Recent Responses
A friend's husband just up and left her after twenty-eight years of marriage. She had supported him emotionally and financially while he struggled as an artist, and a few years ago he hit it big. He then took up with a new woman, who didn't know him when he was struggling but knows him only as a wealthy, influential man. I believe the husband's behavior in leaving his wife is immoral: she was constantly there for him when he needed her; shouldn't he stick around for her now that she is older and needs him? Or is it morally acceptable for him to leave if he feels it would enhance his growth in life?
Oliver Leaman
October 12, 2006
(changed October 12, 2006)
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Difficult, isn' t it? He obviously owes her a debt of gratitude, and the law will ensure that he cannot jettison his responsibilities towards her entirely, I suppose. He may feel that his relationship with her has run its course, that is the sort of thing that people say, and that he would... Read more
A question regarding the non-feasibility of political separation of church and State: Remarkably often, philosophers, politicians, and amateur debaters make the statement that a group "must not be permitted to force its religious beliefs upon others" in a nation with separation of church and state. However, for instance, in the United States of America, wouldn't this stance be in direct violation to the concept of majority-rule politics? E.G., In "Democratic government X with church-state seperation": 1.) 51% of voting citizens are "Religion Y" 2.) This group is spiritually opposed to "Concept Z" 3.) The no-or-other-spirituality community is pro-"Concept Z" Doesn't this violate support of separation of church and state? Through majority rule, the agreed system of government, laws would most certainly pass forbidding excercise of Concept Z. However, this clearly violates the legal/spiritual disparity implied in Church/State arguments. How can the ideal of separate church and state be balanced against the implications for splinter or fringe belief groups, in the cases of, for instance, theft, murder, sexual errancy, or any other religiously proscribed behaviours? If a religious group supports wanton anarchy, what right would a truly Church/State separate government have to control such behavior - as an absolute concept, this seems to fail, it would seem to me that a system of proscription that fails in absolutes should not be executed even on a limited basis. What do you think? -Alex N. Germany
Peter S. Fosl
October 12, 2006
(changed October 12, 2006)
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A really excellent question about some especially thorny issues. I'm not an expert in constitutional law, and so I would advise searching US supreme court and federal court decisions relevant to these issues. For myself, I would at present answer thus: Yes, the doctrine of "separation of... Read more
Many elderly people I've met are extremely lonely yet somehow extremely strong emotionally. They often say that friendship today isn't the same as when they were young. Can we be too old for friendship? When the years fall and maturity reaches its ultimate heights does our heart turn into a shell?
Peter S. Fosl
October 12, 2006
(changed October 12, 2006)
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Loneliness does seem to be an affliction common among the aged in modern industrial/consumerist societies, but I'm not sure empirically that it's greater or less than that suffered by other segments of the population or the elderly of other sorts of societies. If it is, I suspect it may be... Read more
Are slippery slope arguments ever non-fallacious? Or, put another way, should we ever find slippery slope arguments persuasive?
Jyl Gentzler
October 11, 2006
(changed October 11, 2006)
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Slippery slope arguments generally have the following form.
(1)If we allow X, then we will have no principled ground for resisting Y(once you step onto this slope at X, you’ll fall all the way to Y).
(2) Y is obviously a bad thing.
(3) Therefore, we shouldn’t allow X.
So, for example,
(1) If... Read more
Why are there so few women philosophers?
Gabriel Segal
October 9, 2006
(changed October 9, 2006)
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Just to respond to afew of Jyl's points.
(1) We practice philosophy according to a sort of lawyers-in-courtmodel. This practice has its downside. It encourages aggression, whichoften impedes rather than promotes progress. And it leads people oftento defend views that they do not strongly beli... Read more
If having two dimensions, height and width, means that a diagonal line is just a tiny line up connected to a tiny line across, repeated on a level so small we don't notice and the line appears diagonal, does that mean that everything in our 3D world is almost 'pixelated' at a really microscopic level? Sorry, I'm having problems describing what I mean but see if you can make any sense of that. =) Thanks.
Peter Lipton
October 8, 2006
(changed October 8, 2006)
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There may be a debate over whether spacetime is continuous or granular: I will have to leave that to others. But there seems to be a problem with saying that a diagonal line is a microscopic staircase. If it was, then the diagonal of a one inch square would be two inches long, when in fact i... Read more
Why are there so few women philosophers?
