everywhere they go they might believe that woman are there to be eternally young and up for it, so to speak, and that it is okay to see them purely as sexual objects. Equality between men and women could be suffering from this, surely? Or is that...

Surely anything that promotes sexism is, to the degree and for that reason, a bad thing. Truth is, the popular media and advertising reinforce all kinds of biases and prejudices (against older people, against people who do not fit social standards of beauty or attractiveness, against poor people, against people of color--by inadequate representation, and so on and so on). The media make money from doing so, because people have the interests they have--and these interests are often sexist and biased in all of the relevant ways. So you want to ban all of the ways in which the media promote or reinforce such wrongs? Well...you will have a lot of censorship to do! On the other hand, as Pogge suggests, surely there are more important concerns (in regard to sexism specifically, and in regard to making the world a better place more generally) than becoming overly concerned that Page 3 shows the breasts of young women. Before you get too far gone in moral indignation about this issue, it...

I don't know if this is correct, but assume for a moment that it's fair to say that in the last two hundred or so years, people in the Western world believe less in God than they used to, and that in fact amongst the 'intelligentsia' a belief in God is seen as a sign of ignorance. It seems to me that if this is true there is something negative about it. There must be mystical aspects of life that science or rationality can't account for, and if the general belief in God deteriorates, what can mankind use to think about it? This might be confusing so I'll put it another way... a belief in God puts humans in a greater context than just themselves. It gives them some kind of connecting factor, and also a way to explain the abstract and intangible. If that goes, what happens to us? Can science and the mysteries of DNA and evolution accurately replace it? Don't we lose some beautiful, mysterious aspect of life? Or do we replace it with popular fiction, film, urban legends, etc? I'm sorry if this question is...

You want mysteries without God? For heaven's sake (well, maybe not...) just look around you! Despite all of the advances of science (about which, no one of us is wholly expert, nor could we even possibly be), the world will be filled with things we do not know and do not understand. Mostly, we pay no attention toi the vast amount and degree of our ignorance. Aristotle said, "Philosophy begins in wonder." From any human perspective, the world is simply filled with wonders--because our limitations will always prevent our knowing much, relative to what is out there. You want a greater context than just yourself? Just open your eyes and look around you! Think of all the other people in the world, and how different their esperiences are from yours! If you want to preserve the "beautiful, mysterious aspect of life," then for goodness sake don't give your mind away to some God (whom you could never understand anyway, and therefore who cannot at all help "to explain the abstract and intangible." Just...

I've noticed that when people show a lot of affection towards their pets, for example claiming that the pet is their best friend or grieving for a very long period of time after the pet dies or paying for expensive veterinary care even for relatively minor injuries/illnesses, other people are quite scornful and say things like, 'It's only a dog' or think that the person is crazy. This seems unfair to me. If someone did that for another human it would be seen as honourable. Why is animal companionship seen as less valuable as human companionship, or the affection that a person can feel for a pet less important than what they can feel for a human friend? It's the same thing as that most people would often rather kill a goat than kill another person. Why do we value the lives of animals so much less than humans? Is it just natural to care more about what is like us (like an extended version of racism?) Or is it because we attribute most importance to a human degree of intelligence or emotion? Should it be...

You make several points here, and I may not respond to all of them. But first, there may be any number of reasons why people regard non-human animals as not meriting the same degree of moral regard as human beings. I think (given the format of this site) it is probably best here simply to provide some basic indication of how this might be appropriate, so think of it in terms of how we value reciprocal relationships. We value our pets, in this way of thinking, because they really do reciprocate our attentions and affections--at least, as far as they are able to do so. But the reciprocation that is possible between human beings and their pets is limited--far more limited than the reciprocation that is possible between human beings. So it may not simply be a matter of valuing certain traits (e.g. intelligence) in a prejudicial way, so much as the ways in which such traits allow for richer (and more reciprocal) relationships. As for religion's regard for non-human animals, it will really depend...

Are the psycho-sexual aspects of ourselves fixated from a relatively early age, so that "turn ons" are conditioned if not unalterably then in some way that fixes in ourselves certain ideas about what it is for something to be sexual in nature? Should considerations about this act as impetus to revise any aspects of the media and popular culture, including of course, pornography, which is one of the largest domains of media-culture despite being confined to less blatant forms of presentation (than, say, advertisments for "Big Macs")? Finally, I have the idea that cyber-porn (and to a lesser extent all cyber-sex) is covertly homo-erotic when men use it to get off on "straight" screen sex. This isn't entirely true, sex is sex and breasts are breasts, but the fact that a machine which could be (not unfairly) called a "boys toy" is being used as the platform for a mathematically constructed system of media exchange (viz. the world wide web) that was developed primarily by men. Crucially, the sex scenes...

I won't endeavor to reply to all of the questions you have asked here. But I am inclined to be quite skeptical about your hypothesis that all cyber-porn is "covertly homo-erotic." I doubt that what most (or even many) of the men who find such material titillating really find interesting is the fact that the medium through which it is conveyed "was developed primarily by men" (as if the images of women conveyed via that medium were somehow incidental to the titillation). Really! I am also just a bit concerned by the vast generality of expressions such as "a male conception of sexuality." My own experiences and inquiries strongly suggest that such generalities ignore the indefinitely great varieties of sexuality and sexual experience between people of the same gender (as well as ignore the commonalities some have found with one another, despite differences in gender).

Rape is unwanted sex. Why playing in sexy films or sexy scenes as a professional obligation (i.e., being obliged to have sex with another actor/actress who is NOT necessarily beloved already) is not considered as rape? I mean, being raped by the director or producer, not by the other actor/actress who is him/herself the other victim of this rape? And why this job is considered different from prostitution? What's the position of Human Rights in these regards?

It is a little unclear precisely what you have in mind here. Love scenes in mainstream films most certainly do not require the performance of most sex acts (beyond kissing), and so could hardly constitute rape done by or to anyone. The same can be said as to why this is not prostitution, as there is very little in the way of actual sex performed in such films. Of course, real sex acts are performed in pornographic films, and it may well be that in some instances those performing these acts (or on whom they are performed) have not given their consent. By the way, I do not agree with your definition of rape. I think consent--rather than whether the sex is wanted --is what is key here. Many loving people occasionally consent to sex even when they don't really want it. I would not call that rape. In some cases I could imagine--which may occur, or even occur rather more often than we might suspect--I would call such cases extraordinary acts of love. After all, loving may involve willing...

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