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Philosophy
Religion
Value

In order to be as 'good' as possible and lead a life that benefits others as well as yourself, is it better to follow a particular religion or a particular philosophy?

Yes. Let me explain: Identification with some group (religious, especially, but also philosophical) extends your ability to make a difference in the world by adding your efforts to those of others, rather than limiting your efforts to the confines of whatever you can do on your own. By joining Habitat for Humanity, for example, you will find you are much more effective in building homes for those who cannot otherwise afford them than if you go out and try to build such homes all by yourself and without others' help. On the other hand, you might also find that Habitat for Humanity did things in ways with which you could not entirely agree or be comfortable. I am not at all religious (indeed, I would say I am the opposite of religious, at least insofar as that involves believing in dieties and such things), but even I can't miss the fact that many churches are associated with very significant and very well organized charities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs, as they are...
Art
Value

I desire to produce a Great Work - the term I will use to avoid a lengthy, linguistically-bound dissertation on its specifics - but I find that, while I long to produce and offer a work (a work of art - writing, animation, film, or a combination) of Content (something with meaning and value beyond surface value; also, thought-provoking, e.g. the animated series Neon Genesis Evangelion or Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis ,) I hate the thought of ignorant persons maiming the work, or enjoying it in a puerile manner for superficial reasons alone (e.g., thinking Metamorphosis was just some cool story because the guy turns into a bug, or Evangelion because it has giant robots.) This makes me reticent to create anything. Is this purely some sort of narcissistic elitism, or is it a legitimate concern? How have prior artists worked through misanthropy towards the ignorant to continue to create? Is there an established explanation of why myself or others feel this way about the full value of a work being...

Great works--and also not-so-great works--are a bit like children to us. We bring them into being as a result of our desire , we do our best to nurture and to preserve them, and to advantage them in the world as best we can...and then we turn them loose into a world that may love or hate, may celebrate or destroy them. Once our children (fleshly and otherwise) are "out there," we have little to no continuing control over how things will go for them. And the surest thing of all, I'm afraid, is that not everything will go well for them. I will venture to advise you that so long as you are fixed on how your work will be received by others , you need not worry about producing anything Great. Indeed, the greater the work, the less likely it is, I think, that the work will be received or understood both completely and very generally. If there is true greatness within you--or if some great Muse (take that any way you will!) elects to speak through you--then the Great Work will be created...
Animals
Ethics
Value

Why don't humans think of all lives as equal, and instead that other creatures' lives hold more importance than others? For example a human kills an animal such as cows or pigs and no one (except animal rights activists and the like) has a problem with that, but if that same person killed another human they would be charged and sent to prison. In both cases a life is taken but (one human) and that person's life for some reason holds more importance than the animal's.

Your question seems to presuppose that life itself has some value all on its own...or maybe it doesn't, because you don't mention ending the lives of plants that we eat, or bacteria that cause infections, or stinging or blood-sucking insects. I use these examples to make a point: Virtually no one believes that life of any kind should be protected. Vast resources are spent each year on exterminating certain forms of life (for example, those that cause malaria). So this leads to the more important (and more philosophically interesting) question: What lives should we value, and what is it about these forms of life that makes them valuable, whereas the others are not (or even have negative value)? Now, we often think that just because we asked the question, the burden of argument shifts to those asked. My point in this response, however, is to suggest that some reason needs to be given even for thinking that we should value lives we do not now value. Animal rights activists, as...
Value

Why is it that even though we cannot predict how long a person's life would be, the value of a person's life generally decreases as their age increase? I have in mind an assumption of the measurement of a person's life as what order of priority others would place in trying to save that person's life. For example if person A and person B's lives are both in equal danger and person C decides saving person A's life is of higher priority than saving person B's life, then person A's life is rated as having higher value than person B's life. For example, people would value a 2 years old life more than the life of a 60 year old person, regardless if the 2 year old only have 2 more year to live and the 30 year old have another 20 years. I speculate that the reason why the value of a person's life is inversely proportional to their age is because as a person age they have been able to experience and enjoy more of life. However, I disagree that a person's age can be an accurate measure of how much of life they...

As the old joke goes...Hey! I resemble that! As someone pushing 60 myself, I guess my first reaction is to say that I most certainly do not think my life now has less value than that of a 2-year-old. Nor do I think the value of a human life is measurable in terms of how many (more) years the person will live. Answers to this sort of question will differ on the basis of which style of moral theory one applies to it. In one sort of moral theory (consequentialism), a human life will be valuable in terms of the overall balance of benefits and harms that derive from it--really good people will have really valuable lives and really bad people will have lives that have negative value. A really bad 20-year-old, in this view, would have a life that was worth less than Mother Teresa's life, even when she was getting very old. In other accounts, all human lives are equal in value. So, according to Kant's categorical imperative, we should treat all people as if they were ends only, and not...
Value

I always wanted to know what influences the tastes we have? Is it a rational justification or a causal consequence? I know that's two questions but to put it this way: in the end why do I prefer blue shirts more than yellow ones, why do I prefer Salinger more then Stephen King? I can imagine that my tastes are determined by my emotions, my culture, my education or my genetics but that doesn't seem to answer anything since I have the profond impression that I choose, what I like and what I don't, freely and rationaly. More generaly, I believe that the question "What influences the moral values we have?" is an equivalent question.

