Environmentalists suggest we have a duty of care for the planet. If we had an invention which would reverse climate change but would make life impossible on earth in 200 years most people would suggest this would be to high a price to pay. But if the negative consequences were delayed 500 or 2000 years... do we have a duty to them? 700,000 years? Does orlimit of forward duty bear any rational scrutiny?

Is it ever immoral to develop or promote technology that causes people to lose jobs by making human workers obsolete?

Although I feel sympathetic when I see charities fundraising for homeless shelters in the UK, or for facilities for deaf children (two recent ads chosen as examples), I still feel a utilitarian drive to put my donations towards rehydration kits where every small amount can save a life. Surely saving lots of lives is better than the work done by the earlier mentioned charities, and others of that kind?

Why do so many scholars and intellectuals think that language is necessary for thought?

My amateurish reading of popular science books tells me that it is generally thought that all life descended from one original single-celled creature. Perhaps if the conditions of the world were better ‘tuned’ for life, then I suppose life might have originated from 27 different ancestors, or from 97,583 different ancestors, or from 94,523,987 different ancestors. Perhaps if the conditions were less well ‘tuned’ for life, then life would not have arisen at all. The number one seems a rather unique number. Does the fact that all the life which exists in all the known universe seems to have arisen from one ancestor indicate the involvement of a designer (God), because of the uniqueness of the number one? Presumably if all life originated from exactly 1,000,000 ancestors, then we would smell something fishy, because of the uniqueness of this number. Similarly does the uniqueness of the number one point towards a non-naturalistic account of the origin of life? Thanks.

Is a presumptive skepticism of as yet unproven rape allegations immoral, anti-feminist or otherwise problematic? Or is it a matter of justifiably presuming innocence?

Must a given novel, piece of music, etc. give pleasure to the reader/listener before it can reasonably be considered to be a work of art? It seems to me that this really must be so; otherwise, why would anyone even bother to even finish the thing in the first place (assuming they're not forced to do so, as in school)? I guess it would be important to define exactly what we mean by pleasure; if I'm a teary-eyed mess after a performance of Tristan und Isolde, has the music given me pleasure? It has, although some detached observer might certainly be led to believe otherwise. But, as a perhaps more extreme example, am I really expected to believe (as music critics and historians do) that John Cage's 4'33'' is work of art? For me, there is no pleasure to be had anywhere. Sure, there is an intellectual component to it: I'm supposed to place the piece in the context of the development of western music history, understand it as a reaction to (or perhaps the logical extension of) what came before, consider what...

Is there a philosophical similarity between what one can't do because it's morally wrong, what one can't do because it is contrary to one's own aims, and what one can't do because the laws of physics prevent it? Does philosophy have something to say about these various uses of the same word that we find in several languages?

I don't think time exists. I think we have existence and being, we have contingent beings that are mutable and contingent items such as rocks that wear down but time has no impact on either. Time is just a concept that man invented. If there were no movement we would still have existence and hence for sake of phenomenological talk - time would still exist. My hair turns gray and my skin wrinkles because of the change in my hormones - not time. Often time is used as though it has causative powers. Can someone give me an argument that would refute this statement that time is not real but merely a concept?

If an environment, or just a very secluded 'biome' was artificially produced would it still be considered 'beautiful'? Even considering that this particular secluded artificial environment had a perfectly in sync ecosystem, was self-sustaining, and never tired of resources for human use, would it still be beautiful and fantastical even though it was subject to human manipulation of Earth natural way of nature?