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Does insult in whatever context count as a moral wrong?
Insulting a person may be
Charles Taliaferro
January 16, 2016
(changed January 16, 2016)
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Insulting a person may be morally wrong --when, for example, the insult is based on racist or sexist stereotyping or the insult is designed to shame a perfectly innocent person into doing something awful or the insult is aimed at a fragile person such as a defe... Read more
Why is Socrates so influential?
There are two kinds of
Nickolas Pappas
January 14, 2016
(changed January 14, 2016)
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There are two kinds of responses people make to this question, because Socrates affected later philosophy in at least two ways. First of all, he must have been an extraordinary person, both charismatic and counter-cultural. He seemed to embody the values he inquired... Read more
Both idealism and materialism have convincing arguments for me, yet within each argument are refutations of the other. How can I reconcile which to believe when they both seem equally as likely? I've thought that perhaps idealism explains our own subjective worlds, and materialism explains the objective external world, but can both be true when they contain refutations of the other?
Yuval Avnur's response to
André Carus
January 21, 2016
(changed January 21, 2016)
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Yuval Avnur's response to this question is of the kind that is currently most popular among philosophers; it takes the "existence" question (or, as philosophers like to say, the "ontological" question) seriously, at face value. There is another approach, though,... Read more
One important trait of moral principles is that they should be impartial. They should not favor one person over the other simply because they are two different individuals. But in my country, we have laws giving special considerations to senior citizens and persons with disabilities and pregnant women. These groups of people are given special lanes at fastfood restaurants, cinemas and bank lanes. I sometimes feel unjustly treated when I spent an hour waiting in line while a senior citizen come in, make his transactions and leave the place in just a minute. I am fully aware that the reason they are treated in such a special way is because of their special conditions but it seems that the treatment is still unfair. After all, whatever they may suffer for waiting long in line are possibilities that I myself can experience. My questions then are: Are these special treatments unjust for the majority of us who are not in the same conditions? Do these violate the condition that moral principles should by nature be impartial? If they are just, what make it just when the rest of us have to suffer for hours while these people can make transactions in a minute and not break a sweat?
'Impartiality' is in no way a
Michael Cholbi
January 14, 2016
(changed January 14, 2016)
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'Impartiality' is in no way a simple moral concept. Yet one thing most moral philosophers would agree upon is that impartiality cannot be plausibly equated with treating everyone the same. Rather, impartiality seems to have both an exclusionary and an... Read more
I was talking to a friend the other day about the reasons for, and importance of, remembering the dead. His position was that, whilst the act of remembrance was undoubtedly of some importance, the real reasons for doing it were inherently selfish, centred around making the people who are still alive feel better. "How could they be anything else?", he argued, "after all, the dead are not around to benefit, therefore it is only beneficial as a comfort to those still here". Furthermore -- and with particular reference to World War I -- he reasoned that once the direct connection with the generation that fought and died is broken, we are only really using the act of remembrance to glorify what was a terrible episode and to attempt to reflect some of that glory back onto ourselves -- in addition to trying to make ourselves feel better about it all. So, my question is, are there any other reasons for us to remember to dead beyond self-comfort? I'm particularly interested in non-self centred (i.e. self-comforting) reasons for doing so, as well as ones that don't rely on the assumption of a god and/or afterlife in order to be compelling. Also, are there any reasons to remember the dead from a generation with which we no longer have a living connection?
Interesting question. Here is
Yuval Avnur
January 14, 2016
(changed January 14, 2016)
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Interesting question. Here is just a start of an answer. There are at least two ways in which remembering the dead, and the way they died (as with war memorials, which you mention) might be beneficial for non-selfish reasons, though part of this depends on what co... Read more
If humans can imagine life before birth, why is life after death so difficult to imagine?
I'm not entirely sure I
Michael Cholbi
January 8, 2016
(changed January 8, 2016)
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I'm not entirely sure I accept the assumption of your question: Is it really any more difficult to imagine life after death than life before death? Many philosophers have argued that it is difficult to imagine being dead because the act of imagination requires tha... Read more
Why is philosophy difficult to define?
Another (and very different)
André Carus
January 21, 2016
(changed January 21, 2016)
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Another (and very different) response, to yet another iteration of this same question on this site, is here.
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Is a beautiful painting a good painting because it's beautiful? If you answer "Yes" I would say that a beautiful painting is a good painting because it's good, and not because it's beautiful. What would you say?
This is a very similar
Michael Lacewing
January 5, 2016
(changed January 5, 2016)
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This is a very similar question to another I answered a few months ago, so apologies if you've read that and are looking for a different reply!
I think that there are some paintings that are good paintings at least in part because they are beautiful. Being beautiful i... Read more
Is it a valid argument that it is okay for someone to be homosexual because they were "born that way?" This argument seems to lack merit to me, and I believe the reasoning should be that there is nothing morally wrong with it aside from having certain religious conflicts. Pedophiles could be born the way they are, but nobody condones their actions, because there is something arguably wrong with what they want to do. I just seek another point of view on these issues, and possibly a few examples of things that may in fact be morally justified simply because one was born a certain way.
I'd be surprised if there
Michael Cholbi
January 2, 2016
(changed January 2, 2016)
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I'd be surprised if there were sound arguments for the immortality of homosexuality, but I agree with your suggestion that whether or not LGBT persons are 'born that way' or not cannot provide a sound basis for the immortality of homosexuality -- nor can it prov... Read more
I have two questions about logic that have vexed me for a long time. Smith has written two great books of philosophy. Now he has come out with a third book. Therefore, that book will probably be good too. Smith has flipped a coin twice, and both times it has come up tails. Now Smith will flip the coin a third time. Therefore, that flip with probably end up 'tails' too. The logical form of inductive arguments seems to contribute nothing; the premises seem to do no logical work supporting the conclusion - is that right? Smith has written two great books of philosophy. Now he has written a third. Any author that has written two great books of philosophy, and then writes a third, has probably written a third great book. Therefore, Smith has probably written a third great book. That seems a deductive argument, because the general premise was added. And if true, the premises do seem to support with conclusion with necessity, even though the conclusion is probable; it is the knowledge of the world and not the logical form that is doing the work. What about that as an argument to replace induction with strictly deductive arguments? In the coin toss example, the general premise "Anybody who flips a coin twice and gets 'tails' will probably get 'tails' on the third toss" would clearly be false, showing more clearly than inductive reasoning could why that would be a bad argument. Appreciate the continuation of the site!
I think both arguments can be
Stephen Maitzen
December 31, 2015
(changed January 1, 2016)
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I think both arguments can be analyzed as inductive arguments and still distinguished in terms of their quality. The book argument is a stronger inductive argument than the coin-toss argument for a simple reason: the probability that Smith's book C is great is... Read more