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Many people think it's wrong to significantly alter a work of art, not just because the result is aesthetically inferior, but because doing so wrongs the artist or is otherwise offensive. It's easy to see why, say, defacing a painting might be offensive. It's less obvious, though, why altering a work of music of literature might be bad. After all, a painting is a concrete, singular object; but novels and poems and symphonies are not. I can't ruin "Robinson Crusoe" or Beethoven's 5th in the way that I can a Matisse or a Van Gogh. Why should it seem problematic, for instance, to perform a piece of music in a manner deemed inauthentic, given that there's a sense in which "altering" or otherwise degrading the piece in its original, authentic form is just impossible.
Sean Greenberg
April 22, 2011
(changed April 22, 2011)
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Your question seems to raise two distinct kinds of issues: first, and most generally, what, if anything, is wrong about altering a work of art; second, in what respect can different kinds of works of art--such as novels or lithographs, of which there are multiple instances or exemplars--or pie... Read more
I am currently majoring in philosophy (a three-year Bachelor's degree in Germany), but I've come across an issue in planning my future career path. I find myself fascinated by ethical and artistic concerns, and our relationship to the cultural artifacts we produce, such as media and art. I'm also very interested in public perceptions of philosophy and debates about science, and in general about different attitudes and values in society. On the other hand, while I enjoy thorny linguistic and metaphysical issues on occasion (as an intellectual side-interest, as it were), but I can't picture myself dedicating serious study to such issues. So far, whenever we've had to write papers on more abstract, analytical issues concerning linguistics or metaphysics, I've found myself uninspired and not particular enthusiastic, unless I could clearly see the relevance of these issues in popular discourse or ethics (such as trying to define art, which has a number of implications, or trying to understand the nature of ethical statements). Is philosophy the right discipline for me? Or should I be going into some other field, like literary studies, sociology or psychology? What advice would you offer to a person in my position, or a similar position?
Sean Greenberg
April 22, 2011
(changed April 22, 2011)
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On the basis of your remarks, it seems that you aren't especially interested in 'theoretical' philosophy (roughly, metaphysics and epistemology), but that you are interested in 'practical' philosophy (ethics) and aesthetics. You might want further to investigate just what kinds of work are be... Read more
Would all possible intelligent species tend towards the same moral and ethical precepts that humans do? Or would species with radically different biologies, brain structures, mating patterns, etc. tend towards equally different moral precepts and ethical concerns?
Sean Greenberg
April 22, 2011
(changed April 22, 2011)
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This is a wonderful question, which goes to the heart of just what ethics is about. Some philosophers--such as Immannuel Kant--have maintained that ethics consists in universal principles of practical reason, which must therefore apply to all rational beings, including God, angels, devils, an... Read more
Are we us,or our brain? If someone put our brain in a diffrent body will we be the same person? When we say 'me' we mean our brain? Because our brain is responsible for every single thought and move we make. Kostas 16years old,Greece
Sean Greenberg
April 22, 2011
(changed April 22, 2011)
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Your question goes to the heart of debates about personal identity, and even goes back to the early modern starting point for those debates, the chapter on personal identity in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Much discussion about personal identity has turned on the questio... Read more
What place to science fiction and sci-fi-like thought experiments have in philosophy? Are they useful tools, or are they generally considered to be pointless speculation?
Sean Greenberg
April 22, 2011
(changed April 22, 2011)
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Thought experiments have a long and distinguished history both in philosophy and in other disciplines (Einstein, for example, used thought experiments in certain of his papers). Thought experiments have featured especially prominently in treatments of personal identity since John Locke's disc... Read more
Hello, what do you think about this idea? Suppose there is no God / designer and life is just a bizarre event that has happened to have occurred following the big bang. It seems that whatever form of life happened to have occurred following this big bang could possibly have reproduced in a vast number of different ways (eg by pressing a button under a big toe, or perhaps we turned out to be weird alien trapezoid creatures who reproduced by a jolt of electricity etc). In fact, however, humans reproduce in a way which (commonly) involves a profound and beautiful relationship between two people. Given the vast number of ways in which reproduction could have occurred, and given the especially beautiful way in which it actually has happened to have occurred, doesn’t this indicate that there is a designer present rather than blind chance being the cause? Personally I find this quite convincing. If blind chance is the cause then to me it seems extremely unlikely that we would happen to reproduce in such a beautiful way.
