Recent Responses
Excluding people drafted, isn't a soldiers life less important than a civilians. Otherwise what is the point of protecting them. A good mother would give her life to protect her child because the child's life holds more value right? Or am I misunderstanding why one sacrifices ones self.also if a person joins the military but isn't willing to go through whatever (torture, death etc..)is required doesn't that make them cowards or even something worse.
I think we can begin with
Allen Stairs
March 9, 2016
(changed March 9, 2016)
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I think we can begin with this premise: a soldier's life is every bit as important as a civilian's. The fact that soldiers volunteer to protect civilians doesn't give us any reason to believe otherwise. Many soldiers believe that serving their country is a higher cause, a... Read more
If the nature of a man is to be egocentric, is this person capable of doing true good or is he always going to be egocentric and therefore evil even if his deeds are good and he means them to be good? Is it possible to escape this nature, deny it, and act for good because of the good itself or just impossible because such person would always try to be good just because his ego demands it?
Your remarks raise some of
Michael Cholbi
March 5, 2016
(changed March 5, 2016)
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Your remarks raise some of the oldest questions in moral philosophy: What is human nature? How should the relationship between morality and an individual's good or interest to be understood? What motivates the morally good person to act morally?
It should be said, thou... Read more
How is it clear that religious thought and philosophy were totally intertwined during the Middle Ages?
Interesting question. During
Charles Taliaferro
March 4, 2016
(changed March 4, 2016)
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Interesting question. During the medieval period, philosophical work was done on many subjects that might be assessed independent of religious convictions on the theory of truth, different accounts of human and animal nature, logic, ethics, the constitution of t... Read more
I think of philosophers as people who describe and debate in order to reach defensible positions concerning ethics, truth, etc. But what is uniquely philosophical about such practices? Philosophers identify fallacies, but so do logicians. Philosophers are trained in intellectual movements, but so are historians. As Rorty put it, where is the fach in philosophy? Is philosophy more about excellence in argumentation than content?
I myself would answer "Yes"
Stephen Maitzen
March 4, 2016
(changed March 4, 2016)
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I myself would answer "Yes" to your final question. I think you've put your finger on what distinguishes good philosophers from good practitioners of other disciplines: the desire and the ability to attain the highest standards of argumentative attentiveness... Read more
My dictionary's definition of "definition" is an "exact description of a thing". The definition doesn't contain an exact description of a thing, it only mentions it, so it doesn't qualify as a definition. Paradox?
I'm intrigued by your
Stephen Maitzen
February 25, 2016
(changed February 25, 2016)
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I'm intrigued by your suggestion that there may be a paradox here, but I'm having trouble reconstructing your reasoning. As far as I can tell, your reasoning relies on the premise that any definition must contain whatever it defines. But I'm not sure that premi... Read more
In a recent response to a question, Michael Lacewing writes: "Blackburn’s quasi-realism argues that ethical language is rather more complex than either emotivist theory claims [Ayer's and Stevenson's]. First, ethical language does express propositions, such as ‘what she did was courageous’ or ‘his remark was unkind’ as well as ‘murder is wrong’. The predicates ‘was courageous’, ‘was unkind’, ‘is wrong’, attribute a property to something (what she did, his remark, murder). However, second, these predicates aren’t genuine descriptions of what she did, etc. but ‘projections’ of our evaluations. In using ethical language, we don’t speak of and think in terms our personal evaluations, but in terms of the properties of things in the world. We treat our evaluative commitments (to courage, to kindness etc.) as though they were judgments about how the world is. This is enormously useful, because it is much easier to coordinate our attitudes with other people if we think in terms of an intersubjective world of moral properties. Third, this isn’t simply a mistake or illusion. Quasi-realism argues that we can meaningfully talk of moral judgments being true or false." My questions: does the desire to separate our evaluations from descriptions attributing (evaluate) predicates to people and actions in the world really make sense, especially if it seems that distinguishing them, as most people don't, would not be "useful."? Does the notion of subjective projections onto I guess the flat screen of reality make sense - at least without assuming some metaphysical fact/value dichotomy? What is wrong with thinking that 'what she did was courageous' is both a fact about what she did and an expression of admiration for that fact? Thanks for your time.
