Are sex selective abortions immoral? In countries where abortion is legal on demand, does it make any sense to try and prevent sex selective abortion if the legal system allows abortion for any reason?

If God exists, is there any proof that he involves himself in human affairs? It seems most if not all debate in contemporary philosophy centers around whether a deist God exists.

Ethically, what is the difference between a sex object and a sex symbol when talking about a person? Why is the latter term considered less degrading and even beneficial? Is a symbol merely a representation of an object or actually an extension of one?

Ethically speaking, should private businesses be allowed to refuse service to individuals on account of any characteristic that is related to their behavioral choices? For example, in the US, restaurants are allowed to refuse service to patrons who spit on the floor or don't wear shoes but are not allowed to refuse service to a black man (since he did not "choose" to be black). In that case, supposing a restaurant owner does not like obese people, why should he be forced to serve obese patrons (some of whom might be black) since many of them chose to eat their way to obesity?

Is it moral to behave only in terms of fearing punishment? For example, suppose the only reason a person has for not behaving immorally is the fear of divine punishment. Since his actions yield the same results as another non-immoral person who has no fear of divine punishment, why does it matter what reasons give the same results?

I am an economist who wants to extend his philosophical horizon over the summer. I am looking for a constructive philosophical approach to counter utilitarianism. I feel that utilitarianism is often not satisfactory but I can't say exaxtly why. So far, my reading list consists of Kant's Groundwork and Rawls's Theory of Justice. What else would you recommend?

Philosophically (not legally), how should this fallacy be resolved? A convicted felon is sentenced to both life imprisonment for a drug related murder AND the death penalty for a separate act of terrorism. Should he be put to death or should the life imprisonment override the death penalty? In other words, if sentences cannot be concurrently served, should the more severe one be served first?

Why are counterfactual claims taken seriously by philosophers? Aren't they just an imaginative way of thinking and talking? For example, why is a counterfactual of the form "If it had been the case that A, then it would be the case that C" supposed to have truth conditions? For if causal determinism is true, then there is a complete specification W of the history of world w in which A would occur such that W entails either the truth of C or the falsity of C, making the counterfactual either vacuously true or a contradiction (and this is so for all possible deterministic worlds which include A); whereas if causal determinism is not true, then the history of w cannot be fully specified because A depends on non-deterministic processes, and the truth or falsity of the counterfactual is not determined. And for a non-deterministic world of which the history is fully specified (i.e. W includes the outcomes of non-deterministic processes) in which A occurs, the vacuous/contradictory result again obtains. ...

I've heard philosophers talk about "dissolving" problems and questions. What does it mean to dissolve questions/problems and how do philosophers do it?

Why knowledge has intrinsic value? Why dow value knowledge for its own sake?