Recent Responses
If in the future, science makes it possible to use cloning to "create" Neanderthals which were isolated in their own environment, would the revived species of Neanderthals evolve back into Homo Sapiens millions of years later? Would the process of evolution yield a new species of "humans" with Neanderthal ancestry?
Miriam Solomon
May 26, 2011
(changed May 26, 2011)
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You ask an interesting question about the process of evolution. Neo-Darwinians typically argue that species evolve by natural selection on random mutations. At any particular time, there is more than one kind of random mutation that is of selective advantage, and it is contingent which one of th... Read more
Some businesses use incentive schemes to draw in customers; I want to know about whether or not such schemes abuse human psychology or are otherwise immoral. Let me give an example. Imagine a sandwich shop that sells sandwiches for 2$ each; they decide to change the scheme, so that now, every time one buys four sandwiches, the fifth sandwich comes free of charge. To compensate, they raise the price of the sandwiches to 2,50$, meaning that either way, the customers end up paying 10$ for every five sandwiches. Yet people, especially newcomers to the shop unfamiliar with the old prices, buy more sandwiches than before because, hey, there's a free sandwich in there! The shop begins to earn more than its competitors, and garners more long-term customers who pay more of their money for the sandwiches, by exploiting a loophole in human psychology. The sandwiches are in all relevant respects identical, yet people are paying more because of a freebie scheme. Is this an ethically legitimate practice? Or is it exploitative in some way?
Charles Taliaferro
May 25, 2011
(changed May 25, 2011)
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Great case! It is difficult to say (or say clearly) that the practice is unethical for, after all, the competition could offer a similar scheme. Any number of practices seem ethically permissible that would give the shop an edge, e.g. the opportunistic shop owner might offer customers who bu... Read more
Can empathy cause people to be immoral? Like if you empathize with a criminals motives will that lead you to excusing them?
Charles Taliaferro
May 25, 2011
(changed May 25, 2011)
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It seems that while "empathy" and "sympathy" come from the term for "feeling with" and so might simply refer to your being able to understand affectively what another person is going through, we sometimes do use the terms to indicate more than a shared understanding. So, when someone says the... Read more
Why do we say that we should consider the moral values of a time when we evaluate people from the past? If were honest with ourselves the average American slave holder is actually much more morally reprehensible than a rapist. And if we consider that the average America supported slavery it follows that America was a very evil place before slavery was abolished.
Eddy Nahmias
May 20, 2011
(changed May 20, 2011)
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I think the answer is that when we are considering how responsible people are for their beliefs and behavior, and considering how much blame they deserve, we think that the appropriate degree of responsibility and blame to ascribe depends in part on the degree to which the person (a) had the opportu... Read more
Why are people so skeptical about the notion that a sufficiently advanced computer program could replicate human intelligence (meaning free will insofar as humans have it; motivation and creativity; comparable problem-solving and communicative capacities; etc.)? If humans are intelligent in the way we are because of the way our brains are built, than a computer could be constructed that replicates the structure of our brains (incorporating fuzzy logic, neural networks, chemical analogs, etc). Worst comes to absolute worst, a sufficiently powerful molecular simulator could run a full simulation of a human brain or human body, down to each individual atom. So there doesn't seem to be anything inherent in the physicality of humans that makes it impossible to build machines with our intelligence, since we can replicate physical structures in machines easily enough. If, however, humans are intelligent for reasons that do not have anything to do with the physical structure of our brains or bodies - if there is some immaterial reason for consciousness, free will or other aspects of our intelligence - than we're essentially talking about souls. And if souls don't just supervene on physical phenomena (which is the entire nature of this fork of the problem - if they did supervene, we'd be back at the first point), then why shouldn't machines, too, be able have souls? Maybe they already do. The only way to escape this and continue to assert that machines could never possess human intelligence is to say that there is a god, or a group of gods, who decide what gets to have souls and what doesn't, and machines aren't on the list. But outside of theistic circles, this argument can't be expected to carry any weight for as long as people are skeptical about theism in general. So what leads so many people to believe that machines could never replicate a human intelligence?
Allen Stairs
May 30, 2011
(changed May 30, 2011)
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My colleague and I disagree somewhat here, though perhaps on everything essential to your question, we agree.
We all agree that in principle the right kind of "machine" could be every bit as conscious, free, etc.as you and I. And Prof. Nahmias may well be right when he says that if a robot of the C3... Read more
Are rights ranted to us by government? (Is saying that "I have a right to free speech" simply a way of saying that my government permits me to speak freely?) Or do we have rights independently of government, such that institutions like freedom of speech amount to a recognition by government of such rights?
Thomas Pogge
May 19, 2011
(changed May 19, 2011)
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Some rights are granted to us by our government, such as the right to drive a car for example. But there are others which governments themselves agree are not granted by them but exist independently. Various governmental documents (such as the Declaration of Independence) speak of "unalienable" or “... Read more
As a teenager, I often have the tendency to embrace certain 'life philosophies' with complete disregard to all others. These philosophies often changed depending on my mood at that time, with little rational consideration. One of the most common of these teenage mottos is the saying "live every day like it's your last", or perhaps more relevantly, "live in the moment". Whether it is wise or not is another matter, but surely it is rational to hold such outlooks, since living every day like it's your last at least assumes that if you were to die, you have experienced at least some of life's prizes. However, my question concerns whether it is rationally possible to live life through this lens, while simultaneously respecting the need for hard work in consideration of future, perhaps greater, opportunities? Is it possible to abide by both philosophies, or must one choose?
Donald Baxter
May 19, 2011
(changed May 19, 2011)
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I think you have to compromise. If you only live for today and you make it to the future, you will be worse off in it. However, if you only live for the future but you don't get there, then today is lost. So enjoy some things today that won't ruin your future and defer some gratification today to p... Read more
I recently was in an " Ask an Atheist" panel at a predominantly Lutheran college, and after asserting that the burden of proof lies on the theist, someone claimed that a deeply spiritual person has knowledge that is only available to them. In other words, regarding what is morally correct or anything else god could want us to do, a theist is justified doing things akin to Abraham attempting to sacrifice Isaac because they have a certain kind of knowledge that justifies doing so despite all evidence that suggests it is wrong. Is this logically or epistemologically sensical, especially regarding morality? What about people like Hildegard of Bingen who claimed to receive visions from God and know this is the case beyond all doubt?
Allen Stairs
May 28, 2011
(changed May 28, 2011)
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Burden of proof arguments can be tricky. Atheists often say that believers have the burden of proof, but at the least that depends on what's being asked. Is the claim that the believer is irrational or intellectually blameworthy if s/he doesn't meet this burden? As we'll see below, that's a lot less... Read more
Does science have its own built in "selection bias" toward things that are measurable or relatively more measurable?
Miriam Solomon
May 19, 2011
(changed May 19, 2011)
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Since the Scientific Revolution, scientists have valued the combination of natural science and mathematics. Quantification (measurement) is valued in part because it contributes to precision in making predictions or interventions. The more precise a prediction that is made, the more confirmed a... Read more
what is the difference between art & aesthetics?
Charles Taliaferro
May 19, 2011
(changed May 19, 2011)
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Great question. 'Aesthetics' is usually used as a term to refer to two things: a field of inquiry and a type of experience. The field of aesthetics covers the philosophy of beauty and the philosophy of art. In the philosophy of art you cover questions about the very concept of art (what is... Read more