Imagine this situation. For some reason, Jack knows that by committing suicide in a very painful way, he can make Jill a little bit happier. Jack wants to do this. In a few minutes we will have our memories erased of this situation & Jack will continue to live a happy life. Now I have control over whether I allow Jack to go through with the suicide. What is the moral thing for me to do? On the one hand, if I let him commit suicide, there will be less net happiness (Jack suffers much while Jill gains little) but more preferences satisfied (one). On the other hand, if I prevent him from doing so, there will be more net happiness (Jack much more happy, Jill a bit worse off) but less preferences satisfied (one less). I suppose this is a complicated way of asking which is more important (or which is important full stop)- preference satisfaction or happiness? I'm not entirely sure why, but I wanted to illustrate the question in this way, even if it is a little confusing! Worth a shot. Thanks, Holly M.

Is the use of torrent sites to download TV shows wrong? Or is it OK on the grounds that it makes a stand against the invasive advertising techniques used on television?

Do very large corporations have a duty to be ethical and to involve themselves in charity? Is the duty of a pharmaceutical company which makes life-saving drugs more than the duty of a company which produces 'unnecessary' items, like a company that produces sparkly party hats, even if both are the same size, make the same profit, etc?

It’s been said that philosophy can help develop useful critical thinking skills, and analysis of argument, concepts, and hypotheses, etc. seems to be much of what philosophers do. But what about the creative aspect to their work? Can studying philosophy help us to better hypothesize, speculate, generate more and better ideas or problem solve generally? Critical thinking can be studied separately from philosophy, but are there resources for exercising this creative aspect? It would seem to me that this area is just as useful and transferable to other disciplines as critical thinking, yet not much seems to be said of it. Or is it that creativity is something that a person just has (like a talent) in a certain area and it’s not easily transferred form one area to another? For example an artist can be very creative with her paintings but stumped when it comes to generating ideas for resolving her business problems. How do the really good philosophers come up with the great unifying theories, persuasive...

How we can be accountable for our actions if we cannot possibly predict the consequences of them?

My question relates to Second Life and sex. Many people in Second Life gender-swap - that is, men create female avatars and women create male avatars. It is estimated that up to 80% of the "women" in Second Life are actually men. Some heterosexual men who engage in sex in Second Life worry about having sex with female avatars who are actually men. Is this logically and philosophically consistent? Given that Second Life is a virtual world and that nothing is real, is there any point in worrying about the real sex of an avatar? If your male avatar is attracted to a female avatar, what is the point in considering the real sex of that person? Shouldn't the relationship be taken at face value, the same as the rest of the (virtual) environment?

Imagine two men. One of them is an honest, lawful and ethical person. However, nobody notices and his actions are not appreciated by society. So he's treated like an outlaw. The other man is a cunning criminal who manages to make his actions appear like good deeds. He's treated like a king. Which one of them lives the happier life? As an alternative question: Why should I behave ethically when nobody takes notice and I'm not struggling with a guilty conscience? (I'm aiming at the benefit for the individual here, not at the common good for a society.) Is ethical behaviour itself a good thing or do we only behave ethically for the sake of the consequences?

Why is George Berkeley classified as an empiricist given his belief that only minds and ideas exist? How does one observe a mind or an idea?

Does the law of bivalence demand that a proposition IS either true or false today? What if the truth or falsity of this proposition is a correspondence to a future event that has yet to occur?

I've heard three arguments to justify why homosexuality is not a disorder of 'natural' sexuality: It is perceived as 'natural for them' by some people; homosexual sex is consensual and not harmful or abusive; and animals have been observed engaging in homosexual sex. None of these arguments convinces me since it seems to me that: everyone's sexual desires appear as natural for them (however weird or extreme they might be); consent and lack of abuse don't equate to 'natural'; and what some animals sometimes do could also be a disorder of their natural behaviour. What are the other arguments about the naturalness of homosexuality? What about the argument that male and female are naturally 'complementary' - physically, psychologically and sociologically?