Recent Responses
In this question, I'm going to assume there are strictly two human biological sexes, male and female. That assumption isn't exactly true (chromosomal variations), but it's a close enough approximation to ask the question. At restaurants such as "Hooters," provocatively-clad females serve food to patrons. There are no male waiters. No one seems to think too much about it. I think, however, that many people would be appalled if we had restaurants whose theme was to have provocatively-clad Jewish people serve food, or provocatively-clad African Americans serve food, or provocatively clad [insert religious or ethnic or national group] serve food. There are, of course, ethnic restaurants. So we might think of Hooters as nothing more and nothing less than another type of ethnic restaurant, this one peculiar to sex instead of ethnicity. Is this good reasoning? Maybe that reasoning is not valid. Women have a sex (female) and men have a sex (male). There can't be anything intrinsically more sexual about women than about men; they obviously both have a sex. Completely separate from biological sex, there is something we might call "sexualization," achieved through dress and behavior. So Hooters sexualizes one group -- women -- to the exclusion of another -- men. So maybe the correct analogy here really would be a restaurant to sexualize all waiters (both male and female) of a particular ethnicity. Is this good reasoning? Why is Hooters socially normative, while a restaurant based on the sexualization of an ethnic or religious group would be considered inappropriate?
Miriam Solomon
September 2, 2011
(changed September 2, 2011)
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The questions that you are asking are terrific! They can also be taken further. E.g. is it necessary for you to assume that there are strictly two biological sexes? (I don't think so). Or e.g. What is wrong (if anything) with sexualization of a group? What is wrong with sexualization... Read more
I've been in a long distance relationship for about a year now and my girlfriend has just moved to London for work. She recently told me a stranger on a train asked her for her number after they've chatted for 5 minutes. Without hesitation or telling him that she's in a relationship, she gave it to him. Her explanation was she needed friends in a new and unfamiliar place. While I am very understanding about her feelings of been lonely I still felt very angry about her giving her number away to a complete stranger who's intention was to ask her out on a date. I feel it is wrong for her to be going out on dates with random people while she's in a committed relationship as I would never do the something thing to her. She says I'm just jealous. Am I wrong to feel like this?
Oliver Leaman
September 1, 2011
(changed September 1, 2011)
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I don't think you are wrong to feel as you do, but then she is a free agent and perhaps regards the relationship as more longdistance than a real relationship. The fact that you would not behave like that is not that relevant, you after all do not live in London and perhaps have little op... Read more
Is one obligated to keep a promise made under a threat? If a robber threatens to assault me unless I promise not to report his theft to the police, am I obligated to keep my word?
Oliver Leaman
September 1, 2011
(changed September 1, 2011)
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No, you are not. Promises made under coercion do not morally oblige one to behave in any sort of way at all.
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I am transitioning from male to female, along with physical changes I notice changes in my thinking and emotions. Am I the same person or am I becoming some one else? How do we know who we are and do we become different people over time?
Oliver Leaman
September 1, 2011
(changed September 1, 2011)
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You are a good guide here since you are undergoing the changes. Presumably you have initiated this process because you feel that you are really not the gender you started off as, and so your notion of personal identity was quite complex even before the process got underway. Clearly we cha... Read more
I am an extremely lonely and isolated person due to a developmental disability. Nobody (absolutely nobody) has ever expressed compassion toward me with regard to my isolation despite the fact that people in our modern society are educated enough to know how traumatic and damaging isolation can be. Why is indifference toward people who are socially isolated a near universal social norm in modern western society (at least in America) Does this norm have any ethical underpinning? How could it possibly have an ethical underpinning when you consider that in general we believe that a person who undergoes distress warrants our compassion?
Oliver Leaman
September 1, 2011
(changed September 1, 2011)
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You are certainly right in thinking that anyone who is in distress deserves support and compassion, unless perhaps they have done something to deserve being ignored. It is just true that we tend to notice certain sorts of people and their issues and ignore others, and rather than decrying... Read more
Fox "news," busily enjoining viewers to mock the idea of wealth redistribution, has posted a story entitled "College Students in Favor of Wealth Distribution Are Asked to Pass Their Grade Points to Other Students" http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/17/college-students-in-favor-wealth-distribution-are-asked-to-support-grade/ Their ludicrous point is "if wealth is going to be redistributed, we should do the same with grades." Is this a "fallacy by false analogy?" If not, what would be the most succinct explanation to explain what's wrong with this comparison? Thanks, Tom K.
Allen Stairs
September 1, 2011
(changed September 1, 2011)
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Thanks for a few moments of idle amusement!
Perhaps the best response is "Oy!" But to earn the huge salary in Merely Possible Dollars that the site pays me, a bit more is called for.
So yes: it's a case of false analogy, and the analogy goes bad in indefinitely many ways. But one of them h... Read more
About philosophy of color: It's very interesting but I'm having trouble understanding it because most of the works I encountered aren't "beginner-friendly". My question is, what exactly is color relationalism and what does this have to do with phenomenology? Thank you!
Jonathan Westphal
September 1, 2011
(changed September 1, 2011)
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Colour relationalism tells us that colours are relations between perceivers and the objects that they perceive. (This gets a bit tricky of course if what they perceive is a colour, because then what they perceive is a relation between themselves and a relation between themselves and a... Read more
Could someone explain to me like I am five, why Sartre believed that the shame was the inevitable and basic (authentic) existential response to the gaze of the other? I can understand somewhat when he says "that no once can be vulgar alone" but I don't understand how he can say that the other in some basic existential way can produce shame.
Douglas Burnham
August 27, 2011
(changed August 27, 2011)
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My initial mode of consciousness ispure and unreflective. I am nothing but an outward directednesstowards the world. Others, however, do not just gaze at the worldalongside me, they gaze at me. By way of the other, then, Ibecome aware of myself as also being the type of thing that can begaz... Read more
Should philosophy be considered among the group of disciplines we consider sciences or among the humanities? I understand that the answer to this is typically taken to be that philosophy is among the humanities but I also know that philosophers sometimes resist this categorisation. Obviously we'd need to refine our definitions of these categories first to see if we can produce a useful answer. And perhaps the answer is that there's a third category that philosophy should belong to all on its own?
Peter S. Fosl
August 27, 2011
(changed August 27, 2011)
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It's funny you asked, as I have just been discussing with the Physics faculty at my university the possibility of having my course in Metaphysics count as an elective in their program. One might ask, I think, why there are categories at all. Why not just have disciplinary programs. The reason... Read more
John is 30 years old. Jack is 10 years old. They are clinically sane. One day, John feels a sudden, uncharacteristic urge to kill. He murders an innocent stranger. On the same day, Jack feels the same urge to kill. He also murders an innocent stranger. John and Jack both admit responsibility for the murders. They acted in the same way for the same reason. Their actions had the same result. Should they be punished in the same way?
Charles Taliaferro
August 26, 2011
(changed August 26, 2011)
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Great question! In practice, at least in the United States, the punishment and even the trial will be different. The 10 year old would be tried in juvenile court. The jury would not be made up of only 10 year olds. John, on the other hand, would have a jury (if there was a jury) of f... Read more