Many Americans maintain that, while they oppose the Iraq War, they nonetheless "support" the troops wholeheartedly. But is this distinction a mere fantasy? The US has an entirely volunteer army, so why isn't a citizen who joins the military just as guilty for atrocities committed abroad as army or government officials?

This problem has been nagging me forever. If "objective reality" is simply a consensus between experiencing subjects, then on what grounds can we claim to know or understand anything? How can we be so sure that - for example - our scientific knowledge is accurate? Is it just because there is greater consensus in established academic fields like physics or biology? What about the people our society labels as insane? Is their interpretation of reality wrong simply because there is less consensus about it?

I'm a 17 year old guy studying philosophy A-levels in my school in Britain. Last year, during the first year of the course, we looked at the Republic, and several of Plato's ideas. One of these was the Theory of Forms. The theory seems to make sense to me, but he starts talking about the Form of the Good. As far as I can tell, although the Forms are argued for rationally, and make perfect sense, the whole idea of the Form of the Good is just mythos; only used because society talks about 'the Good'. But it would make sense to me to say the ultimate Form is the Form of the Form. Am I right here?

Several of my friends are becoming increasingly enthusiastic about "objectivism," more specifically, they eschew altruism as something that should be considered "morally good" (regardless of whether or not there are any "truly altruistic"motivations in actuality). I'm inclined to take something of the opposite tack in regards to moral issues, however. I am wondering what ethical arguments could be made AGAINST a moral system that explicitly renounces any kind of self-interested motivation. That is, could the argument actually be made that a person is being immoral if, whenever faced with a decision that would benefit with either her own loss and another's gain or vice versa, she explicitly chooses to be altruistic, just because she believes that it is not fair to "privilege yourself" above others, and that the only way to avoid doing this is to only choose for the other person?

Is cybersex a sexual encounter? If you discover that your partner engages in it, is he/she cheating on you?

Dear sir or madam, I have a question about language, epistemology, and truth. When I make the statement "it's hot in here" is that a statement about external reality or my internal perception? Is this an objective claim (i.e. there is such-and-such temperature and that qualifies as "hot") or simply my perception of an occurrence (i.e. I don't like how hot it is.) The former explanation seems compelling since we can argue about that statement: you can claim that it's not hot in here; I simply came inside from a room with air conditioning, so I *think* it is hot and am mistaken. On the other hand, the latter explanation makes sense since we are only perceiving the heat in the room and not taking any kind of empirical index. But, if this explanation is true, why do we use objective language about the room rather than our experience of the room? It seems to me like this might be a kind of "in-between" claim: based on my experience of the room and my understanding of the experience that would likely elicit...

I was wondering about how language and thought seem tied up together. I can't image not knowing a language. What would a person who didn't know any language be like? How intelligent can a person with no language become? How big of a barrier would that be?

Is it ethically and morally wrong to have sex with someone other than your husband for procreation purposes (if they are aware of it)? Especially when your husband is sterile and asks/gives you permission to?

Is it possible to for me to suffer a misfortune or a harm of which I am completely unaware? At first sight the idea seem ridiculous. It's like someone telling you they were suffering a toothache yesterday but were quite unaware of it at the time! If I am harmed surely I must undergo a disagreeable experience of some kind? On the other hand if I lose the chance of promotion in my job due to some malicious gossip put about by a colleague surely I have been harmed as I have been deprived of a benefit I would otherwise have enjoyed. This must be true even if I never know about it. Rob W. United Kingsdom

Are statements about resemblances objectively true/false, or are they merely statements about the way things seem to us, hence subjective? Is it "objectively" true that pentagons are more like hexagons than circles? Is it objectively true that the paintings of Monet are more like those of Renoir than those of Picasso?