Has a person been wronged if they are cloned without their consent? Presume that the cloning process is non-invasive; a scientist simply picks up stray hair you left behind, and then makes a clone of you. Does that violate your rights? Do we have a copyright on our DNA?

Would the possibility of women competing on equal footing with men be thinkable without contraceptives, birth control, and access to abortion?

Is a parent's right to their own children based on something more than just the fact they are a good force in their children's lives? I read about a court case in which a custody dispute was decided on the basis of "what was best for the child". Now of course the children's interests should be one consideration, but aren't there others as well? Suppose a baby is born to two very poor parents. A rich couple demands their baby saying "We can give your baby a better future. With us, the baby will get a better education, eat better food, live in a better neighborhood." Shouldn't the poor parent's still have a right to keep their child, even if this situation is not "what's best for the child".

My question today is concerning authority. I ask: how is authority ever justified? Let me frame my question. Let us allow that "authority" in a governmental sense is to stop the subjects from being murdered, pillaged, to stop violence, to stop thiefs, to moderate economics, etc. Now let me ask you this. If, say, a murderer thinks about killing his victim, but is ultimately unable to do so due to the various laws/punishments involved, the government has been "successful." They have deterred the murderer from committing the crime because of the legislation in place. In this sense, we can say that a government replaces "freedom" with "security". Essentially, the more totalitarian a government becomes, the more "freedom" is traded for "security". However, is it not also true that in the saving of the life of the victim, we have "murdered" the free will of the murderer? Why can authority, in essense, save the existance of one individual, while condeming the existance of another, even if that existance...

In a recent question / answer, it was asked "how can a person know that an action is immoral, yet do it anyway?" and the response was "a person can 'know' things on different levels and so can engage in self-deception." I have a question about the response, which then leads to a deeper more qeneral question. Suppose a person knows that an action is immoral, yet does it anyway. Might that not indicate that the person [at least in this instance] does not care whether s/he behaves in a moral manner? and where does the concept of 'evil' stand in philosophy, and how might the concept of 'evil' explain this apparent disparity?

Why would someone want to be loved other than selfish reasons or to boost their ego?

The "naturalistic fallacy" states that it is false to appeal to nature or naturalness in order to judge the goodness of something. Yet despite this being a fallacy, we see it crop up all the time in all spheres of life. Saying something isn't "natural" usually carries a negative connotation, and from foodstuffs to building materials to sexual practices, people use appeals to nature in order to condemn things. Since it seems appeals to nature are very popular, I wonder, is there a stream of thought that considers the naturalistic fallacy not to be a fallacy, but to be a proper form of argumentation? Are there philosophers or movements in philosophy which consider goodness to be clearly derivable from naturalness?

I want to major in philosophy because I love everything about it,, I am not interested in the physical matter of things. Rather , I am intrested in the morals of it, why is it created, how does it affect us, what is the value of it, is it right or wrong. I am so into these things, however, what am I gonna dowith this major in the future ? what is my future with it ?. When I tell my parents that I want to major in philosophy, they will go like what there is no future being a philosopher and so on. I need to know what is my future as a philosopher ? what can I work at, how am I going to use philosophy to gain money and support my family ? I need to know to convince myself about it , and to make my family appreciate philosophy and allow me to major in it. Please help me.

If empirical evidence is the ultimate validation of reality, then what is the empirical evidence for existence of mind?

Many meat-eaters get angry when they feel that vegetarians are criticizing their lifestyle. "Feel free to abstain," they say, "but don't tell me what to do." I understand the appeal of non-judgmental vegetarianism, but I'm not sure it really makes sense. Suppose that I adopt vegetarianism for ethical reasons--that is, because I believe that eating animals is wrong. Doesn't it make perfect sense for me to criticize meat eaters, then? After all, the point of ethical vegetarianism is precisely that eating meat is wrong, not just _for me_, but for anyone. Imagine someone who said, "I think murder is wrong; but that's just my personal view, I wouldn't insist that others abstain from murder." This would be ridiculous! Obviously, meat-eating cannot be as serious a crime as murder. But why aren't these two cases analogous, nonetheless, with respect to the legitimacy of criticism?