"Minerva" is the Roman name of the Greek Athena, goddess of wisdom and philosophy, and associated with the owl (as preserved in the saying "bringing owls to Athens" which means bringing something to a place that already has more than enough thereof). The meaning of Hegel's saying is that philosophy/wisdom takes flight only at the end of the day, after the day's main events have taken place. For Hegel, this was not tragic. His particular point is that it is only at the end of human history (which he associated with his own time, the early 19th century) that human beings can come to understand history's developmental logic. In fact, our coming to understand history is part of this developmental logic; and once we fully understand we are reconciled to history and thus would not have wanted history to have gone differently in any important respect. As for David Brooks, I assume he meant that human beings tragically come to understand things fully only when it is too late. His specific reference...

Since the beginnings of philosophy, asking new interesting questions has been central to the enterprise. Asking such questions is often more creative, more difficult, and of greater educational value than coming up with novel answers to old questions. And of course (speaking for myself, at least) we panelists are learning from many of the questions posed. That's why it is so much fun to be part of this enterprise. As for our own intellectual inquiries, these are easy to track these days through plentiful web resources. Most of us have websites (reachable by clicking our names on the right) as well as papers accessible electronically. So you would not find it hard to find the questions we have posed in our work and to which we devote much of our professional lives. Reproducing such question here would not add much, I fear, to what is already out there. What might be more productive, though, and perhaps closer to what you have in mind, is to ask panelists to come up with some questions that fall...

Insofar as you function as a witness, as someone to whom a story is told and who recounts it, I see no ethical problem. Reporters and journalists interview rather worse characters than your client, type up the sometimes dreadful things their sources say, and then publish it all. There nothing unethical in giving an accurate portrait of a flawed person or life. Your case is different in at least two respects. You accept money from the person you are portraying, and you may be expected to (and perhaps usually do) present your characters more favorably than you would do if you sought a balanced and accurate portrait. These two respects may or may not be related. Quite apart from the money, there are reasons to present an old person in favorable light to his or her family, including those who will read the story much later. Both differences make your situation ethically problematic. By portraying a racist in a favorable light, you may appear to share his attitudes and reinforce them in others. By...

Suicide and highly risky acts of defiance can be, but rarely are, highly effective forms of political resistance. So one needs to analyze the conditions under which they are effective. The political suicide I remember most vividly is that of Jan Palach, a Czech student who burned himself to death with gasoline (in early 1969) to protest the Warsaw Pact invasion of his country. His suicide contributed greatly, I believe, to a deep and enduring change in attitude toward the Soviet Union on the part of young people esp. in Western Europe who, horrified by the brutality of the US war in Vietnam, had tended to view the Soviet Union as the more humane, less aggressive superpower. Many young people then did not really trust the established news media and vaguely suspected that the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia may indeed have preempted some sort of counterrevolutionary plot supported by the West. Jan Palach's suicide destroyed such excuses by focusing attention on the sentiments of young people in...

Philosophers can bring reflection on the responsibilities that contributors to global pollution have toward foreigners, future people, and animals and the rest of nature. Foreigners. Global warming is likely to cause severe harms to foreigners -- from draughts in Africa to flooding in Bangladesh -- especially to foreigners who are poor and vulnerable (who, for this reason, are themselves only very minimal contributors to global warming). Most of us shrug off the thought that we owe them anything. We think it's alright to pollute or that our individual contribution is too small to matter. Is this an adequate response if millions die prematurely as a result of the pollution we together produce? Future people. Global warming is likely to have devastating effects far in the future. In cost-benefit analyses, it is common to discount the interests of future people, typically by 3 percent per annum. This is thought plausible in analogy to how individuals discount future pains and pleasures -- we are...

This depends on the university as well as on your specific interests in this field. You might apply especially to universities that have both: a law school with a real interest in legal theory as well as a philosophy department with strength in philosophy of law, ethics, and political philosophy. Such universities also typically offer a joint JD/PhD program, which may be just right for your interests and would allow you to keep more career options open.

If you are really mainly interested in "the philosophical underpinnings of research in political science," then one plausible solution is to apply to political science doctoral programs after all. Look for a program that has strength in political theory/philosophy and/or is located at a university with a strong political philosophy presence in its philosophy department. This way you can take courses in political (and moral) philosophy and can later, when it comes time to write a dissertation, invite a philosopher to be on your committee. This sort of collaboration is quite common -- for example, as a philosopher I have supervised four political science dissertations at my institution. Should prolonged exposure get you interested in other areas of philosophy and make you eager to write a dissertation on a topic that does not fit into political science, then you'll be in a very good position to switch departments at that point. Doing so is usually much easier than getting admitted from the outside ...

Rights give each of us claims on the conduct of others. Your right not to be tortured requires others to respect this right: not to torture you, not to order or abet your torture, and to organize their society so that you are safe from torture. Denying that others have such responsibilities is tantamount to denying that you have the right. This reasoning may not quite get us to the statement you query. It shows only that, for you to have rights, others must have responsibilities. But then it would be immorally self-centered for you to insist that you have rights that entail responsibilities for others and that no one else has rights that entail responsibilities for you. The last step is then a moral step. It is possible for someone to have rights but no responsibilities. But such a situation would be morally unacceptable because it would give this person a special moral status that could not be shared by others. For if everyone had no responsibilities, then no one would have rights.

The two statements in quotes are surely different. But the first can also express a moral standpoint: that it is morally important to achieve a low murder rate. This moral standpoint is reflected in various more specific claims. 1. We should not inflict punishment or pain on anyone unless doing so produces some good for others (e.g., by preventing the person from offending again or by deterring others). 2. We should inflict pain whenever doing so produces some greater good for others. This second claim is highly problematic insofar as it may justify "punishing" the innocent when doing so helps deter real criminals. For this reason, those who hold deterrence to be morally important often claim instead: 3. In deciding how severely to punish specific types of crime, we should take into account how much of an impact greater severity would have on the frequency of this crime. This third claim is consistent with the idea that people may be punished only for having done something...

A good approximation is this: A moral reason for action is one whose application and weight is (taken to be) independent of the agent's preferences. Many reasons for action depend on the agent's preferences. For example, that a certain program starts at 9pm is a reason for you to head home only if you want to watch this program -- and the weight of this reason depends on the strength of your desire. That reading makes you wiser, or ice cream makes you happier, is a reason for you to read or to eat ice cream only if you want to be wiser or happier. All selfish reasons are of this kind. The fact that a child will drown if you don't rescue her is (normally understood as) a reason for you to rescue the child and, more specifically, as a reason that applies to you, with a certain weight, regardless of your preferences. It is then (understood as) a moral reason for action. We can refine this explication by distinguishing motivating and normative reasons. A reason that actually motivates...