Is baking a form of art? Or is what can be considered art in the eye of the beholder, much like beauty?

If everyone died, would Kansas still exist? Or does Kansas have to have someone recognizing it to exist?

Is, say, necrophilia ethically wrong? Arguably the ultimate societal taboo, necrophilia is something which the vast majority of people -- myself included -- consider disturbing and repulsive. It seems, however, that if we deem it morally objectionable we are left in a precarious situation, as we are forced to acknowledge that certain sexual behaviors without victims are wrong in and of themselves. If we accept this fact, what's to stop a person from deeming gay marriage wrong on the same grounds? Where could we possibly draw the line? Having read some of the responses posted on this site, I have recently accepted the position that a person can be harmed even after their death. So, when I am speaking of necrophilia here, let's assume the person gave their consent before dying.

Are there any philosophers that address emotional apathy? Are there any that warn against it? I know Plato, Kant, and presumably Aquinas would argue against apathetic sentiment for political and religious reasons, but I was wondering if there are any that stress the importance of emotional zest or passion?

If someone who has been a high achiever, who has earned respect for work done in, say, a creative field, most explicitly forbids the writing of a biography, is anyone entitled to ignore this stated position and write the book anyway? Assuming the subject is no longer living, should friends and associates supply what they know of the life lived and its effect on the work done? And what if someone who believes the original request should be respected, accidentally comes into possession of information which would influence ... or at least colour the finished account? Should this person, in the interest of a balanced account, divulge what has been learned? This is assuming that the second person has already argued that the biography was not wanted by its subject, which probably would anyway be well known, and had the objection waved aside.

Does the Western education system violate human rights? It does after all restrict freedom of movement (as absence from a set class at a particular time results in punishment and it's illegal to skip school altogether). It also violates freedom of thought - one of our most fundamental rights - as it requires a student to think about a set subject at a set time. Even intrinsic biological necessities such as the expulsion of bodily waste are often denied to students. Is it fair to conclude that there is something radically wrong with this system?

I am not schooled in philosophy but do enjoy thinking about philosophical questions. In the gaps of time I have in my ordinary day-to-day existence, I have given some thought to better understanding human behavior and have come to believe (or, more accurately, am trying to further refine my basic belief) that human beings "can not but act in their perceived best interests." I believe that each decision that an individual makes represents the sum of that individual's accrued experiences, which informs that individual's "decision" (and I believe the concept of "decision" to be a bit of a fiction, but I will use the term because I do not know a better term). I believe that, when confronted with a decision, an individual weighs, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the gravity of the decision and the individual's degree of experience, sophistication, intelligence, etc., the sum of his/her experiences and ultimately makes a decision based on his/her perceived best interests at the time. I believe this...

No matter whether one adopts a deontological or consequentialist account of ethics it is apparent that there exists a moral imperative to prevent genocide. To what extent and to what cost this imperative must motivate our actions is, I suppose, a subject of serious debate, however. But how can we define genocide? Surely we can all agree that the murder of 10,000,000 people constitutes genocide. But what if we subtract one fatality? Still genocide, of course. Minus one more? The same is still true. But at some point that logic fails; when we get down to the death of one, a few, or no people we certainly no longer have a case of genocide on our hands. It seems there is a sorites paradox here. If the number of people killed is ultimately arbitrary, how is the concept of genocide meaningful? Surely we can still find moral value in the deaths of millions (or even in the death of an individual), but it seems the label in itself is ultimately kind of subjective and meaningless.

Richard Holloway, in 'Godless Morality', argues that "ritual practice" is not the same as "ethical principle." As an example, he argues that the practice of refraining from eating pork in Muslim and Jewish religious cultures is not per se an ethical action, merely the instantiation of an ethical principle which is keeping a promise to one's god. Thus, to eat pork, the ethical principle broken would be that of breaking a promise; the eating of pork itself would not be unethical, as the proscription of pork was merely a historical/sociological/anthropological/geographical accidentality. Clearly there are many ways to break a promise, but only one ethical principle for each 'set' of manifestations of it (following Holloway's theory). The above is, at any rate, the way I have tried to explain it to my grade 12 (last year of high school) Philosophy students. Does this explanation hold, and what are the problems with it? (I am presuming it is problematic because, although it appears convincing, I am still...

To what extent can anything be unnatural if every substance initially came from the earth to begin with? Wouldn't that make all things natural? A colleague of mine reminded me that there are ways to alter different things, but does that make it unnatural if the process by which we have altered a substance is natural? Such alterations exist via heat (natural), combining with another substance (which is also natural) to cause a reaction, and so on... But what makes something (a product of a reaction, perhaps) unnatural? Say reactant A, which is natural, is combined with reactant "B", which is also natural, to create a product which we would call unnatural. How can we call the product of two natural substances unnatural? To make a long question short, what is the difference between natural and unnatural? Keeping in mind that all things are naturally found on earth. What makes something "artificial"?