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I would just like t to ask you a few questions. Locke speaks of Reason being the Law of Nature if I am correct but then sees that we need certain minimal authority within society to provide correctly measured punishment for those who go against another's natural rights. If Reason is the said Law of Nature then why can not most of us, according to Locke, decide these measurements of justice individually? I understand that he says 'those who will consult it' but if he sees that we naturally as a majority can live within equality and freedom due to Reason, why is this area of justice, in theory, any different? Furthermore I have a problem with his assumption that the moralities he defines would and should be the morality of everyone because many can and do Reason differently. I may not understand Locke completely though.
I shall address your question
Eugene Marshall
September 10, 2015
(changed September 10, 2015)
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I shall address your question concerning reason and the law of nature and shall leave aside the last two sentences concerning morality.
It is true that Locke believes that reason allows those even in a state of nature to know the laws of nature and, there... Read more
Do you feel that philosophy suffers from a lack of respect from the public and do you think any of that is deserved?
It's tough to get a handle on
Michael Cholbi
September 3, 2015
(changed September 3, 2015)
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It's tough to get a handle on whether philosophy is respected by the public. First and foremost, my guess is that most people living today don't respect or disrespect philosophy. They simply have no attitude toward it whatsoever. In large measure, that's... Read more
What insight can babies in scientific experiments provide philosophy? If we really are born with blank slates, how does that explain why many babies will choose to look and gesture at the side by side photo of the model instead of the photo of the grandma? I really think philosophy will answer this alone instead of neuroscience.
I don't have a clear fix on
Allen Stairs
September 3, 2015
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I don't have a clear fix on the question, but insofar as I do, I don't see how philosophy alone could answer it. You seem to be saying that there's a real-world, repeatable phenomenon: babies in certain situations behave this way rather than that. That may b... Read more
Can we really define Philosophy?
Think about it. Nearly all
André Carus
September 3, 2015
(changed September 3, 2015)
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Think about it. Nearly all controversies with an intellectual component are at least partly controversies about what concepts to use. The deepest controversies in nearly all disciplines aren't the substantive ones, where people disagree about some particular the... Read more
Does it actually make any sense when someone claims that they wish they were born in a different era or location or to a different family? Sometimes, someone will say that they wish they'd been born in, say, 1950. Without thinking too hard about it, it seems to make sense. But if I do think about what they said, it really doesn't. Let's say we have two timelines. We have the first one in which the person says they wish they were born in 1950. And then we have the second one in which, for whatever reason, there was one more person born in 1950 that wasn't born that year in the first timeline. The problem I see is that there's really no way of linking these two people. Who's to say if they're "the same"? They'd have different experiences, different looks, and probably different personalities. I could see this maybe being resolved by throwing in the concept of a soul, but that doesn't really seem like a logically-sound option (if you and I (as souls) switched bodies for the day, would either of us be able to tell in the moment, or the next day?).
Excellent questions. They
Stephen Maitzen
September 3, 2015
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Excellent questions. They engage the issue of whether one's biological parentage or the time of one's birth are essential to one's identity. I doubt I can do any better than to refer you to two SEP entries that are relevant to this issue:
"Essential vs. Acciden... Read more
If it is not immoral to shoot dead an intruder into one's house without asking questions, why would it be immoral to shoot dead an intruder into one's country?
Some folks are enamored of
Michael Shenefelt
September 12, 2015
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Some folks are enamored of the idea of “shooting dead an intruder in one’s house without asking questions,” but I’m not one of them.
Necessary self-defense has always been a basic part of common law, but it is quite another thing to kill a man or woman on... Read more
As far as I can tell western and Buddhist philosophers would probably agree that if at noon Jones is in London and Brown is in Paris, then Jones and Brown are not identical people, because they are discernible (in this case by location). However it seems like they would disagree in the case of Jones in London at noon and in Paris at 6 PM. A western philosopher might say that while Jones in London can be discerned from Jones in Paris, this discernment is cancelled out by the fact that the two situations don't happen at the same time, as in the example with Jones and Brown, and so Jones in London at noon is still identical to Jones in Paris at 6. Whereas a Buddhist philosopher might say that Jones in London at noon and Jones in Paris at 6 can't be identical people, not only because they are discernible by location, but also because they are discernible by time. Mustn't there be something wrong with one of these views, or both perhaps? If they're both correct then Jones in London at noon is both identical and non-identical to Jones in Paris at 6, which seems pretty clearly false.
One thing to ask is what is
Stephen Maitzen
September 3, 2015
(changed September 3, 2015)
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One thing to ask is what is being referred to by the expressions "Jones in London at noon" and "Jones in Paris at 6pm." Whatever, if anything, is referred to (denoted by) those expressions would seem to be strange: a "time slice" of Jones or a "space-time slic... Read more
Does one need to consent to a social contract? It seems that they are something people are often born into and while it is sometimes possible to move somewhere else that is not always the case, for example someone who is born somewhere where travel is restricted because of the social contract itself or other circumstances (such as North Korea). How does this affect the nature of the social contract?
Thanks for this question. I'm
Yuval Avnur
August 28, 2015
(changed August 28, 2015)
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Thanks for this question. I'm not an expert in this field but I noticed no one has answered this yet. I will attempt a preliminary answer for you. There are a couple (at least) different kinds of "contract" theories out there. Without going into too much about... Read more
Are citizens in the US obligated to obey the law just because it is the law? If one reserves the right of civil disobedience, doesn't that imply that the state's authority is ultimate not legitimate? Thanks for continuing this site.
This is a difficult question!
Michael Lacewing
August 28, 2015
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This is a difficult question! In fact, two difficult questions. I'm just going to tackle the second one, and leave aside how we should think about political obligation.
In the end, I think the answer is that legitimacy and civil disobedience are compatible. But... Read more
Can we really be dead? There is no existence where we can be as unborn, and there is no existence where we can be, as dead. We are not born from something and we won't die into something, and therefore we have no awareness before we were born, and we will have no awareness after we die. So to be unborn or to be dead does not exist, it is not created. How can I be dead if there is no existence where I can experience to be dead? It seems that everything is an endless reality, an eternal state of totality where you have ever known and will ever know is this!
Nicely put! I think the
Michael Lacewing
August 28, 2015
(changed August 28, 2015)
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Nicely put! I think the answer rather depends on what we mean by 'I', or again, what it is for me to be me (and you to be you), as well as what we mean by 'dead'. Here are some options:
1. If what I am is, as you imply, a psychological subject of experience, then I c... Read more