Recent Responses
What do we owe to people who don't yet exist? Intuitively, it seems to me that we shouldn't, say, cause widespread damage to earth because it will so valuable to our descendants. But can we really be said to be doing something wrong to someone who doesn't exist? And would it be wrong to do something that would cause them never to exist in the first place? It seems that if we can do moral harm to future people, but it isn't wrong to cause them to never exist, then it morally superior to never have children rather to bring children into the world in which you have done the *slightest* damage. (The children, of course, would disagree.) But if it is wrong to cause them to never exist-and, since they would drastically prefer to exist-then we have a tremendous burden to reproduce as much as possible. If it make any difference, I am interested in how these question relates to our burden to reduce catastrophic/existential risks to the human species (global warming, nuclear war, gray goo, etc.).
Gabriel Segal
April 12, 2008
(changed April 12, 2008)
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That's a lot of difficult questions! First: I think we can do wrongto people who don't yet exist. It seems unfair to be less respectful ofsomeone who will be born in, say, 2020 than someone who was born in,say, 1995. Second: it is not obvious that your second question makesmuch sense. You can't... Read more
Hey, A question of art. What can philosophy say about the emergence of the new art forms of the late 20 century? Can a computer programmer in any way be an artist, can a video game be considered art, even when its primary focus is to entertain, can a whole web page be a work of art? Thanks by advance
Gabriel Segal
April 12, 2008
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Well, if by 'the new art forms' you mean such things as video games and web pages, then it looks like you have answered your own questions in the affirmative. To me that seems the right answer.
A video game could be both art and entertainment, a web page could be both a work of art and a me... Read more
Is is possible to truly love someone, yet still do things that would knowingly hurt them (i.e., acts of infidelity)?
Gloria Origgi
April 11, 2008
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It depends on how you define "true love". Indeed ambivalence is one of the strongest features of human beings, so, typically, you have an ambiguous relation with your objects of "true love". My 7 years old son told me last night: "Maman, (he's French) do you know who is the person I love most?"... Read more
Sometimes we cannot think of the name of a person or the name of a place. We screw up our face, we ponder hard, and we try to recall it. Then someone suggests a name. We say "No, that's not it." How did we know it was wrong if we cannot say what's right? But then someone says the right name, and we immediately say "Hey, that's it!". If our brain knew all along what was right and what was wrong, why didn't it come into our consciousness when we were pondering? Do we have two brains, one which handles most thinking tasks but sometimes forgets and one which always knows the right answers but somehow cannot assert itself when we need it to? What's going on here?
Gloria Origgi
April 11, 2008
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We don't have two brains, we have much more! Philosophers (like Dan Dennett) and cognitive scientists (like Dan Sperber and Steven Pinker) argue that we have sub-personal processes that go on all the time in our mind/brain without the least control by our conscious processes, as when we parse a... Read more
Can I infer from the fact I am thinking that I have existed for a finite period of time (as opposed to simply "I exist"), irrespective of how short that period of time might be?
Gloria Origgi
April 11, 2008
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It depends. Descartes would say no. The strength of his famous argument "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) is its "performativity", that is, its power to realize what is stated by the simple fact of stating it. But this performative aspect is lost if we declinate the same sentence in a... Read more
How obliged are we to our friends? If my friend is horribly depressed, how far do the bonds of friendship oblige me to counsel and listen to him constantly, even if I care deeply for him, and even if it's affecting my own health? Ultimately, should we protect ourselves? I feel that I'd be doing something immoral by abandoning him.
Kalynne Pudner
April 11, 2008
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To be a friend is going to mean, among other things, wanting what is best for your friend. It's unlikely that abandonment is what's best, which is probably why that option feels immoral to you. On the other hand, if you wear yourself down to the point that you have nothing to offer him (or p... Read more
When, for example, a man has his heart broken by a woman he loves, why does it sometimes feel like a mini death? Is there perhaps some sort of a parallel between breaking up and dying, between the end of a relationship and the end of life?
Kalynne Pudner
April 11, 2008
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Sure, I think there's a parallel, particularly if you consider that a person is not an isolated, self-contained entity, but rather a being-in-relation. Your identity is defined partly by your relationships with particular others, and the more intimate the relationship, the more it contributes... Read more
How can abortion be so easily accepted in a civilized society? Sure, it is important that a woman or any person be able to have control over their body, but the fetus is a separate entity, a new person completely, as is logically shown by the fact that a mother can give birth to a male child. Anyone can tell this without having to use the available scientific evidence which proves my point. So, what gives any person the right to kill someone else so that they can live the way that they want?
Peter Smith
April 11, 2008
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Allen Stairs rightly queries the claim that the foetus is already a new person: killing an early foetus is not straightforwardly killing a person -- it is at most killing something that would otherwise become a person.
Still, you might be tempted to say -- indeed, many people do say -- killing a... Read more
Is courage a virtue or is is simply the ability to conquer fear?
Kalynne Pudner
April 10, 2008
(changed April 10, 2008)
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These options needn't be mutually exclusive, right? A common definition of virtue is "a habitual disposition to act in accordance with the good for its own sake." If courage is the ability to conquer fear, and conquering fear is good, then assuming that the ability is a habitual one and not... Read more
At school we had a discussion about our motives to do certain things. The concrete example was Antigone. Antigone buries the corpse of her brother, which is against the law, and risks her own life by doing so. Finally she gets caught and is sentenced to death, but before that can happen, she kills herself. At first I thought this was the greatest love one can prove to another. But a classmate said everything we do has an egoistic motive. Antigone didn't bury her brother to give his soul rest, but to give herself a good feeling. My question is: What we experience as love, is it really caring about someone or just trying to feel better?
Peter Smith
April 25, 2008
(changed April 25, 2008)
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It is worth commenting further on that idea that "everything we do has an egoistic motive". We need to distinguish here a truism from a falsehood.
The truism is that, when I act, it is as a result of my desires, my intentions, my goals. After all, if my arm moves independently of my desires, e.g.... Read more