Gabriel Segal
October 9, 2006
(changed October 9, 2006)
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Just to respond to afew of Jyl's points.
(1) We practice philosophy according to a sort of lawyers-in-courtmodel. This practice has its downside. It encourages aggression, whichoften impedes rather than promotes progress. And it leads people oftento defend views that they do not strongly beli... Read more
Hello Philosophers! I graduated college not too too long ago and have missed the intellectual discussions I used to have there. Someone alerted me to this site, and it has done more than anything else to bring back the good memories. Thanks to all of you for spending your time on this - it's like having a mini personalized philosophy class - and it's free! I was intrigued by the recent question about philosophy and improving students' characters (posted Sept. 9), responded to by Professor Louise Antony and was wondering if that discussion could be continued a little. In particular, I was unclear on whether Professor Antony was positioning herself as disagreeing with the questioner. Is she saying that it is not philosophy's purpose to improve character, or just that it is un-PC for a professor to state it as a goal of the course? Would, for example, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., (or Socrates, as I think was the example used by the questioner) be considered presumptuous? It was my understanding that writers and philosophers (and artists and engineers), at least the well-intentioned ones, are trying to improve the world. Surely that's not presumptuous of them...So I'm a little unclear as to what Professor Antony meant on that particular point. Secondly, when I went to college many students were disaffected and spent their time in wild parties engaged in all kinds of (I hope this isn't presumptuous of me) immoral and often illegal behavior. And it was a highly ranked college as well! And this wasn't the minority of students either - I'd say it was rather the majority. Is it presumptuous to intervene here, as a professor? I would think that professors of philosophy would be best positioned to intervene here to persuade the disaffected students of the lack of wisdom of their behavior, not just in a practical sense, but in a philosophical and moral sense. I am completely in agreement with Professor Antony that issues such as oppression of women by organized religion are serious, world-affecting issues that everyone (!) should be aware of, but the issues of date rape, hazing, and general alienation that abound in college aged students seem like equally important issues and ones that, perhaps, hit closer to home. I don't understand what is holding those issues back from being discussed in the classroom. Thanks!!!
Jyl Gentzler
October 7, 2006
(changed October 7, 2006)
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This conversation reminds me of one that Plato often representsSocrates as having with certain sophists. Socrates asks them just whatin the world they are claiming to teach. They offer an answer that isvery similar to Richard’s: “We teach our students how to think clearlyand well.”
Socrates w... Read more
I found the following statement on a website, along with many other radical philosophies, and just wondered what the panel thought of it. "The state (society) shouldn't outlaw activities like drug use/sale, prostitution, pornography, gambling, euthanasia, and abortion (the traditional "victimless crimes") -- or indeed even old-skool duelling, killer game shows, and consensual cannibalism. No matter how stupid, dangerous, "shocking", or "perverted", as long as it doesn't actually harm anyone against his will, it shouldn't be illegal, period. One has every (moral) right to ignore any law that violates the above-mentioned principle (at one's own risk, of course). Or, in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas: "Lex malla, lex nulla"; a bad law is no law."
Jyl Gentzler
October 7, 2006
(changed October 7, 2006)
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Such a view about legitimate state action often rests on the following sort of argument:
(1) Since coercion is generally wrong, the coercive activities of the state (setting up rules that are backed up by credible threats of punishment) need a special justification.
(2) The only such justifi... Read more
I've been reading some online articles on the concept of "function", but I'm not very sure about it. An ashtray, according to my dictionary, is a "container for cigarette ash", but I don't know what this "for" means. It can't mean that people ought to put ashes in the ashtray, because there are other places where we may put it. And it can't mean that people may put there the ashes, since, once again, we may put the ashes in places which are not ashtrays. It can't either mean that the ashtray was made "with the purpose" of serving as a container for the ashes, because an object may be an ashtray now but haven't been made to be an ashtray. So, what is an ashtray?
Jyl Gentzler
October 7, 2006
(changed October 7, 2006)
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Your question suggests that answers to the question “What is thefunction of X?’ will have normative implications about what we ought orought not, may or may not, do to Xs. And this fact is puzzling. How,you might be wondering, can certain facts about an object’s functionhave any implications a... Read more