Huge question--too huge for me to try to answer fully. But I will say this: I seriously doubt that your preference for blue shorts over yellow ones is free and rational . It may be that it is rational to buy shirts you find more attractive, but I doubt that your attraction to blue over yellow is rationally driven (as if, by thorough observation, you notice that people are more inclined to react with hostility if talking to someone in a yellow shirt). Moreover, philosophers called "compatibilists" on the free will issue will claim both that your choices have causes that can entirely explain them, but that their having such causes does not determine them in a sense that leaves you unfree. There's a large literature on this, but you can start out by looking up "compatibilism" in one of the encyclopedias of philosophy linked to this site. Finally, I think one's choices of moral values is different in kind from choices of entertainments, choices of shirt colors, and many other...
Animals
Value

I've noticed that when people show a lot of affection towards their pets, for example claiming that the pet is their best friend or grieving for a very long period of time after the pet dies or paying for expensive veterinary care even for relatively minor injuries/illnesses, other people are quite scornful and say things like, 'It's only a dog' or think that the person is crazy. This seems unfair to me. If someone did that for another human it would be seen as honourable. Why is animal companionship seen as less valuable as human companionship, or the affection that a person can feel for a pet less important than what they can feel for a human friend? It's the same thing as that most people would often rather kill a goat than kill another person. Why do we value the lives of animals so much less than humans? Is it just natural to care more about what is like us (like an extended version of racism?) Or is it because we attribute most importance to a human degree of intelligence or emotion? Should it be...

You make several points here, and I may not respond to all of them. But first, there may be any number of reasons why people regard non-human animals as not meriting the same degree of moral regard as human beings. I think (given the format of this site) it is probably best here simply to provide some basic indication of how this might be appropriate, so think of it in terms of how we value reciprocal relationships. We value our pets, in this way of thinking, because they really do reciprocate our attentions and affections--at least, as far as they are able to do so. But the reciprocation that is possible between human beings and their pets is limited--far more limited than the reciprocation that is possible between human beings. So it may not simply be a matter of valuing certain traits (e.g. intelligence) in a prejudicial way, so much as the ways in which such traits allow for richer (and more reciprocal) relationships. As for religion's regard for non-human animals, it will really depend...
Love
Value

If no one ever loves me during my lifetime - if I don't ever have a relationship - will I have not lived properly? Is love that important to life, or is it something you can choose to engage in if you like? Thank you.

I assume Alan Soble's response is at least partly tongue-in-cheek: Anyone who calls Aristotle a "pinhead" is surely either joking or provides a decisive example of that disability. I rather suspect that most of us who have actually managed (at least sometimes!) to have loved and been loved in return would prefer this condition to the alternatives. A good life may be possible without love, but anyone who says that it is not important is surely a pinhead!
Philosophy
Value

Philosophy begins as a search for what constitutes a, or the, "good life". Does that concept have any meaning today and if it does (as I believe it does), why are professional philosophers (I am not a philosopher) more competent to answer it than any layperson who ponders the question? Pablo Santiago de Chile

Not all philosophy begins as a search for a/the good life, though I suppose our interest in a/the good life may nonetheless play some role. As Aristotle says (in the beginning of his Metaphysics ), philosophy begins in wonder--and we can wonder about nearly anything. I certainly don't think that non-philosophers will automatically do a bad job of thinking about this subject--or even at achieving some semblance of a good life. Philosophers are smart people--but smart people can sometimes "outsmart" themselves by becoming enamored of their own thoughts to such a degree that they get devoted to their own errors. Granting this, however, philosophers who do think about this question (a central theme in ancient Greek philosophy, by the way) derive some real advantage from their learning. Part of what we do, as philosophers, is devote lots of time and energy thinking about what other smart people have said on the issues that interest us. So, we have the advantage of constant contact (through...
Value

Is striving after self-improvement inherently valuable, and if so, how? Otherwise, is it merely a means to a mundane end such as money, prestige, or such? If the latter is the case, is there some reason not to be content with only moderate success and/or exertion and how would this not lead to a slippery-slope of laziness?

I just responded to two other questions that are really related to this one, so please have a look at my replies to those others. But to focus briefly on your question, I would say that it really depends upon what you mean by "self-improvement." This can come in loads of forms, of course, and some of them look pretty trivial to me. Consider the following forms of "self-improvement": Getting richer Cosmetic surgery Coloring one's hair Getting a tattoo Learning how to use a new computer program Lifting weights to get more "buff" I don't mean to suggest that none of these can bring real improvement to a life--but I do tend to doubt that such improvements are really the most significant kinds. But if one bcomes dedicated to such self-improvements as, for example, becoming better educated, or becoming more effectively involved in one's community, or becoming a kinder or more understanding person, then I really do think that the pursuit of self-improvement can itself be valuable,...
Biology
Value

Why do humans continually put a higher value on material goods (such as diamonds and gold) than life. Is it some sort of adaptation through evolution for survival to obtain these goods at any cost? Were greed and jealously formed through some sort of hardwired drive in the human mind as population control? If so would there ever be a way to end this cycle? Nick

Hello Nick from another Nick. In a sense, your question is more one of psychology than philosophy. We philosophers do not so much ask and answer questions about why people actually do things or act the way they do, so much as to inquire about how, perhaps, we should do things, or how we might do them better than we do them now. Valuing material goods even more than life itself, I think most (if not all) philosophers would agree, is a very serious and ultimately self-defeating ethical error. It is, very simply, to assign greater value to what is in fact far less valuable. But there may be another error here, as well--if we think that life has intrinsic value (as many but not all philosophers do), then valuing wealth over life itself is to mistake something that has only instrumental value--value, that is, only for the pursuit or acquisition of something else that is valuable--for something that is intrinsically valuable (valuable, that is, just in and of itself and not only...

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