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Justice

I live in Ireland where it is obligatory for students to learn the Irish language while in both primary and secondary education (for a period of 13 / 14 years) The reason for this obligation being that the Irish language is part of our heritage / our national identity. My question is should we be obligated to our heritage / national identity and if yes to what degree?

What a fine question! But a very difficult one. In a nutshell, I'm inclined to defend the thesis there are wideareas of experience that cannot be understood to be possible if weconsider the self as in some way detachable from its culturalcontext. There aren't many philosophers who even raise suchdetachment as a possibility, much less something desirable. In this'wide area' I would include at least all the arts, many of thenuances of emotion or expression, certain varieties of inter-personalrelations (e.g. some familial relations), and probably also bigchunks of politics and religion. Assuming then that it were possibleto forget or never acquire culture, one's life would be considerablyimpoverished. On this way of thinking, it is feasible that one shouldfeel grateful to one's culture; and, moreover, preserving it is aspecies of moral service to others. In the case you describe, part ofparticipating fully in traditional Irish culture is learning thelanguage – in this way one gains access...
Philosophers

Kant believed that Space and Time were synthetic a priori concepts that our mind imposes on experience. From this, he claimed that we can only know objects as they appeared to us, mainly as occuring in Space and Time. So, only phenomenon can be known, not the noumenon, or the thing-in-itself. My question is this: If Space, Time, and their product Causality, are concepts provided by the mind, and objects are independent of our existence (as Kant believed) then does this mean that reality is structured so the second it is perceived? Is the universe, then, chaotic the second we turn our backs to it? I basically wish to know if Kant addressed this consequence of his assertion--provided I have properly understood his assertion. I hope you can address my question for there is no one that I can ask in person, nor have I come across any mention of this problem from Kant's writings. Thank you in advance.

Let me add a short note to Andrew's fine answer. Imagine thefollowing reasoning: The mind 'imposes' space and time upon the empirical world. Theconcepts 'at the moment of' and 'before' have meaning only because ofthat imposing. Therefore, it makes no sense to ask what empiricalreality was before or at the moment of the mind's act. It makes nosense not because we cannot get back to that prior reality, butrather the question itself is meaningless. Now, I agree with Andrew's assessment that Kant did not in factagree with the first statement above. Nevertheless, the conclusion tothe above bit of reasoning is still salient. Kant was interested indiscovering the transcendental conditions of any experience of ashared empirical reality. He was not interested in the empirical orpsychological 'mechanics' of the human mind such that it arrives asperceptions (as were, arguably at least, his great predecessorsHobbes, Locke and Hume).
Biology

I'm passionately interested in Darwin and evolution, but have been bashing my head against the wall recently, over the objection that 'survival of the fittest' is a tautology. The answers to this that I've read state that 'fitness' doesn't mean: "those that survive, but those that could be expected to survive because of their adaptations and functional efficiency" [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html]. But then the reply to this seems to be: "This charge is not repelled by substituting "most adaptable" or "best designed," etc., for "fittest," because these too are determined by survival. (That is, how do we determine that a species, or members of a species, is "most adaptable" or "best designed"? By the fact that it survived.)" [http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/PoE/pe02phl3.html] As an aside following on from this, I know that you can then say that there is a lot of evidence. But isn't this evidence for evolution, not the specific theory of natural selection? My question is:...

My understanding of the supposed tautology to which you refer isthis: In the theory of evolution, only the most fit organisms survive. But the fitness of an organism can only be determined by the fact that it survived. So, we conclude: 'In the theory of evolution, only those that survive survive' The statement in (3) is indeed quitemeaningless. If this were indeed the basis of evolution, then itwould have no predictive power, and fail a key test of beingscientific. Because the primary object that evolution seeks tounderstand is the past through the fossil record (and similarevidence), and it is successful species that leave such traces, it isindeed the case the palaeontologists have to work backwards fromsurvival to fitness. There are several problems with theabove reasoning, however. First, 'fitness' is not an attribute of anorganism or of its genes. Rather, it is a relation of the heritablecharacteristics of an organism to its environment ...
Animals
Ethics

I believe that speciesism is correct. However I am confused about how I should feel about campaigns to kill pests like possums, rats, stoats etc which destroy native and often endangered birds, animals and plants. I understand that speciesism doesn't say that you can never kill an animal, you merely have to give it equal consideration. In this sense killing the pest could be justified if doing so produced a better outcome. But then I arrive at the problem of humans, which (I assume) would in many situations be a greater threat to our native birds, animals and plants. I can't help but feel that the answer may lie in the fact that we can do something about humans which destroy the environment by convincing them we shouldn't, it's not as easy to reason with the average possum. However this seems inadequate given the fact that these people are very, very unlikely to ever be convinced. How can we justify killing pests in moral terms in light of speciesism?

