Recent Responses
If I say my hand is a parrot, is there anyway for you to prove me wrong with 100% objective data?
Sally Haslanger
November 8, 2007
(changed November 8, 2007)
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That's interesting. I would be inclined to say that necessarily nothing can both be a human hand an a parrot, so even if the skeptic is right, we can still know that the hand in question is not a parrot. Rather than skepticism, I think the worry would be how we can know that the concept... Read more
Do you believe that the future of feminism lies in downplaying our differences instead of "celebrating" and emphasizing them? It seems to me that bar physical differences, male and female gender roles are largely social constructs, and the marginalization of women is as much due to their own awareness of their "difference" compared with men. A major example of this is the fact that we have a Minister for Women in this country. Is that not basically admitting that to be female is to deviate from a normative male standard, and that issues concerning therefore requires special attention? That is tantamount to admitting, accepting or condoning the fact that female interest is not present in all the affairs dealt with by other ministers (Finance, Health, Education), and it seems a contradiction in terms. It's more than positive discrimination - it's willful marginalization. On the part of women, obviously. It seems by seeking to put ourselves on an equal level with men we have overshot and are now seeking to separate ourselves even more. Shouldn't the aim be to participate equally in all facets of life? I accept that there are still problems concerning gender equality in Britain, such as the glass ceiling, but I believe that has more to do with women wanting to have children as well as have a career, in which case they would be the first to admit that they cannot compete for the top jobs. Women now ave the possibility to value their careers over their families and can choose not to have children at all. Basically my question is why feminists seem to want to actively take men's superiority from them instead of accepting that we are essentially the same and should co-exist as such?
Louise Antony
November 8, 2007
(changed November 8, 2007)
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I have a slightly different reaction to your question that Prof. Fosl does. The version of feminism that I subscribe to says that sexism consists in the existence of gender roles -- that is, in the social construction of categories of persons founded on differences in reproductive physiolo... Read more
In relation to sex, when is it considered permissible to gives oneself to another? If what one is waiting for is love, then why does a piece of paper stating marriage have to stop a person from connecting himself/herself with his/her love physically and spiritually? A piece of paper will not stop a breakup. If this is all true, then why does the dilemma of if to have sex or not plague one's mind?
Louise Antony
November 8, 2007
(changed November 8, 2007)
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There are two facts about sex that have made its regulation a matter of importance to human beings: first, that it is an extremely powerful motivator. People typically want to have it a lot -- and I mean both that they want it a lot, and that they want a lot of it. Because sexual desire i... Read more
If I say my hand is a parrot, is there anyway for you to prove me wrong with 100% objective data?
Sally Haslanger
November 8, 2007
(changed November 8, 2007)
Permalink
That's interesting. I would be inclined to say that necessarily nothing can both be a human hand an a parrot, so even if the skeptic is right, we can still know that the hand in question is not a parrot. Rather than skepticism, I think the worry would be how we can know that the concept... Read more
What is the source of philosophy's authority? Is simply tradition? Or logical deductions from some common-sense axioms? Or an appealing fit between reasoned arguments and our contemporary cultural preference? Or maybe a bit of all three, with the other two taking up the slack, when the first one looks inadequate?
Allen Stairs
November 8, 2007
(changed November 8, 2007)
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I think the first thing we'd need to say is that philosophy doesn't have "authority" in the way that, say, physics does. It doesn't include a body of more-or-less well-established knowledge. Philosophy is all about the sorts of things that some people call "essentially contested questions."... Read more
Not so many centuries ago, slavery and sexism were morally correct. Now they are severely frowned on. Are the changing notions of the morally correct a question to be explored by philosophy or do they belong to the field of social history?
Thomas Pogge
November 8, 2007
(changed November 8, 2007)
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You need to distinguish between the question of what is morally right/wrong and the question of what is generally taken to be right/wrong at some specific time. Slavery was never morally correct but, at most, it was generally taken to be so. (Compare: The earth was never actually the center... Read more
Are there teaching techniques for 40-student classes in order to make them think philosophically?
Mitch Green
November 7, 2007
(changed November 7, 2007)
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Thank you for your question. I don't know that level this class is, nor even what the ostensible subject matter is. As a result I'm shooting in the dark a bit in trying to answer. However, aside from the obvious choice of asking students to engage directly with a philosophical work, such a... Read more
On cloudy ethical questions, philosophers on this site have tended to say to questioners things like, "I detect that you feel guilty, hence deep down you know this activity is wrong." But if my parents were particularly quirky and instilled all sorts of silly taboos into me as a kid, then my conscience could trouble me when I broke those taboos but I needn't be doing anything objectively "wrong". Right?
Allen Stairs
November 5, 2007
(changed November 5, 2007)
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Right. Being wrong isn't the same thing as troubling the conscience. People can have troubled consciences when they needn't, and people can do awful things without a flicker of guilt. That said, it could be true (and seems at least somewhat plausible) that people's consciences are often reli... Read more
Since philosophy is a product of Greco-Christian culture, are all its conclusions circumscribed by a tacit limitation ("true only for Westerners"), particularly, perhaps, in the field of ethics?
Mitch Green
November 3, 2007
(changed November 3, 2007)
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Thank you for your question. First of all, it is not true that philosophy is a productof Greco-Christian culture. There are Buddhist, Chinese and Islamic philosophies (among others) that are not products of Grec0-Roman culture. (Granted, Islamic philosopies were influenced by, for instance... Read more
In order for something to be a punishment, must there be an ending to it? Hell, many say, is a punishment. But isn't the purpose of a punishment to try to make somebody learn that what they did was wrong and make them a "better person"? Many believe in eternity in hell, but how can this be? What is the point of "punishing" somebody forever, if they will never be able to do good again? If they will never be faced with another opportunity to be a better person?
Allen Stairs
November 3, 2007
(changed November 3, 2007)
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A good question! As it turns out, not everyone agrees that the purpose of punishment is to reform people. In fact, some philosophers (Kant is perhaps the foremost) held that the only justification for punishment is that the person deserves it, and if we punish for the sake of making someone... Read more