Richard Heck
April 22, 2011
(changed April 22, 2011)
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There are two sorts of issues here.
Suppose that it is, in fact, extremely unlikely that reproduction should occur as it does. The universe is a vast place. For all we know, it occurs in billions of other ways in billions of other galaxies. Even on our own planet, of course, repro... Read more
Many people find the idea of letting a species such as the wolf go extinct to be disconcerting. Many environmental policies are put in place to protect endangered species. Why should it really matter though whether a species goes extinct or not if in the end humans are not harmed? What is the underlying moral reasoning?
Sean Greenberg
April 23, 2011
(changed April 23, 2011)
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While Oliver Leaman's aesthetic justification of efforts to preserve endangered species is certainly one consideration that might be advanced in support of such efforts--as well as efforts to preserve plants and other living organisms, such as coral reefs and rainforests (conceiving of the for... Read more
I often hear certain individuals declaring it to be imperialistic to try and help improve women's status in countries where women's rights are in a bad state. They say that imposing Western values ideals of what a woman should be on Afghan or Congolese women is destructive. How can it be destructive, when women in these countries are confined to their homes, raped, considered minors, denied an education or denied the right to work? There is a lot of chatter about how Western women are oppressed by the patriarchy, but surely their experience pales in comparison to that of an Afghan girl who gets acid thrown in her face for daring to go to school. Sure, we can't just run in, emancipation guns blazing - when we intervene in any way, we need to take into account local cultures and values and views, and best adapt our aid and intervention so as to minimize harm to the women involved while still providing them with what they feel they need (since such help must obviously be on a voluntary basis). So what exactly are we supposed to do? I get the feeling we're supposed to take the position that education, the opportunity to work, and bodily safety from harm and abuse are just Western conceits that we give our women to blind them to the patriarchy, and that they don't actually do anything to improve women's status. This just seems terribly wrong, and positively supportive of women's oppression. What kind of logic lies behind these people's arguments, then?
Oliver Leaman
April 21, 2011
(changed April 21, 2011)
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I think the point is that we should not expect people to behave exactly the same everywhere, so that in some countries women behave in ways which are culturally appropriate, and look oppressed from the perspective of other countries. Take the head scarf for example. Many interpret this as a sig... Read more
Most people seem to assume that animals cannot commit immoral acts - if a person murders another person, this is immoral, but when two alley cats fight and one dies, we generally don't say the surviving cat is a murderer, at least not in a sense that implies moral guilt on the part of the cat (though of course the cat is the causal source of the other cat's death). The immorality of the act does not lie in the act itself, else the surviving alley cat is a murderer. Yet the act and its context (why, where, why, etc.) are the only objective (i.e. human-independant) features relating to the act. So where does moral objectivity come from, then? Why don't moral objectivists accuse animals of behaving immorally? The difference can't be as simple as "The animals didn't know they were acting immorally", because if morality was found in the act itself, the action would be immoral. Thus the morality of an action must lie in the cognition concerning that action, rather than the action itself, yet why should we expect all cognitions about acts to come to the same conclusions? And even if they did, it would only be a fact - Hume's Is-Ought problem still holds, doesn't it?
Allen Stairs
April 21, 2011
(changed April 21, 2011)
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Thanks for your question You've raised more than one issue, so let's divide up the territory. The more straightforward question has to do with whether animals can be judged morally. But in the background are questions about whether morality is objective in the first place.
Start with the simpler... Read more
On the ethics of hypocritical compliments: Every person has people in his life that exhibit a special and interesting form of "two-facedness." Say, for example, that you're a teenager and your parent is always telling you to stop reading on the couch and mow the lawn, wash the dishes, do manual work outside, do more community service, play more sports, etc. Then you get a reward from a teacher or a high grade, and that parent is the first one to compliment you for it. However, you well know that the reward is the product of all of those moments reading on the couch, and had you spent that time instead on a sports field, you would not have received the award. In this case, is it more ethical for the strict parent in such a situation to stick to her guns and not compliment her son, acknowledging that she still would have preferred him do the manual labor in place of all that time studying (honest consistency in message), or for the parent to heartily compliment the student and act hypocritically?
Gordon Marino
April 21, 2011
(changed April 21, 2011)
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I suspect that the parent would not agree with the assumption that the only way for the teenager to achieve high grades was to skip chores and read on the couch.
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