Let usassume for the purposes of discussion the 'equal consideration'account of animal ethics. We could perhaps define a 'pest' as anycreature or group of creatures that is threatening the sustainablebalance of an ecosystem. So, a pest is not just something nibbling mylettuces, which I don't want nibbled, or biting my arm which I ratherprefer unbitten. Rather, a pest occurs only within a seriously out ofkilter environment (thus the original mean of the term: plague). Insuch a case, I imagine, action against the pest is morally warrantedbut only insofar as to restore a more sustainable situation. So, if aplague of beetles is depleting forests in the Rockies, then pesticideseems justified; if a lack of natural predators means that the deerpopulation is ballooning in an area, then perhaps culling (or betterreintroducing predators) is justified. Your question comes down to:are we prepared to define human beings as 'pests'? Manyare, of course, and there is and has been for some time...
Ethics

I suffer from an inheritable condition which might shorten my life span if left untreated. My doctor has prescribed me a drug which, as it happens, might have adverse effects on my mental capacity; for instance, it might bring about amnesia and mild cognitive impairment. The minutiae of my particuar situation are not significant; what is interesting is the ethical question the general situation raises: Are we obligated to do what we can to stay alive for as long as possible, or may we—if the prior option necessitates potentially adverse effects on an aspect of life we hold dear—choose not to? And if the latter is true, does this translate to all other situations of this kind? As an example, consider the case of a smoker who refuses to give up smoking, regardless of the risk involved, because of the pleasure the act of smoking confers upon her. Her family and friends naturally wish for her to stay alive and remain healthy for as long as is possible—do their concern outweigh the pleasure she takes in the...

There are several fine questions here,it seems to me. I want to focus in to start with on just oneinteresting distinction that you make implicitly. One the one hand,there is the quality of life threatened by your disease; on the otherhand there is the pleasure afforded to the smoker. These are by nomeans the same kind of thing, first because the pleasure of smokingis replaceable (I can quitsmoking and yet can get similar pleasure in other, healthy ways) andsecond because it is merely pleasure, and thus often considered a lower grade of good thanothers. So, I think the example of smoking is not a good analogy forthe purposes of exploring your dilemma. I cansee no good moral reason why either of your alternatives must be wrong. If it seems valuable to you to sacrifice certain thingsfor longevity, then that is not necessarily a bad decision; likewise,if you wanted to sacrifice longevity for quality of life, then againthat is not automatically ruled out. On...
Ethics
Philosophy

How relevant is knowledge of moral theory to acting morally? Are philosophers "better" people than non-philosophers? Thanks for your time.

It would be great if the answer to your second question was 'yes'! But, despite the authority of Plato, I doubt that it is. Let us distinguish between knowing why, knowing that, andcharacter. 'Knowing why' is the moral theorist: he or she understandsthe relationship among principles, the various avenues ofjustification, the standard arguments and objections, and so forth.'Knowing that' is someone who has an accurate grasp of what is good,although he or she might not be able to explain 'why', or evenrecognise the need to do so. (I won't dwell on what 'accurate' mightmean here, for the same reason presumably as you put 'better' intoscare-quotes!) 'Character' is the capacity (the will, the strength,whatever) to turn moral knowledge into action. Clearly, neither ofthe first two is any good without the last. Moreover, I can see nogood reason why the 'knowing why' individual is any more likely tohave a virtuous character than a 'knowing that' – indeed, it mightbe the reverse. However...
Philosophy

Socrates mentioned that some "philosophers" gave the subject of philosophy a bad name by not being "true philosophers" (who reach for all the wisdom). Today most people seem to regard philosophy as an esoteric or complicated subject and thus refrain from involving themselves with philosophy. What does AskPhilosophers have to say about this? Todd, Sweden

