Wonderful question, deserving of complicated book-length responses .... As (I think) Churchill said, democracy is a terrible form of government, but even so it's less terrible than every other possible form ... A few disorganized thoughts. I suppose some might hold that "ideal" forms of democracy would exist where voters are rational, educated, etc. (and historically various democracies have tried to restrict franchisement to those who fit various conditions -- such as having property, being literate, etc.). Of course, those forms of democracy tend to be seen these ways as involving those in power propagating their power and suppressing those below them ... Even if you're okay with restricting the vote in some such way, democracy is messy -- even very educated, rational people disagree. (Ask three professional philosophers, get four opinions ...) So I suppose that if the goal of government is to act "in the best interests of the people," what you would most like would be very wise, autocratic rulers --...

Great question, but just a short answer to start. By "involvement" you probably have in mind something like "miracles" (say, violations of the law of nature). But questions of "miraculousness" are VERY hard to prove, and so (I'm guessing) discussion of their occurrence is probably mostly limited to those who already are believers -- it's only AFTER you believe God exists that you're likely to treat some event as a miracle. (After all there is much we don't know or understand about the world, so the mere fact that something unusual or unlikely occurs is not very good evidence that a miracle has occurred, and thus itself not good evidence that God exists.) But you should also be aware that there is a long tradition of thinking of God's "involvement" in different ways. For example, it has traditionally been argued that God "continuously creates" the world -- see Descartes, Malebranche eg -- that God's activity is necessary to keep the world in existence, even while there is also good reason to...

This is a great question I hadn't thought of. One response perhaps is to acknowledge how it reflects the fundamental ambiguity our society has toward ALL matters sexual. Sexuality is both good and bad, in various ways/senses, at least for many. Profoundly religious people of a certain sort might not agree, but then they would not be so likely to see the distinction you raise between object/symbol above -- both would be equivalent and equally bad. But for others, who DO see your distinction, we can admit that being sexually attractive is something we desire and thus, in a sense, approve of; a sex symbol is someone who represents an ideal of sexual attractiveness that we all would love to instantiate ourselves, so a "sex symbol" is good, all else equal. But of course human beings are MORE than physical, sexual animals -- there are other aspects to ourselves that we value -- and insofar as we treat or think of someone as MERELY a sexual 'object' we are failing to value those other features...

One typical way of thinking of such examples is this: perhaps the sequence of conscious mental states we enjoy is a causal sequence, so "causation" would be the "force" you are asking about. Perhaps the purely determinist laws of neuroscience dictate her sequence of brain states, which in turn dictate her sequence of mental states, generating her "conscious decision process" by which she eventually concludes she will order a hamburger. Perhaps event he deterministic sequence generates/dictates all the "feelings" she feels to, including the feeling of compelte freedom from external forces ... After all we are NOT typically aware of what is causing our mental states, are we? So even our "feeling of freedom," our "sense" of controlling our thoughts and decision processes, may be generated by entirely deterministic causal networks .... It seems to me, then, that consciousness could not itself defeat the determinism argument because our sequence of conscious states could easily be deterministically...

A classic, important question that philosophers have grappled with for a loooong time .... Look up "cosmological arguments" on wikipedia or via google, you'll find LOTS of discussion of this sort of issue. Especially important for centuries in discussions of religious matters -- Just a couple quick thoughts. One possibility is that an infinite regress is fine -- the universe has always existed, and everything that occurs has a cause, which earlier had a cause etc., to infinity. If you don't think that's possible you need to offer specific reasons why it isn't. One famous one is hinted at in what you say -- for example, as presented by St Thomas Aquinas (in preparation for refuting it) the objection is raised that an infinite regress IS impossible: for since an infinite journey can never be completed, there could NOT be an infinite amount of time (or sequence of events) prior to the current moment -- for that just would mean that the universe HAS completed an infinite journey (from the infinite...

Presumably it's only the philosophical interest which leads to the conclusion that it has no cognitive component in the first place ... Or rather, it's a matter of philosophical debate whether it does ... But if you are suggesting (as you seem to) that once a philosopher decides that aesthetic experience is non-cognitive there are no further philosophical issues, then I'll leave it to those specializing in aesthetics to provide an answer ... (At the least a non-specialist such as myself would wonder: if aesthetic experience is non-cognitive then how does it relate to other (sensory) experiences? what marks off an experience as aesthetic then? what is the nature/relationship of the different sensory modalities? the relationship between sensory experience and pleasure etc...?) hope that's a useful start. ap

A deep rich complicated question! A short (too short) answer would go with both, depending what you mean by 'color.' There are subjective aspects to color (perceived color), and there are objective aspects (physical properties, light properties, etc.). The big question of course is just how these two aspects are related. Are they independent in some sense, or intimately related, and if so how? Can perceived color, the perception of color, be identified with or reduced to objective properties, and if so which? There is a ton of literature on this, but you might start with the classic Larry Hardin's "Color for Philosophers." hope that's useful -- to start ap

A deep rich complicated question! A short (too short) answer would go with both, depending what you mean by 'color.' There are subjective aspects to color (perceived color), and there are objective aspects (physical properties, light properties, etc.). The big question of course is just how these two aspects are related. Are they independent in some sense, or intimately related, and if so how? Can perceived color, the perception of color, be identified with or reduced to objective properties, and if so which? There is a ton of literature on this, but you might start with the classic Larry Hardin's "Color for Philosophers." hope that's useful -- to start ap

This is a really excellent question, and a complicated issue. First coming to mind might be the ad hominem fallacy, if you take the argument to be something like "because you are a hypocrite, your position vis a vis boycotting should be rejected." But I don't think that many of the people who have raised this argument mean it in that fallacious sense (though perhaps some do). A deeper analysis might be that this isn't really an argument at all -- it's merely an attack on Hawking's character (w/o inviting others to reach any conclusion about the boycott in question). This seems reasonable: if Hawking truly is committed to some very general boycott of Israel, Israeli achievements, academics, etc., then consistency may well require that he give up his chip ... so this point calls attention to his 'boycott of convenience': portray himself as supportin a general boycott (perhaps to receive acclaim from those on that side) when he fact he doesn't. But then an even deeper analysis (perhaps intended by some of...

Descartes would probably be a good one to read AGAINST Hume's view ... (see book by Tad Schmaltz on Descartes's causation, and some articles by Geoffrey Gorham, for a good sense of Descartes on causation ... also an article by me ...) ... Interestingly you might consider studying MALEBRANCHE on the issue -- while he does not accept Hume's understanding of causation, he directly influences some of Hume's arguments -- and shares with him the view that finite objects/events do NOT enjoy necessary connections ... where he differs is that rather than conclude there is no (necessitarian) causation in the world, or that there is 'constant conjunction' causation, he concludes that only God is the true cause of everything ... good luck! ap

You got me! :-) Only a strange kind of conservatism -- that things, that we, should never change -- would seem to support that view. Unless there really is something more to the view -- it's not the 'loss of humanity' per se that is 'bad' but the specific changes in question that would be bad ... e.g. extending life might make us all older but not healthier or better, might cause a massive drain on public resources, would promote quantity over quality of life, etc. ... re genetic modification, perhaps what's worrisome is the unpredictability of it all (once we tinker with genes who knows what mutant freaks we might create and what awful consequences might ensue) .... So I think an appropriate response to anyone making the claim you object to would be just that: just what precisely IS bad about the change i question ..... hope that's useful ap