Hello. Reading a bit of Wikipedia, a bit of Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and a bit of your site, I got this impression about moral theories: (1) Traditional moral realists claim that there are (universally binding) moral facts. (2) Traditinal moral anti-realists claim that there are no (universally binding) moral facts. (3) So called "moral externalists" claim that (perhaps universal) moral facts are not binding (that is, they are *morally* binding, but people may ignore morality without being irrational, and so people may ignore such "bindingness"). Did I get it right? What I mean is that sceptics about morality always assume that morality should in some way be "absolutely binding". But some philosophers are half way between realism and scepticism because they accept morality and just deny its necessary bindingness. My question is whether these philosophers are really *between* realism and anti-realism.

Does a proposition which is always false such as 'one plus one equals seven' have false truth conditions or no truth conditions?

Hi, what an awesome website! I have another free will related question to add to the heap! I saw an interview with Steven Weinberg, the Nobel Prize winning physicist and, I don't remember the precise phrasing, but he said something like 'I know of no law saying that nature is here to make physicists happy.' He wasn't referring to free will, but it got me thinking about something... From what I've read and heard in papers and talks (which is certainly not nearly exhaustive), it seems that their is a tendency for those who chime in on the free will issue (even professional philosophers) to approach it from the perspective that the challenge is to show that free will does not or cannot exist. What I mean is that there seems to be a tacit presumption that since we "feel" free, the burden of proof is on those who contend we are in reality not free. I understand this perspective (and it is not unique to the free will debate), but it seems to presuppose some kind of rule that says that our feelings...

I was wondering whether or not there is any difference between Nietzsche's view of ethics, as consisting of life affirming values, the superman, and the will to power, and the view of Ayn Rand that morality is doing what is in your own self interest. Arent both of them saying that the moral thing to do is to do what is in your self interest and increase your power, and ignore ideas such as pity and charity?

I was recently thinking about what it means to be count as a vegetarian, but I think it's much harder than I originally thought. What does it mean to be a vegetarian? There are several cases where it isn't clear for me. What if a self-proclaimed vegetarian accidentally consumes meat, for example because it was hidden inside other food, or they were lied to about the contents of a meal? Are they still vegetarian? Is a person who just happens not to eat any meat, without having any sort of personal rules about eating meat (perhaps because of poverty, lack of interest or sheer coincidence), a vegetarian? If a vegetarian consents to eating meat meat once, it seems they stop being a vegetarian (or maybe never were?); when do they become a vegetarian again, if they don't eat any meat afterwards? Is there a time limit? If a person wants to avoid eating meat but is occasionally and predictably pressured into eating meat by their friends or family, are they only sometimes a vegetarian, or never one? I...

In one famous trolley case, it seems clear that the driver should divert the trolley to the spur, killing one while saving five. In another, it seems clear that a bystnader should not push the fat man off the bridge, again killing one to save five in the trolley's path. But what is the justification for my intuition? Do you see any relevant, principled difference between the two cases that would explain why I should divert the trolley yet refrain from pushing the fat man?

Can a good argument be made for encouraging working class parents in particular to pursue education? What I'm trying to get at is this... I get the feeling that, had I come from a more privalidged background, I might have had a lot more support through my school years. My parents received a very poor education and "knew" they weren't really going to amount to much. As a result I was never really helped with school work and was encouraged to follow a trade rather than get further education.  As if that was the best of what could be expected from a person of our social status. I've seen the same thing happening with the vast majority of my relatives and others that I grew up with. I hated that sort of working environment and wished I had taken a different path. Although others may be satisfied with that sort of outcome, surely having more options is better. I now do social work in my community which, although satisfying, is sometimes challenging as I see lots of suffering that being better educated would...

Is there such thing as coincidence? I mean is it possible that something happen without any purpose or significance?

It has long been recognized that free will appears to be incompatible with the causality observed in the rest of the universe. There is now evidence from neuroscience that free will does not really exist. Does the fact that many people - including many philosophers - find this conclusion absolutely unacceptable constitute a manifestation of the limits of the human mind's abilities?

I am a 16 year old and i have been asking myself the same question for a very long time but only recently was able to finally word the question.. Isnt it true that there can not be a certainty of anything outside a person's current observed world?  It still sounds very wierd but if i am sitting in a room in a building that i walked into myself, i saw all of my surrounding as i entered the building and the room. The door is closed and there is no way for me to observe anything on the outside of the room.   I can say that i know exactly what is outside that door because i saw it as i came in the room, but in reality i have zero way of being competely certain of anything i cant see or hear outside the room. I could, potentially, be in a room floating in space and have no way of knowing, givin there isnt any ovservable evidence of my location.  It may sound strange, but i believe it could be related to particle physics, etc.  The fact is that i have no certainty of anything outside my personal observed ...