Yes, it's doomed. And, moreover, in many ways it's pernicious. It's pernicious because it biases the direction of social policy and even personal conduct in the direction of things measurable in monetary terms and thereby arguably misallocates resources. For example, consider one of the most prominent monetary measures of national wealth--GDP. The growth of GDP is typically taken to be a good thing. But really the best course of action would be to maximize the things that truly matter while minimizing GDP. GDP (or GNP if you like) measures the monetary cost of producing goods and services. But suppose you could produce the same goods and services while reducing GDP. Or, more importantly, suppose you could reduce GDP but actually increase things like happiness, life spans, general health, peaceableness, ecological well-being, biological diversity, educational attainment, artistic achievement, scientific advancement, moral virtue, athleticism, family stability, etc. The very...

As a Hobbesian might say about sovereigns, "absolutely" not. The "justice" of sovereigns is, more seriously, a curious issue in Hobbes and more complicated than it may at first appear. One might be tempted to say that because the Hobbesian sovereign is an "absolute" sovereign, that anything he or she does is "just." In other words, one might say that whatever the sovereign commands is for Hobbes by definition "just." But justice in Hobbes might be thought of in two ways: "civil" and "natural." In terms of civil justice (the justice defined by actual laws and dictates made by governments), one question concerning Hitler's conduct would be whether or not it was unjust of him to violate the terms of international law and the various treaties his government negotiated--for example, the Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviets and the peace treaty Hitler's representatives negotiated in bad faith with Neville Chamberlain. Arguably, however, for Hobbes, the sovereign is not bound by civil law in his or her...

I think you have a real point here. Standard dictionary definitions don't simply "report" usage. Both philosophical and standard dictionary definitions "explain" (as you put it) or "interpret" (as I might put it) the meanings of words. And both the authors of standard dictionaries and philosophers may be reasonably described as advancing "arguments" for their interpretations. There are, of course, different methods of argument at play in the production of philosophical and standard dictionary definitions; and philosophers and the authors of standard dictionaries interpret words in different ways, in the light of different audiences and different histories. In short, the contexts of usage with which philosophical definitions and standard dictionary definitions are concerned is generally different (though sometimes overlapping). The word, "valid," for example, is used differently and means something different in the contexts of ordinary conversation and the formal language of deductive logic. ...

You've definitely put your finger on a problem. I'd say that for most purposes the two definitions aren't reconcilable because they belong to different discourses or contexts. The first usage is more colloquial and rhetorical. The second is a technical definition. The term "valid" is used in similarly different ways. In common discourse, one can make a "valid point"; but in technical terms only arguments or inferences, not points, can be valid. There is, however, at least one way to make the two definitions consistent: assume in the first that the premise from which the conclusion is derived is the same as the conclusion. From two premises A and B, the conclusion A follows. This, of course, becomes a variant of begging the question. Conversely, I suppose, one could argue that a tautology follows from itself, making the second definition applicable to an argument. (Note that the way you've phrased the first definition is a bit odd, since all good arguments derive their conclusions from their...

This question merits a much longer answer than I am capable of giving. But, with apologies for the compression, I'd say that the distinction between "activist" and "non-activist" judging is a popular-political distinction, not really one with much philosophical basis. Both the legislature and the judiciary produce new law and nullify old law, and they have always done so. They create and nullify law, however, in different ways--the legislature by enacting new legal codes, the courts by issuing rulings. Nor, however, is the line between the law and morality a clean one to draw. And, so, while I think it proper (indeed unavoidable) for the judiciary to enact new law, I also think it proper for judges to appeal to custom and common morality in rulings (for example in matters of indecency). Appeals to custom and common morality, however, must be balanced and in some cases simply limited by stipulated rights of non-interference and claim rights. They must also be balanced by countervailing lines of...

About universal morality: while it's true that among cultures (as among individuals within any culture) there are variation in moral beliefs (as well as scientific beliefs), there are general (nearly universal, so far as I can tell) moral categories. One finds incest regulations, for example, in every society (though the boundaries of those prohibitions vary). Rules concerning possession, killing, and even, arguably, the sacred are more or less universal. I would be pretty reluctant to walk into any human society and start taking bites out of people's children. Moral beliefs and conduct do exhibit variation, but variation by itself doesn't disprove the existence of universal commonalities. Any pharmacist will tell you that different people respond to different drugs differently, but that doesn't refute the universal laws of chemistry. Human moral life, then, exhibits both remarkable variation and remarkable commonality. As you say, there are various possible explanations for this. ...

Well, it would, I think, depend upon the context. Discriminating among people isn't itself an objectionable thing. One discriminates among different job applicants and among whom to marry or pursue a friendship. In cases like friendship, where moral discriminations are proper, there is generally nothing wrong with discriminating "against" those who are immoral. But the phrase, "discriminating against," usually has a sort of public policy connotation. In those sorts of cases, discriminating against the racist, homophobic, and sexist may be objectionable. For example, I think it would be wrong to deny the vote to racists (even though I often wish they wouldn't vote) or to tax them differently. The question of employment discrimination, on the other hand, is a thorny one, but I'd say that a reasonable general principle to use is this: people holding immoral beliefs should not be discriminated against in employment so long as their objectionable beliefs are not manifest in conduct that...

Ah, but how can proper English be defined? Like life, there is, I'm afraid, no absolutely precise definition. The boundary is likely to move when considering different contexts (e.g. medical, legal, taxonomic, robotic, spiritual); and even in many of these contexts the boundary is likely to remain vague, or at least provisional. One is likely to feel that there simply must be a clean and formulable line between what's alive and not alive. But my sense of things is that this just isn't the case. In any event, from where I sit, you're both alive and good writer in English.

This is a remarkable phenomenon, one that was noticed even in ancient times--the consensus gentium. Strictly speaking,I think, there is no good reason or defensible logic for belief in the standard religions. So, religious belief is, primarily, an issue for psychologists to figure out. Many philosophers have shown the irrationality or, anyway, non-rational grounding of religious belief. So, both the persistence of religious belief and its pervasive character must be thought of as remarkable. I suspect that inclinations to religious belief were selected through evolution because it was somehow adaptive. I also think that Freud was not entirely wrong that religious conviction extends from our being dependent upon parents during our formative years. Then, there's also our desire for order and comprehension that lends itself readily to thoughts about an ordering principle or source of intelligibility. And who is really free of a fear of death. There are, however, perhaps additional philosophical...

This is a terribly and increasingly important issue, isn't it. Luckily, there has been quite a lot of work done on the topic. Two general principles to consider are these: (1) With regard to personal conduct like food, drink, sex, ornament, dress, etc., one should be at liberty to do whatever he or she pleases so long as no one else is harmed by the conduct; and (2) liberty should be maximized. One of the sticky bits here is the notion of "harm." Isn't being offended a kind of "harm"? Yes, I think it can be, but things get complicated here. In some cases, the concept of "offense" is misused. It may be in the case you describe. Can one be properly said to be offended by conduct that is not directed at one or a group to which one belongs? One can be upset, one can be disgusted, one can be outraged, but I'm not sure that offense is the right concept to use in the case you describe. It's also unclear why even if one can be said to be offended by conduct not directed at oneself or a group to which one...