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The Constitution may prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion, but should common sense? After all, to give extreme examples, religions have advocated such things as cannibalism and human sacrifice. What stops people concealing any sort of immorality or false beliefs under the label of religion?
First a point about
Allen Stairs
February 23, 2017
(changed February 23, 2017)
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First a point about "discrimination." The Constitution prohibits government discrimination against religion, but it doesn't, for example, prohibit me from refusing to associate with known worshipers of the Great Spaghetti Monster. So we'll take it as read that governmen... Read more
Do people have the right to rebel in a democracy? Is it just?
What makes this issue tricky
Michael Cholbi
February 23, 2017
(changed February 23, 2017)
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What makes this issue tricky is that the question seems to equivocate on the notions of "right" and "just."
Suppose (as seems likely) that rebelling against a democratic government involves conduct that the government in question has declared illegal. It seem... Read more
Can we claim to know something with 100 per cent certainty ?
Do you think that we can know
Jonathan Westphal
February 17, 2017
(changed February 17, 2017)
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Do you think that we can know something with less than "100 per cent" certainty? Can we know something, but with 1 per cent certainty, say?
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Hello! My question concerns the word, "theory". Can a theory be considered fact, and what gives one theory more credibility than another? I know that some theories are empirical, and can be tested scientifically for validity. So if a theory such as evolution seems a fact, why is it still called a theory? Should it not be fact? Obviously, some non-empirical theories, like String Theory, can't as yet be tested, and are questionable. But scientifically, do empirical theories get closer to truth, and can some be called true?
The word "theory" has a
Allen Stairs
February 16, 2017
(changed February 16, 2017)
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The word "theory" has a common meaning, which is something like "hypothesis" or "speculation." It also has a scientific meaning, which, close enough for our purposes, is "organized set of principles." When we call something a theory in that sense, we aren't... Read more
Is it worse to break a promise in order to avoid telling a lie, or to tell a lie in order to keep a promise?
There's no all-purpose answer
Allen Stairs
February 16, 2017
(changed February 16, 2017)
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There's no all-purpose answer.
Breaking some promises is worse than breaking others. Telling some lies is worse than telling others. But there's no good reason to think that every broken promise is worse than any lie or vice-versa. Telling some lies is wor... Read more
Did Plato really believe in the plausibility of the "utopia" established in the Republic, or was his goal merely to formulate an argument?
The first thing I’ll say is
Nickolas Pappas
February 16, 2017
(changed February 16, 2017)
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The first thing I’ll say is important. Nothing in my answer will settle this question for everyone. This has long been one of the questions about Plato’s Republic that its readers debate the most heatedly, and it will likely that way.
As the question is stated... Read more
I'm in a sticky situation right now. Within a month I have to choose if I want to study law, philosophy or take a year off so I can find out what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to study law so I can hopefully make a lot of money and provide well for my hypothetically family. However, I don't know if that's worth it. Because I have to study a lot for 5 years then work hard until the day I'm too old to work, then I have to wait for the day I die. This seems meaningless to me right now, because I don't care about money at all. But I know I will need it to take care of a family. Anyway, I want to study philosophy so I can somehow change the problems humanity is facing. Somehow this makes more sense for me because I often ponder about everything wrong with this world, and why we don't do anything about it. Here is also why I don't care about money, because that's another factor that bring humanity down. And I don't think I can spend 8 hours everyday of my young and adult life, to work for money. That's not what I want to dedicate my life to at all. I would do anything if I had someone to love. But now I'm single and can't plan for that to happen. I can't just assume I will fall on love with someone that loves me too. Therefore, I kinda want to study philosophy and try to better understand what's wrong with us and how I can hopefully fix it. Or should I just take a year off and try to figure out what I should do for the rest of my life?
Many years ago I was in
Jonathan Westphal
February 16, 2017
(changed February 16, 2017)
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Many years ago I was in something like your position, (though my family was already real rather than merely possible), and I put roughly the same question to a very experienced and wise philosopher, who was also a friend. She was pretty elderly at the point, but... Read more
Good morning, Please give me your perspective on the following topic Theological determinism and free will. Theological determinism seems to imply that I am not truly free if God is omnipotent and has infallible foreknowledge. After all, if God knows in advance that I will steal a car, it seems as though I am destined to do so, and that I am actually not responsible (God's fault, I am absolved of morally unacceptable behaviour). Some (Christian) Philosophers would probably argue to the contrary. They might say that God's foreknowledge does not imply that I am destined to act in a certain way, as God's foreknowledge only means that he knows what I will freely choose to do. Had I chosen to freely act in another way, his foreknowledge would have anticipated that as well. My own thought is that this argument merely implies that our Free-Will is an illusion. A simple thought experiment to support that is : If God decided to reveal some of his infallible foreknowledge to me, such as, for example, that I will buy a new red car tomorrow, then I would be free to act in a way that violates this foreknowledge; I may decide to buy a second-hand blue car instead. So Free-Will seems to imply that I can only be truly free if I could act in a way that violates God's infallible knowledge. There are of course many different permutations and views. Some answers resort to Modal Logic (about which I know nothing), suggesting that some sort of reconciliation between Infallible foreknowledge and Free-Will is possible after all. Your views will be greatly appreciated Kind Regards
Thank you for your excellent
Charles Taliaferro
February 10, 2017
(changed February 10, 2017)
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Thank you for your excellent question and observations.
While I am inclined toward what is known as open theism (in accord with work by William Hasker) which essentially denies that divine omniscience includes truths about future free action (referred to s... Read more
I don't quite understand why people put so much time and effort into conversing with other people about their internal "belief systems." To me, the only thing that really matters is how other people behave: whatever they believe is secondary to how well or how poorly they act. If one person believes "treat others well because Jesus says so," while another person believes "treat others well because Krishna says so," wouldn't they then both agree with each other that the over-riding priority here is to treat others well? How much "should" it really matter WHO says so?
Your view reminds me a bit of
Jonathan Westphal
February 9, 2017
(changed February 9, 2017)
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Your view reminds me a bit of what used to be called "Christian atheism". The idea was that to say for example that God is our heavenly Father is to adopt and proclaim a policy of behaviour towards other men, namely one of brotherhood. The problem with rulin... Read more
People often take pride in things that they don't have control over, or events and accomplishments in which they were not involved. For example, an American might be proud of the United State's role in World War 2 even though it occurred long before he was even born. Much the same could be said of pride of one's race, university, local sports team, extended family or ancestry, and so on. How can this kind of pride be justified?
Standardly, philosophers
Michael Cholbi
February 9, 2017
(changed February 9, 2017)
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Standardly, philosophers think of pride as closely related to deservedness. Pride, on this view, amounts to taking pleasure in one's excellence or accomplishments. To have proper pride therefore requires that one have an accurate appraisal of one's excellence or acc... Read more