Your questions show that you
Michael Lacewing
February 25, 2016
(changed February 25, 2016)
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Your questions show that you really understand the debate here well, because they probe very deep into the motivation for quasi-realism. So to attempt a rather tentative answer, one that may help with all three questions.
Blackburn starts from the claim that... Read more
I've had many discussions with religious people and they seem to be very fond of some kind of ''optimistic'' reinterpretation. For example, they will use the morals, knowledge and science of today to argue the veracity of their scriptures, when it seems likely that the morals, knowledge and science of today were, I presume, alien to the people who lived back then. They will try to make ''modern'' common sense compatible with their scriptures, when these scriptures seem static and fixed in time. A never ending series of reinterpretations. I think it resembles Popper's so-called ''immunizing stratagems''. Is this a real phenomenon? Does it have a (philosophical) name?
You might have already
Charles Taliaferro
February 12, 2016
(changed February 12, 2016)
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You might have already identified the term you are looking for: a theory or position that is immune to falsification might simply be referred to as unfalsifiable. There is an informal term that is sometimes used to refer to a philosophy that does not allow for... Read more
I had a brief chat with a work colleague today about the nature of reality and our perception of it. Essentially, his contention was that because we all basically agree on our external physical reality (e.g. when I hand him a cup of tea we both agree that I've just passed him a cup of hot tea), there must be an external reality because we both seem to agree on what it's like. If there wasn't such an external reality and we didn't essentially agree on it, he pointed out, we wouldn't be able to even ask for a cup of tea because my idea of what a cup of tea actually is would be totally different (or at least different enough to make meaningful communication difficult). Therefore, he concluded, it's common sense that we must be talking about and looking at the same "real" things and that we both experience them in the same -- or very similar -- way. Age-old philosophical problem solved! But it can't be that simple. So my question is what are the main problems with this "consensus" view of reality? Or, to put it another way, how can I reduce my colleague's certainty in the self-evident truth of his claim?
I've seen only one of the
Stephen Maitzen
February 10, 2016
(changed February 10, 2016)
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I've seen only one of the Matrix films, the first one. You might ask your colleague how he can be certain that things in our world aren't as they're portrayed in that film: that is, you and he merely believe you're conversing in the ordinary way about an or... Read more
It seems that one characteristic of the present Western culture is redefining anything. The unborn has now been defined as a human being who is not a person. Marriage is no longer just between a man and a woman. Homosexuality is no longer a mental disorder. With all these redefinition, it is confusing whose testimony is to be believed. My question is: is there any correct criteria for defining anything, or is it simply the case that the definition of something depends on what people thought about it?
I do not believe that it is a
Jonathan Westphal
February 5, 2016
(changed February 20, 2016)
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I do not believe that it is a "characteristic of the present Western culture" that it is in the habit of _redefining_ everything, as if that were some sort of local parlour game. The re-definitions come about because many people are making the claim that... Read more
Recently, I read an article about someone whose parents would purposely have sex in front of him when he was a young child. Many of the comments left in response to the article remarked that this amounts to child abuse. (For a less extreme example, it's commonly held that exposing young children to porn or graphic sex scenes is similarly inappropriate.) I agree that this sort of thing is egregious, but I don't know how to explain why. When the child is watching his parents have sex, what exactly is happening that harms him?
Allen has already said a lot
Richard Heck
August 11, 2017
(changed August 11, 2017)
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Allen has already said a lot about this, so I'll just add a brief note. Early in the response, he says, "Imagine a society in which people live in close quarters and privacy is a luxury." We don't need to imagine such a society! Most human societies prior to the ind... Read more