Yes, I think you're right. Many will complain that this sort of thinking leads to eugenics or worse. Others will complain that all life is a gift, so there can be no bad life. Personally I think these objections can be overcome. There are major kinks that need to be straightened out, however. These kinks come in the form of ambiguities: How much risk is significant? Who decides how to weigh such risks? What constitutes a bad life? Does it mean it is a life which the live-r would be better off without? Can this really be judged ahead of time, before the individual in question is born (and thus without his or her first-hand testimony)? Will this have implications for lives that are already here and are already 'bad'? Despite these worries, I still think you're right. The abuser who cannot control his worst impulses around children, for example, ought not parent. (By the way, much of our discussion here assumes a world where teens and adults are reproductively empowered - where birth control...

I have a couple of suggestions for you. The first is to look into books that pair philosophical analysis with contemporary culture. Both Open Court Press and Wiley-Blackwell have book series of this nature (called "Popular Culture and Philosophy" and "Philosophy for Everyone," respectively) . For example, there are books on comic book characters, television shows, sports, and many other topics that will appeal to high school students. The articles in such books are designed for a general audience. The entire book will not be about just ethics, but I can promise each book of this type will have several articles about ethics. It might be worth getting your school or local library to stock a selection. (Disclosure: I myself have published an article in one.) Another idea is to look to literary classics that have ethical themes. If you would like an ethics anthology you might try Peter and Renata Singer's The Moral of the Story (Blackwell 2005). This book is nice because it features short...

I think the basic reason why it is acceptable to sterilize non-human animals and not impoverished people is that animals do not have reproductive rights, but people do. I think it is a fundamental human right to have choices regarding when to have children, with whom to have them, and how many to have. Being very poor does not weaken one's claim on human rights. (Even people who philosophically or religiously object to contraception believe in reproductive rights to a limited extent. They believe they have the right to let nature or God make the reproductive choices for them.) Animals, on the other hand, have no reproductive rights. This may seem odd, given the recent progress in animal rights. I am sure there are animal right activists who believe that pets ought to reproduce without human intervention, but this must be a small minority. Most mainstream animal rights groups urge sterilization to benefit animal welfare.

If I remember correctly, the first department of psychology in the United States came from the basement of Harvard's philosophy building (or so one story goes). Today it is not uncommon in Britain to find physics departments of universities still identified as departments of 'natural philosophy.' A jaundiced view of these trends is that once a philosophical enterprise begins to gain acclaim it gets a new name and more funding. The Greek word 'philosopher' means 'lover of wisdom.' I think this means anyone interested in contemplating the human condition has a good claim on the title. As far as the psychoanalyst vs. philosopher debate goes, I think the authors you mentioned surely count as both. I think what marks psychoanalysts as separate sub-group is that they belong to a school of thought (i.e., they have shared ideas about method, ontology, and epistemology). Those who would identify themselves as 'cognitive scientists' or 'philosophers of mind' are investigating very similar questions...

Yes. The reason is that when it comes to human relationships, "all things" are never equal. I mean that we are not equally positioned to strangers and siblings. We have more connection to our siblings than to strangers. Notice this does not mean we automatically have satisfying relationships with our siblings, mothers, stepsons, in-laws, and other relatives. It means just that we are more closely connected to them. In the case of siblings, the connection is (for many people) is a double-stranded connection of shared experiences and biology. So if you rescue your sibling before a stranger from a burning building, others would see this choice as reasonable, as emotionally sound, and therefore justified. Even if the stranger died I believe people would console you by saying that they themselves would have made the same choice. Now, if the connection between siblings is fraught with strife (for example, mutual jealousy and distrust left over from unhappy childhoods) there may be good reason to...

I really like this question because I have often wondered the same thing! What follows is merely an answer-in-progress. There are several related concerns touching this question. One is to consider resources at the macro level. According to Prof. Singer's book One World , the average American burns more than 5 tons of carbon a year while the average Japanese burns about 1.6 tons. The average Indian burns .3 tons a year. Assuming that burning carbon hurts our atmosphere, the planet, and thus all living creatures, the last thing the world needs is more Americans - be they adopted or biological children! Therefore, American movie stars who adopt African children are not doing the planet any favors, given the resources those Americanized children will likely consume as they grow up. But this resources analysis seems rather heartless, no? I think it is heartless because it prioritizes something abstract - important, but abstract - over the needs of particularly helpless...

First, I think you should cut yourself some slack. You won’t have the same chemistry with every child or with every class. Sometimes we just do like some people more than others. Your concern seems to be that the children you enjoy are the ones who are “smart.” Presumably, their academic brightness and good behavior are not praiseworthy any more than the slowness and poor behavior of their fellows are blameworthy: they are, after all, are just children. First, I would separate being smart from being well behaved. There is a case to be made for praising good behavior in that it positively reinforces and sets examples for others. Are the poorly behaved children, who perhaps are driven by uncontrollable, chemical compulsions to act out, being treated unfairly when you praise the attentive, calm listeners? I don’t think so. The trick for you will be to ‘catch’ the usually squirming, boisterous children doing something - anything - right and praise them lavishly. (“Johnny, you’ve sat at your desk for...

Since you have checked out the Leiter page you must have seen the Continental rankings there. My understanding is that his report has been expanded in the past few years to include Continental philosophy, feminist theory, applied ethics and other approaches that are not 'analytic,' so that is a step in the right direction. I do disagree with the assessment that there are few good departments doing Continental philosophy, however. I would recommend SUNY Stony Brook - I think it is the best, no matter what the rankings say, because most of the graduate students I have met from there have jobs and seemed to enjoy their grad school experiences. I believe that program has an active exchange with a German university. DePaul University also has a very good program, though I happen to know less about it. You might want to check out this list on the web, it's a couple of years old but should still be helpful: http://www.earlham.edu/~phil/gradsch.htm Good luck!

I suspect you are right on many fronts. However, we (in the United States ) have a ignoble history of blocking adults from voting, e.g., denying suffrage to women and non-whites. I think ought to make us skeptical of movements to disenfranchise people. Another way to go, of course, is to enfranchise children - as when the United States lowered the voting age to eighteen from twenty one. Maybe we ought to move the voting age to fifteen or twelve? Recently someone told me one quick test for dementia is how quickly and accurately you can count back from 100 in units of 7. I flunked. I am thirty four. But if we are press forward with the imposition of minimum cognitive standards then we would need some fair system for discerning which elderly citizens have enough capacity to vote from those that do not; the blanket approach we take with minors would be hard to defend when imposed on seniors because it is much more difficult...

I feel your pain. You like philosophy and want it to be relevant, but when confronted by real-life problems the theories always seem to fall flat. As you observe, most ethical writing tends to be abstract, removed from actual cases, and too densely packed with fancy terms to be of use. There are major exceptions to that generalization; much of applied ethics or feminist ethics might meet your demands for less speculative and more concrete writing. I recommend both approaches absolutely! However, I would like to try sticking up for the good old boys (Mill, for example). Even if reading about the 'decided preference criterion' might not tell you how to raise your child, Mill might arm you with a helpful set of principles that seem appropriate, or even wise. (Example: if sending my daughter to her grandparents will likely cause more overall good than ill, I ought to do it, even if I personally regret seeing her go.) So I think there is good stuff in ethical theory, stuff worth...