Recent Responses
We all know co-incidences happen. At what point should the person, who discovers one after another, such as numbers/names/colours, which all link together, turn and say: There must be more behind these co-incidences and I shall find out, what it is all about?
Allen Stairs
September 27, 2007
(changed September 27, 2007)
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There's no simple answer to this question, but there is a caution: both common experience and a good deal of psychological work suggest that we have a strong tendency to project patterns onto random events. We also tend to notice things that interest us and ignore things that don't. And... Read more
Are we born with morality, a distinct human sense of right and wrong, or is our morality merely a product of our environment?
Richard Heck
September 27, 2007
(changed September 27, 2007)
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It's easy to be concerned that, whichever answer this question gets, that will somehow serve to undermine morality itself. If, on the one hand, our moral sense is one with which we're born, then it's, in effect, genetic, and our gut reaction to human suffering can be written off as a con... Read more
How much of epistemology boils down to semantics? Sometimes it seems as though all we're really doing is trying to decide which situations warrant use of the word "know"; nothing actually changes in practice.
Richard Heck
September 27, 2007
(changed September 27, 2007)
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This is a deep and important question. But let me first correct an apparent misimpression: namely, that, if the central questions of epistemology are semantic questions, then they are unimportant or uninteresting. On the contrary, semantics---the study of meaning---is an important subjec... Read more
I would like to know what's the CURRENT state/view of the Chinese Room argument. Is it considered as a false argument?
Richard Heck
September 27, 2007
(changed September 27, 2007)
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The articles at the Stanford Encyclopedia and the Internet Encyclopedia should give you a good sense of the state of the art.
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Is it possible to know something and not be able to express it?
Richard Heck
September 27, 2007
(changed September 27, 2007)
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Sure. I know how the grapes in my back yard taste, but I can't come close to expressing that adequately. I know how John Coltrane plays the soprano sax---with an unmatched genius and intensity---but there's not much else I can really say. And I know how it feels when I see my daughter sm... Read more
If love of others is taken to be a supreme value is there any ethical justification for a mature (50+) married man and woman to love each other when they are not married to each other (adultery) assuming children are not at risk (grown and gone or don't exist) and that great care is taken to keep the relationship secret and private (assume both live in distant countries/cultures)? Assume neither pregnancy nor disease are issues. Assume both people live in passionless but stable and friendly situations and recognize legitimate needs of all concerned to social and financial stability. Both divorcing would likely cause much pain and disruption to many. Terminating the relationship would deny both their last chance of expressing their mutual affection, of sharing their highest value. From at least Aristotle on, and for most religions and cultures, adultery is a no brainer - wrong without question. With aging populations in a modern context this question will become more common. If it is wrong, how serious is it?
Richard Heck
September 27, 2007
(changed September 27, 2007)
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I'm not sure why one would suppose that "love of others"---by which you seem, obviously, to mean romantic love---is a "supreme value", expressing which over-rides so much else. That said, yes, this kind of question is very real. And surely it's possible for someone to decide, in certain... Read more
Here is an attack on vegetarianism: Is it better for an animal to exist or not to exist? If it were better for it not to exist, wouldn't it be a virtue sterilising all the animals out there, so that no more come into an unfortunate existence? This would seem absurd. Thus let us conclude that in some cases it is better for an animal to exist. Now the cows, for example, on a farm only exist because someone will eat them later. Assuming also that the cow is kept in humane conditions, and has all the things a cow would want in life, we might conclude that it is better that the cow has been. As this good is wholly dependant on a human being a meat-eater, we conclude that it is virtuous being a meat-eater.
Richard Heck
September 27, 2007
(changed September 27, 2007)
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Sorry, but this is a silly argument. Replace "animal" with "person", and you get an argument in favor of breeding children for slaughter. (Apologies to Jonathan Swift.) But yet, surely, it's better for a person to exist than for it not to exist, right? Actually, that's not so obvious, as... Read more
As a teacher I am concerned about the aftermath of the killings at Virginia Tech. Many have said that we teachers should be responsible for monitoring the content of our students' writing assignments, and that we should notify the authorities if we identify any particular student as repeatedly making statements that are disturbing, violent, or indicating mental illness. How would a philosopher approach this topic? What are the ethical issues involved in monitoring students' thoughts via their personal writing, which is handed in for course credit?
Allen Stairs
September 26, 2007
(changed September 26, 2007)
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This is a hard thing to have to think about, and since all of us on this panel are teachers, we all have to come to terms with the issues. Let me just offer some thoughts on how I think I would handle things if this sort of case arose.
There are some obvious conflicting values here. The... Read more
People often talk about 'being good' when they refuse a piece of cake or go to the gym, and feel guilty when they don't. But is there any moral virtue in imposing dietary or other restrictions on oneself in order to maintain or improve physical fitness or appearance?
Allen Stairs
September 26, 2007
(changed September 26, 2007)
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Going to the gym soley because we want to be buff may not count as "being good," but one way to come at this question would be to ask whether we have duties to ourselves -- to take care of ourselves properly, for example. There are many ethical perspectives, philosophical and theological... Read more
Since the beginnings of the XX century, with the emergence of new kinds of artistic expression such as conceptual art, video, photography, etc., there has appeared a need for defining what is art and what is not. But the search for that particular definition has proved to be difficult because of one fundamental issue: How to unite in one concept all the artistic ways of expression without ending up with a too vague definition? With the emergence of this problem, there seems to appear an even more basic question: Is it reasonable to search for a definition of art?
Allen Stairs
September 26, 2007
(changed September 26, 2007)
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A good question. If we go off looking for what all artworks have in common, we may find ourselves baffled. Of course, as many people have pointed out, definitions are generally a lot harder to come by than we naively think. Wittgenstein's example of game is still a good example. Try comi... Read more