Todd, I'm not quite sure I see the relation that you intend between your first and second sentence. If you are arguing that there are lots of people around who call themselves 'philosophers' but who are not 'true philosophers' in Socrates sense, and this has led to the situation in which philosophy is esoteric or complicated, then I quite disagree. My observation is that the use of the terms philosophy or philosopher in everyday circumstances is such as to make the subject appear really simple or trivial. So, my local pet shop has a sign that says 'Our philosophy is...'. What they mean is 'We consider it good practice to...'. Likewise, there is a range of toiletries called 'Philosophy', and I recently bought a bottle of wine that had printed on the label ' philosophie par le fruit ' (which I think is really endearing, but it ain't Kant). Everyone is encouraged to have their 'personal philosophy', this makes it seem like philosophy is easy, what's all the fuss about. Moreover, it makes it seem trivial...
Ethics

Does moral relativism claim that moral statements are descriptive or prescriptive? Anything I read on the topic never seems to make it clear! Surely if it claimed they were descriptive then moral relativism would be nothing more than saying that there is no right and wrong in the sense that we commonly think of it, it actually doesn't matter what we do. But alternatively, how could anyone genuinely believe that moral statements are prescriptive, in such a way that fundamental moral values are dependent on subjective circumstances, e.g. that if I (or my culture) believe murder is right then it is genuinely a good thing for me to do to murder someone? Basically I can't understand the point of the former interpretation and I don't understand how anyone could possibly believe the latter - so what is moral relativism?

It seems to me that you are defining moral relativism as something like 'what is morally correct for me may not be for you', but defining prescriptive as 'statements that demand something from us, universally '. Both seem plausible, but are incompatible, as you point out. But, if we define relativism in terms of a social/ cultural or historical framework, and likewise define what prescriptive means in the terms of that framework, then the incompatibility is not so evident. The statement 'Around here we do things like X' then becomes valid for those around here and indeed prescriptive for those around here. You would not expect it to be either valid or prescriptive for someone from elsewhere; instead, it appears descriptive of how a certain group behave. Clearly, there are plenty of other problems a moral relativist position needs to overcome!
Ethics
Freedom

Can we blame someone for making irrational choices during emotionally intense situations? Suppose that John was deeply in love with Joyce while Joyce is really using John for his money. It's obvious to all of John's friends, he is being used but he won't listen to reason. Is John to blame or is it his biological makeup to blame (or his environment) ? One can say that there are plenty of people who are able to snap out of these types of situation so why can't John, but I don't think it's that simple.

Try this out: We cannot blame John morally for the particular behaviours he exhibits while under the spell of the lovely Joyce; after all, he is not in control of himself. Nor can we blame John morally for being the kind of person who -- because of his 'biological makeup' -- is prey for Joyces. However, we CAN blame John for being the kind of person who falls heavily for unsuitable Joyces, IF we believe that the cultivation of the kind of person we are is in some measure in our control and the object of particular trends in our choices. John should have learned from his mistakes with the last Joyce; John should understand his own weaknesses and find ways to compensate for them, perhaps seeking counselling; John should learn to trust his friends advice; John should learn to read people; John should get out more. It doesn't seem unreasonable to ask these things of John's character, in general. Although, first, we have to get rid of Joyce.
Literature

How useful is it studying literature? The reason I ask is because (at least my high school) English courses seem to miss the target. Let me explain. We read the text. We find the "what's" of the work, what the author is trying to say. And then, instead of going on to evaluate the validity of the author's opinions on the topic we go backwards! We start describing how the author conveys their themes. My answer is: who cares. I'm sure that is not what the authors want us to look at. It's like evaluating how the frame of a painting accentuates such and such, rather than looking at the painting itself. Is it a fault with the nature of the subject of literary study, do I not understand the subject properly, or is it just not for me? Thanks for your time.

You understand the subject correctly, I believe. The study of literature has not always been done in this way, and is not done the same way everywhere. Saying that, the study of the way literature achieves meaning and certain effects, and the relation of these to the social or intellectual climate of the time, is a dominant way of doing things. Thus, for the most part, the study of literature is the study of how literature 'works', and not the validity of any ideas it contains. However, it's not entirely lacking in usefulness! The study of literature might unveil subtle rhetorical ploys used to make an implausible idea seem self-evident; also it might (like history) help us to understand where ideas come from, why they were believed; finally, it might help us to understand the significance ideas have in people's lives, in part by dramatising how the consequences of beliefs or actions play out. All of these things are philosophically valuable.

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