Hello everyone, My name is Mohit B. and i am from India. I found one PDF online named as "101 Ethical Dilemmas". I started reading the book and got struck on the very first dilemma. < < < < < < SITUATION: The battleship Northern Spirit was torpedoed in the engine room, and began to sink rapidly. ‘Abandon Ship!’ shouts Captain Flintheart. But few of the lifeboats are intact. One boat, desperately overloaded, manages to struggle away from the sinking vessel, Flintheart at the prow. The cold, grey waters of the Atlantic around it are filled with screaming, desperate voices, begging to be saved. QUESTION: But faced with the grim knowledge of the danger of capsizing the little boat, endangering the lives of those already on board, should any more sailors be picked up and rescued? > > > > > > MY ANSWER or THOUGHT: As, the situation says that there are few lifeboats..yes more sailors can be rescued. If suppose there are no lifeboats more then the answer would also be YES..since sailors can swim. Though...

Here's a quote from Hume: "Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction." My question is this: what is the difference between something that is logically a contradiction and something that happens to not be instantiated? For example, ghosts do not exist. Could you explain how the concept of a ghost is not a contradiction? Thanks ^^

Is it true that anything can be concluded from a contradiction? Can you explain? It's seems like its a tautology if taken figuratively because we can indeed conclude anything if we suspend the rules of reasoning, but there is nothing especially interesting in that fact in my humble opinion.

Do you think that Wittgenstein knew he was a genius before people started telling him what they thought about the Tractatus? I'm sure that Wittgenstein thought he was a genius before that, but too many people (especially teenaagers, I guess) think they are geniuses. :-) What I mean is to ask if Wittgenstein had enough reason to think he was a genius before reasonable people started tell him things that gave him reason to think that he was.

I believe that eating animals is a great evil because of the suffering that it causes to animals. If I tell people this, usually after obnoxiously asking me why I am a vegetarian, they often get offended because they feel that I am "forcing" my opinion on them but in fact I'm just telling it like it is and if they don't like my opinion they shouldn't have asked for it in the first place. But here is what really gets my goat, the whole idea that some people have that being a vegetarian is just a matter of opinion and that since we live in a "free society" somehow that means that we should tolerate a lifestyle predicated on cruelty to animals. According to that way of thinking if the majority of voters agree that meat eating is permissible then nobody has a right to force them to not eat meat. And to me that just seems absolutely ludicrous. We can live in a "free" society all we want but a free society still needs some kind of constitutional backbone that ensures some basic ideals are held sacred or else...

Several days ago the Syrian government began assembling “Chemical” weapons, which it was suspected would be used against that nation’s anti-government force, and presumably any innocent civilian bystanders. The United States Government stated that this action would “…cross a red line,” possibly forcing the direct involvement of the US into the situation. My question is; what does the “Chemical” part of it have to do with anything. How is dropping a 500 pound high explosive bomb on a school yard any more or less horrific than dropping a chemical weapon? The kids in the playground aren’t going know the difference. Does it really matter the “way” in which people are slaughtered, maimed, and terrorized in order to provoke and defend an intervention on those people’s behalf? It all seems a little disingenuous to me to tell somebody it’s OK to hit somebody else in the head with a wooden stick, but NOT OK to hit them in the head with an iron bar…. Is it possible that the 500 pounder is seen as more humane? If...

I have talked to some friends after reading a book on materialism and I have a question. Don't companies have a right to push their products to us? Would it not be the weakness of our minds at fault for being consumed by commercialism? Many people I have talked to constantly reiterate that the companies are the cause of this but I would say otherwise. What would you say?

I am about to finish my third semester of college. (Switching majors now, wouldn't be a big deal.) I am currently majoring in Mass Communications/Journalism. (I want to eventually become a sports columnist.) However, I also plan on writing numerous books (sports related as well as fiction). Would you recommend majoring in Philosophy instead? My journalism courses are too restricting (forcing me to write in a straight-jacket) and I have currently gotten very much into philosophy and it really amplifies my writing.

I'm having trouble appreciating Kant's moral philosophy. According to him an action is bad if we can't universalize it as a maxim of human behavior. Under that way of thinking being gay is bad because if everyone was gay nobody would have any babies and that means you are willing the non-existence of the human race which would be a contradiction if you want to exist. So I guess bisexuality is okay but being a monk isn't. The reasoning seems absolutely bonkers if you are gay whether from choice or from nature there is no reason to surmise that you think everyone has to be gay. If Kants moral philosophy is so lame I must admit that it prejudices me against his whole philosophical system. Is there any reason why I should give Kant's ethics more credit?

If the sentence "q because p" is true, must the sentence "If p then q" also be true? For example, "the streets are wet because it is raining," and the sentence "if it is raining, then the streets are wet." Are there any counter-examples where "q because p" could be true while "If p then q" could be false?