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In connection with http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/2740, is there a similar objection (that it is not coherent) to the question "Can an all powerful God create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?"? Or does this paradox suggest that it is not reasonable to posit such a thing as an all powerful God? Thanks in anticipation.
Nicholas D. Smith
July 9, 2009
(changed July 9, 2009)
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Philosophers have debated this sort of question, but I think the consensus is that the question is not coherent. Being "all-powerful" obviously does not mean being able to do what is logically impossible. Think, instead, of the concept as making God into a being who can do anything that can (... Read more
A friend of mine has an adult daughter who is mentally disabled. Roughly speaking, her daughter thinks and talks like a seven-year old child, and cannot take care of herself. The disabled daughter is sexually interested in men, but as far as I know she never had sex with anyone. When she was 20-something, the mother had the daughter medically sterilized. This brought her no suffering, and she behaves as she did before. The mother's fear was that she would get pregnant. For a few weeks every year, the daughter is away from her mother in a clinic for mentally disabled people. I wonder if it was morally acceptable for the mother to have her daughter sterilized.
Nicholas D. Smith
July 9, 2009
(changed July 9, 2009)
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This is the kind of case that makes reasonable people feel very squeamish, and over which reasonable people can disagree. But though I won't be surprised if others respond and reject what I am about to say, I'm inclined to side with the mother.
Ethical theorists generally approach questions li... Read more
Is it better to marry someone you like and get along with or to marry someone with whom you are passionately in love? I am married to a man who I get along with and have some affection for but I do not love him and now realise that I never did. However, I get on fine with him. The fact that I am largely indifferent to him means that I am not really affected by his lack of love, affection or regard for me - nor do I generally want his company. The same applies for him - as he feels more or less similarly for me. We have not discussed our feelings with each other - but it is obvious. We have children and we stick together for their sakes and for convenience. I do not see our marriage breaking up. Some years ago I fell deeply in love with another man. I am still in love with him and I think that he feels the same. However, nothing happened between us nor will it ever happen - nor do I want anything to happen as I know that I would not be able to cope with any form of rejection from him. If I was married to him I would be insecure because I would always fear that he would stop loving me. I would love to think that deep passionate love would work but I doubt it. Am I right?
Lisa Cassidy
July 16, 2009
(changed July 16, 2009)
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I like Nicholas's response as-is, but will chime in here with a book recommendation: Robert Solomon's book About Love is an absolutely fantastic work. It is written to be accessed by anyone interested in love, marriage, or relationships. It is wonderfully clear and has been the intellectual hig... Read more
Would the world be better without governments?
Nicholas D. Smith
July 9, 2009
(changed July 9, 2009)
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The world would be better without some governments, I think!
Thomas Hobbes once famously remarked that human beings attempting to live outside the boundaries of goverment would live lives that were "nasty, poor, brutish, and short." I'm afraid that actually looking at places in the world whe... Read more
If you fail to stop something bad happening to you is it the same as being complicit in the act?
David Brink
July 9, 2009
(changed July 9, 2009)
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There is a complicated literature in moral philosophy about how to draw the distinction between doing and merely allowing harm and whether this distinction has moral significance. Without trying to navigate that deep intellectual thicket, it is still possible to begin to address your question. If I... Read more
When Peter King recently decried Michael Jackson as a pedophile, Al Sharpton et. al were quick to point out that Jackson had never actually been convicted on sex offense charges. (This seems to me a very common way of arguing.) When it comes to allegations of wrongdoing, are all important considerations about what is reasonable to believe or maintain as true exhausted by the judicial process? If someone is found guilty or not-guilty of a crime, does this settle the matter, not simply of whether he should be legally punished or imprisoned, but also of how we should regard the allegations generally?
Oliver Leaman
July 10, 2009
(changed July 10, 2009)
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No, the law is not perfect or even adequate in assigning moral blame or approval, but then no smoke without fire does not work epistemologically or morally either.
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Let's accept that women have the right to abortion. Now consider the case of several states before 1973. Persons who provided abortions could be prosecuted under the law, but women who received abortions were not. (Abortion was legal to "buy", but not to "sell".) Did such laws violate women's right to abortion, even though were legally allowed to get abortions?
Eddy Nahmias
July 9, 2009
(changed July 9, 2009)
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Let's try some analogies. Suppose U.S. citizens have a constitutionally guaranteed right to vote for President, congressional representatives, etc. Now suppose that anyone who sets up or runs a voting booth is prosecuted for violating a law that says providing outlets for voting is illegal. It se... Read more
In sports, we often say of a spectacular play (say, a full-court shot in basketball) that it was simply "lucky." But if a player intends to execute a particular play, in what sense can it be considered lucky?
Peter Smith
July 8, 2009
(changed July 8, 2009)
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If Tiger Woods gets a hole-in-one on a rather short hole, he's got lucky. But he is a great golfer. He hit the ball with immensely practiced skill: and it is because he hit it with that practiced skill that he got the ball onto the green and then it happened to go down the hole. Indeed he can, let's... Read more
What's the deal with "experimental philosophy"? Is it really the appropriate methodology for exploring folk concepts? Is it just a chapter of social psychology, revealing merely "mundane" details of how the mind works? What is its philosophical import?
Eddy Nahmias
July 8, 2009
(changed July 8, 2009)
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You ask good and tough questions for experimental philosophers like myself. I have addressed some of them in my paper with Thomas Nadelhoffer "The Past and Future of Experimental Philosophy" (which can be found at my outdated website), and some of them have been addressed by Joshua Knobe and Shaun... Read more
I have a question on how to study philosophy; that is, should I start from the text or from the lectures? Is it better to listen to lectures and look at summaries/webpages before going on to the text, or to struggle with the text in the beginning and start from the concepts that arise from it? Thanks - from a Junior; student of philosophy
Peter Smith
July 8, 2009
(changed July 8, 2009)
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Perhaps there are three different issues hereabouts,
There's the question of whether the best route in for beginners is via texts (written material) or via lectures and other media.
There's the question of whether first to struggle with "original" texts (meaning articles or books which were/are supp... Read more