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I adhere to a position of moral relativism and utilitarianism. But recently I was confronted with the criticism that, then, there is no basis for the idea of "human rights" or for the ordering of law based on them. Is this true? Is there a utilitarian justification for human rights?
Eric Silverman
June 27, 2013
(changed June 27, 2013)
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First, we need to clarify your terms. Moral relativism typically claims that: there is no objectively morally correct thing to do independent of the individual actor's values or the specific culture's values. In contrast, utilitarianism claims that: there is an objective morally correct thing to... Read more
I find Peter Singer's argument that animals' (specifically mammals') capacity to feel pain which according to him makes them intrinsically worthy of special status rather faceious as evolution is scientifically proven to not be teleological. If I uproot a cabbage (in the process killing microbes and insects) and eat it, how am I any more immoral than if I kill a cow or a dog and eat it? Why is an organism's place on the phylogenetic tree so special?
Allen Stairs
June 27, 2013
(changed June 27, 2013)
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I'm having trouble seeing what evolution has to do with it. Many animals, Singer supposes, feel pain. Pain (roughly; the refinements won't matter here) is intrinsically bad, no matter what sort of creature experiences it. Whether animals (or humans) feel pain because of evolution, because a God ma... Read more
Does our mind alter our perception of taste from the way things look and/or previous experiences?
Allen Stairs
June 23, 2013
(changed June 23, 2013)
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The answer certainly seems to be yes. One example: learning to like something you didn't like at first. (Olives, beer, strong cheese…)Taste isn't the only sense modality that's subject to these shifts. Most of us, I'd guess, have found that people sometimes come to look different to us as we get t... Read more
I've read a few philosophers write that color theorists typically divide into two camps of those who say colors are scientific properties of objects and those who say that color only exists in the mind and are therefor subjective and illusory. These philosophers often offer some alternative to this dichotomy like the idea that colors should be thought of in more relational terms between subject and object. But can't colors be entirely mental or dependent on mental processes but not be illusory?
Jonathan Westphal
June 20, 2013
(changed June 20, 2013)
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Clearly what is dependent on the existence of mental processes is not therefore illusory. Unlike many things, the existence of mental processes is dependent on the existence of mental processes. It does not follow that mental processes are illusory. But I think it should be said that there is... Read more
I'm not sure if this is a question for philosophers or for physicists, but I'll ask it here anyway. Do you think it is possible that there are other universes? I mean "other universe" in a very physical sense: any group of objects that have no past, present or future physical relations to the objects in our universe. For example, they don't originate in the Big Bang. And it is physically impossible that a photon leaves one of such objects and hits one of the objects in our universe. And those objects aren't at any distance from the objects in our universe (it cannot be said truthfully that those objects are or were n light-years away from any star in our universe). But I mean real, actual objects, and not merely "possible objects" (there is a previous answer on this subject in AskPhilosophers, but that's not what interests me)! Do you think that there can exist other universes in this sense?
Allen Stairs
June 20, 2013
(changed June 20, 2013)
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Let's use a phrase from the philosopher David Lewis: concrete worlds. Let it mean complete, concrete universes. Lewis thought that there are concrete worlds other than our own, and that there is at least one for each way our world could be. Lewis also characterizes these words in the way you do: t... Read more
I have a question. Years ago me and two friends got into a debate about a riddle. The riddle goes like this: A train starts from point A and is travelling towards point B. A wasp is travelling in the opposite direction at twice the speed of the train, the wasp touches the tip of the train and goes back to point B. How many times does the wasp touch the train? (this may be one version of many, but this is how it was told that faithful evening) So the "correct" answer was, infinte times. (similar to Zeno's paradox with Achilles and the tortoise). I said, well in theory it's infinte times, but if you were to actually do it, the train would hit point B eventually so it can't be infinte times? For it to be infinite times it would have to stop time (or something) So what would happen if you actually tried this? Say we do an experiment with a model train and instead of a wasp we use a laser (for accuracy). First we measure the railway track and only run the train, let's say it takes 10 seconds to go from point A to point B. Then we add the laser, travelling at twice the speed from point B, hitting the tip of the train back to point B. If the train takes 10 seconds to reach point B, the laser can't have travelled back and forth infinte times? Can it? This "debate" comes up every so often and we argue and never seem to resolve it. Please help us out, what would happen, in real life? Sincerely, Anders K.
Stephen Maitzen
June 20, 2013
(changed June 20, 2013)
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I recommend reading the SEP entry on "Supertasks" available at this link. It contains helpful answers and references to further reading.
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I understand that mathematical induction is deductive reasoning (but why doesn't it have another name?!). But I wonder if there can be true induction based only on reason. Here is an example: I may think about a possible practical problem and think what I would do in many variants of it. I can also ask other people to imagine other variants and I can ask them help about what to do in all those variants. After all this thinking, it is possible that one notices a general rule about what to do with that problem, and come to believe that that rule would be good for every variant of it, even for those variants we didn't check. Wouldn't that be an inductive conclusion? And do you think that this conclusion would be less acceptable than inductive conclusions in the natural sciences?
Stephen Maitzen
June 20, 2013
(changed June 20, 2013)
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It's not clear to me how your example counts as "induction based only on reason." As I understand it, the process you imagine involves asking other people to think about the problem and then share with you their advice. Even if you stick entirely to your own thoughts about the problem, they'll... Read more
Why doesn't consciousness defeat the determinism argument? If a person consciously decides to order a hamburger instead of a cheeseburger the next time he goes to a restaurant, what force is controlling him to delude himself?
Andrew Pessin
June 20, 2013
(changed June 20, 2013)
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One typical way of thinking of such examples is this: perhaps the sequence of conscious mental states we enjoy is a causal sequence, so "causation" would be the "force" you are asking about. Perhaps the purely determinist laws of neuroscience dictate her sequence of brain states, which in turn di... Read more
Everything needs a cause, right, or it couldn't happen, right? But, if everything needs a cause, how could anything happen? Because the thing that would cause it to happen would also need a cause. So does that means the universe can't happen/could never get to now? Or is time a cause in and of itself? And "drags" things as time goes forward, like a replay in a video game? But then time would need a cause too, right?
Andrew Pessin
June 20, 2013
(changed June 20, 2013)
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A classic, important question that philosophers have grappled with for a loooong time .... Look up "cosmological arguments" on wikipedia or via google, you'll find LOTS of discussion of this sort of issue. Especially important for centuries in discussions of religious matters -- Just a couple qui... Read more
Everything needs a cause, right, or it couldn't happen, right? But, if everything needs a cause, how could anything happen? Because the thing that would cause it to happen would also need a cause. So does that means the universe can't happen/could never get to now? Or is time a cause in and of itself? And "drags" things as time goes forward, like a replay in a video game? But then time would need a cause too, right?
Andrew Pessin
June 20, 2013
(changed June 20, 2013)
Permalink
A classic, important question that philosophers have grappled with for a loooong time .... Look up "cosmological arguments" on wikipedia or via google, you'll find LOTS of discussion of this sort of issue. Especially important for centuries in discussions of religious matters -- Just a couple qui... Read more