The common pro-life argument against abortion is that the killing of an innocent person is always murder, and that all fetuses are innocent people; therefore, all abortions are murder…but who’s to say that either premise is correct? I’m willing to accept the latter, but I question the former. I think I can give a few examples of when killing innocent people is not murder. A car accident: somebody jumps out in front of your vehicle and you hit them. Collateral damage in a war: in 1990 coalition forces accidently bombed a bunker full of civilians. I believe they killed 2,000 people in this single raid and that many were women and children, but we don’t call THAT murder. I could go on. So, I ask: Is it always murder to kill an innocent person?

What qualifies one as a philosopher? I use a number of tools (reason, ethics, etc) to philosophize, and I can even use a smattering of philosophical terminology, but I would hardly consider myself a philosopher, though I suppose one could call me philosophical... in short, even if we can't all be Nietzsche (mercifully, most would say), are we all not philosophers (some admittedly better or worse than others, of course)? Or must one have gone through a certain process to be deemed so?

Why is it that most people feel better after talking about their problems?

Suppose an angel visits me tonight and tells me that when I reach the age of 60, I will suddenly find great enjoyment in the music of Kenny G. The angel also tells me that by the time I am 60, Kenny G records will be in short supply, so it might be prudent to stock up on them now. As of now, I hate Kenny G music. The thought of my future self listening to Kenny G in the future disgusts me. Would it be rational for me to avoid buying Kenny G records today, in order to sabatoge my future self's attempts to listen to Kenny G? Or would it be rational to stock up on them now, which would further the goals of my future self while undermining the goals of my current self?

I am often confused by the rhetorics of physicists that their theory "came from mathematics". I remember the physicist, Brian greence tell the story of paul dirac discovery of anti-matter by pure a priori manipulation of mathematics. I see this to be very confusing, because i often imagine mathematics as being a priori, and necessary without any connection to the real world. That is, i can always imagine possible worlds( or universes) governed by different mathematical expressions, or descriptions. Does it follow that every mathematical expression/description describes our universe? Obviously not. With paper, and pencil, we could probable describe any universe with any arbitrary number of dimension of space, but does it follow that our universe has arbitrary number of spatial dimension? Obviously not. The use of mathematics seems to be good in formulating regularities of nature( laws of nature), and to extract the implication of those laws. It makes me wonder why physicists would say their theory comes...

Do we have a right to procreate? Life can be a pretty difficult journey. What right do we have to decide that another person should go through it? Even if in good faith we wish our children health and happiness, we know that some suffering is inevitably part of life. If for example I know that my child will inherit with 99% probability a very painful disease: can I be held responsible for his/her suffering? What if the probability is 50%? what about 1%? What about the 100% certainty of death: aren't I responsible for the effects that I know will surely result from my actions? Life can also be quite unpredictable, who knows what will be of our world in 80 years. Isn't having a kid placing a bet (hopefully benevolent) on someone's else life? Does it even make sense to say that I do something for the well being of someone who doesn't exist yet? Isn't having a kid a very selfish thing, something we do out of our present desires (or fears) which will cause the suffering of another human being? I hope...

Why doesn't knowledge of the obvious causal relationship between consciousness and brains destroy any ideas of an afterlife?

Is hypocrisy morally wrong? Suppose you publicly advocate some good principle X, but privately violate X. Violating X is wrong, but surely it's still right to advocate X in public. You shouldn't encourage others to violate X like you do!

Could there be more than a countably infinite number of propositions?

Why is an amoeba considered alive, but a car is not? The car is as complicated as the amoeba. It eats gasoline, and produces waste. It also has a reproductive system: by providing humans a useful service, cars have been able to use human factories as breeding grounds. When a car stops working, we say that it dies. Finally, if you look at cars through the decades, you can see that the primitive species of car (i.e. Model T) evolved into modern species (i.e. Prius). So why aren't cars alive?