I agree with Mitch Green's response with regard to the possibility of controlling our beliefs indirectly. But in the case of a jury member instructed to ignore certain evidence, it is not really belief that is at issue. The jury member is asked to reach a conclusion following certain legal guidelines, but there is no requirement that the juror believe that conclusion -- and thus no requirement that the legal guidelines constrain belief. A jury member can wholeheartedly believe that a defendant is guilty yet confidently cast a "not guilty" vote -- because her belief is based on impermissible evidence. Some philosophers (Jonathan Cohen and Michael Bratman, for example) use the term "acceptance" as opposed to "belief" to refer to an attitude of endorsement that is restricted to certain contexts or concerns. In the case of a jury member, the endorsement is restricted to legal contexts; in the case of an actor, the endorsement is restricted to a theatrical context; and in the case of an athlete,...

There are no agreed upon answers to your questions, but here are some possibilities: Some philosophers (including myself) think of sensations as as a special class of perceptions -- namely, perceptions of one's own internal bodily states. When I perceive (versus infer) that my stomach is cramping, it is a sensation; and when I have an aching sensation, it is a perception of a bodily state. If this is right, then it is possible to have a perception (of a nearby house, say) without having a sensation (of tension in one's muscles, say)-- unless our awareness of external states is always accompanied by some awareness, however minimal, of our own internal states (our awareness of the house requiring some awareness of its effect on one's own body). Other philosophers think of sensations as the sensuous qualities (or "qualia") that accompany many experiences. The sensuous quality of redness and the sensuous quality of a minor chord count as sensations on this view. If someone can perceive that an...

I'm sure that some philosophers, like many non-philosophers, are dodgy when asked a question. This tendency can be fueled by worries about unpopularity or future recriminations, for example. I'm also sure that some questions deserve dodgy answers. If you ask me whether you should give up your job in order to take care of your mother, I will be rightly reluctant to give you a direct answer since I cannot have knowledge all of the relevant considerations (even if you try to share them all with me), and since this is not the sort of decision that one person should make for another. I suspect, however, that most cases of what you are calling "dodgy" answers are actually just very complex answers -- answers that spend a lot of time trying to clarify the terms of the question, and answers that include lots of conditionals (If ____, then ____; but if ___, then ____; etc.). If you ask whether or not we have free will, for example, I will first want to say quite a lot about the different things...

Usually, when philosophers identify certain emotions as negative emotions, they are referring to emotions that include or result from a negative judgment -- such as the judgment that something is bad, or unjust, or harmful. Since there are many things that are bad, or unjust, or harmful, there is nothing wrong about making such judgments or having such emotions. Indeed, it would be worrisome if people never made negative judgments and never felt negative emotions. It is widely assumed that a happy life is preferable to an unhappy life; certainly most people, given the choice, would choose a happy life over an unhappy life. But negative feelings can actually contribute to our overall happiness insofar as they are a sign of meaningful connections to one's surroundings (the cheery but deluded life is not as happy as a wise but sometimes sad life). Happiness may not be as important as we think it is, though. A recent book by Barbara Ehrenreich, entitled Bright-Sided , makes several good points...

Your question concerns the nature of our rights and obligations with respect to our future selves. My answer shall simply assume, as I think you do, that the angel's prediction is utterly reliable, that there won't be other ways to access Kenny G music in the future, that the pleasure of my future self is not immoral, and that stocking up on Kenny G records is not a huge inconvenience to your present self. The rationality of your decision then depends on two things: (1) how much you care about your future self, and (2) how much you care that your future self be like your present self. (1) Some people care a lot about their future selves and try to plan accordingly -- making sacrifices in the present in order to secure the happiness of future selves, and taking pleasure in the mere contemplation of a future self's happiness. Others care much less -- investing little in the happiness of future selves, and finding little pleasure in the contemplation of a future self's happiness. This contrast is...

The fact that one thing causes another does not mean than the second could not exist without the first. Consider the case of a forest fire, for example. A carelessly flung match could be the cause, and yet (a) the fire could continue even after the match is destroyed, and (b) other things, such as a bolt of lightning, could substitute for the match as cause of the fire. Similarly, one could think (a) that brain activity causes consciousness, but consciousness can continue even after the brain is destroyed, or (b) that things other than brain activity, e.g. cosmic vibrations, could also cause consciousness. Without evidence to support these possibilities, they remain mere possibilities; but they do show why the causal relation you cite does not "destroy an ideas of an afterlife". If you think that an individual's consciousness is not just caused by the activity of her brain but is identical with it, then that consciousness must indeed cease when the activity of that brain ceases. But many...

You describe two different standards for judging the significance of one's life. The first measures its significance by the size of its contribution to a long history that includes billions of other human lives. The second measures its significance by the degree to which it matters to oneself. One could quarrel about just how small one's contribution to human history really is, or just how important one's own life is to oneself, but the tension that is created between these two standards remains. Some philosophers (e.g. Lucretius) have recommended that we adopt the longer, more "objective" view, and cease to view our own lives as particularly important. Others (e.g. Sartre) have insisted that a truly "objective" view makes no distinctions between what is significant and what is not, for there is no value at all apart from the cares and concerns of a particular subject. Still others (e.g. Thomas Nagel) have suggested that human life requires us to sustain both of these irreconcilable perspectives ...

I agree with your observation that (at least for the most part) beliefs will make us happy on account of their content, not on accout of how they are formed -- rationally versus irrationally. And unlike Alexander George, I think that this observation presents a significant challenge to Peter Smith's claim that irrational beliefs are not likely to lead to actions that get us what we want -- since actions that result from false but happy-making beliefs may often create more happiness than actions that result from true but sad-making beliefs. A simple, and common, example is the case where a seriously ill person's false and irrational belief that they are now out of danger actually helps them to recover. Another common example is that of the person whose overconfidence actually improves their likelihood of success.

There is one very general reason and two more specific reasons that philosophers are interested in the question of whether consciousness is identical to a particular bodily state. The general reason is this: we are interested in knowing what the most basic constituents of the world are, and how they are related. If consciousness is not identical to a bodily state, then wewant to know what sort of thing it is and how it seems to be able tointeract with the body. But if consciousness is identical to a particular pattern of brain waves, for example, then we are justified in thinking that mental states are not something different than physical states and consciousness can be understood through the study of the brain. In short, we want to clarify different categories of existence, eliminating the confusions that result from thinking that there are two (or more) things when there is just one, or thinking that that there is just one thing when there are actually two (or more). A more...

If you assume that the air might really be cold, and the car might really be green, then I can think of two situations in which it is more appropriate to say "I feel cold" and "The car seems to be green": 1. You have doubts about whether the temperature really is low (perhaps you are getting sick),or whether the car really is green (perhaps the light is especially low). Conversely, you may want to assert that "It is cold" even though you do not feel it (perhaps because you just emerged from a hot bath) and "the car is green" even though you see it as blue (perhaps because you are colorblind). 2. You want to sound tentative or accommodating of other views (even though you may be quite confident of your own judgment). It may be more polite or friendly to say "I feel cold" or "It looks green" when others disagree. I suspect, though, that your concern arises from the conviction that properties like coldness and greenness do not exist independently of a subject who feels cold or sees green. ...