I was hoping you could help me with something personal. My general question is, is there any philosophically rigorous defense for being lazy? Here are the specifics: I'm 20. My parents started me playing cello since I was 4: weekend music school, recitals, the whole bit. And I enjoyed it while I did it, and got good at it. Now I'd like to stop. Naturally, my parents are up in arms: "you can't stop." "why not?" "because 1) you've invested so much time. 2) you owe it to yourself to continue. 3) it's part of who you are, you like it, and it's in your best interest to continue. You shouldn't abandon a rewarding activity just because you're lazy. 4) you have the potential to bring others joy through your music". How do I respond to these claims? I feel like the ideas behind the claims traffic in philosophy, that there are equally philosophically defensible rebuttals, and that I don't know them. As another piece of information, and I think this applies to a lot of young people caught in this...

You could give your parents the argument that laziness is better than nothing, and nothing is better that than the most rewarding activity, so laziness is better than the most rewarding activity. But then again, that argument is fallacious. In fact, maybe your parents are right. But you might argue that staying with the cello only makes sense if you will really find it rewarding in the long term, and the fact that you do not find it rewarding after sixteen years of playing is powerful evidence that you will not find it rewarding in the long term. This argument hardly amounts to a proof, but at least it isn't fallacious.

Why do vegetarians, vegans, etc. propose a different set of rules for animals? After all, humans are animals too. Why can a lion kill and eat an antelope wheras a human cannot? Why does it matter that we do not 'need too'?

I agree with Alex that animals are not morally accountable: they cannot be morally blameworthy (or praiseworthy). What is harder to explain is why we don't have a responsibility to prevent animals from hurting each other. This is an unnatural thought, yet perhaps technically we would have this responsibility, if we could also find an alternative diet for the natural carnivores. But given how awful is our own treatment of animals, we should perhaps concentrate on getting our own act together first.

Is the use of animals in scientific research justified?

This is a difficult question that understandably raises strong emotions. Some animal research has yielded significant benefit to humans, in drug development and in many other areas. But these human benefits have been purchased at the cost of animal harms, and it is natural to worry whether this is fair. Some people are reassured about the morality of animal experimentation by the fact that we kill so many more animals for meat than we do for research, or by the fact that more rodents are killed by cats than by scientists. But it is not clear that we should be morally reassured by these facts. Some would argue that even though animal suffering is bad and morally significant, animal death is does not have the same moral significance as human death, because of various abilities that humans have to conceptualise and to anticipate that animals lack. So one might be able to justify killing animals in experiments, if their suffering is sufficiently low. (Similarly, one might think that it is morally...

As a veggie, I am continually conscious that I have made a moral choice which does not fit with society's morals on the issue (in general). I believe that in this world of choice, I can have an adequate diet without the need to kill animals. What does the panel feel about this issue?

There is a story about someone who came up to a well-known moral philosopher in a restaurant and asked him what he thought about the arguments for vegetarianism. "I've actually thought quite a bit about some of those arguments, and I'm half-convinced by them", he replied. "So I don't eat meat for lunch."

If determinism is true, does this undermine morality? Would Hitler be morally equal to Gandhi because both are pre-determined to act the way they did? Should this affect the anger we feel towards 'immoral' people?

This is a big question, but I will just tell a story familiar to philosophers working in the area. A man is found guilty of a crime, and is allowed to give a brief speech before sentencing. He admits the crime, but claims not only to be a criminal but also a philosopher, and one who has convinced himself of the truth of determinism. Since everything he did was determined by causes before he was born, he could not have done otherwise but commit the crime. So surely he should not be punished. The judge, having listened carefully to all this, admits that she too has a sideline in philosophy, and that she too is a determinist. So she cannot help but punish him. When we consider the relationship between determinism and responsibility, we have a tendency not to be entirely constent. Thus we may think that we should not punish criminals nor feel anger towards them. But what is the force of this 'should' if we too are determined?

Is it morally wrong to make someone happy by telling them an amusing story about a third party's bad misfortune?

I can't tell it the way he can, but Woody Allen has a story about how he had a chest pain and was very worried that he had a serious heart problem. Being too cheap to pay for the tests, he convinces his friend, who has a similar pain, to have the tests instead. The next he hears, his friend is dead. So Woody immediately has a battery of very expensive tests, only to be told that he has nothing worse than indigestion. Very annoyed at having paid all that money for nothing, he calls his friend's mother and asks whether his friend suffered much. 'No, the bus hit him and that was it', replied the mother. Call me callous, but it made me happy to hear this amusing story about a third party's bad misfortune, and I don't think there was anything morally wrong about Woody Allen telling the story. But maybe it's crucial to the morality here that the story was made up. I'm not sure.

What is the relationship between law and morality? Is the law simply a branch of morality?

Philosophers of law spend a lot of time arguing over this question. This is not surprising since, on the one hand, there seems clearly to be some close connection; but on the other hand there are both actions that are immoral but not illegal (e.g. not keeping a promise) and actions actions that are illegal but not immoral (e.g. breaking an law requiring people to turn in escaped slaves).

If someone is tolerant, in the sense that they accept, and do not wish to change, views held by others which are different from their own, are they obliged to tolerate intolerance in others?

If I am committed to tolerating all of other people's views, then I am committed to tolerating their intolerance views. What your question shows is that if what I care about is tolerance generally, and not just my own tolerance, then I should be more discriminating.

I don't believe in any sort of a god, or supreme being, or flying spaghetti monster, and as a consequence I don't have any expectations or fear about what happens after I die. Up till now I've always behaved ethically--in a socially responsible way, more or less--it's been convenient. However, it's more or less a habit, layered on early canalisation of moral training by religious parents. Can you give me a reason for continuing to behave in an ethical fashion? Is there a compelling philosophical reason for being 'good'--assuming I'm not afraid of punishment, or don't expect to get caught?

This is a question that has bugged philosophers since at least Plato. Suppose you have a clever, rational jerk, that is, a person who just doesn't want to do the right thing. Is there any argument we can give him that would force him to be moral if he remains rational? I have not seen such an argument, so I'm inclined to suppose that moral motivation depends on the existence of some desire to be decent. But perhaps one could argue that a person without a shred of moral motivation or sympathy for others would be so different from you or me that we would have trouble seeing such a person as a rational agent rather than as a monster.

Despite the common perception, is there actually anything really wrong with being hypocritical?

Being hypocritical might mean that I argue for a standard of behavior that I do not myself meet. Thus I might argue that all parents should send their children to public (state) schools, even though I send my children to a private school. My behavior does not undermine whatever force my argument may have. In that sense, it is not wrong. But there is a sense in which I must be getting something wrong: either the claim I am arguing for or my behavior. Still, I am not necessarily misrepresenting myself. If on the other hand, what you mean by 'being hypocritical' is that I misrepresent my own position, say by saying that parents ought to send their children to public school when I don't believe that, then we haves the wrong of dishonesty.

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