If it is illegal for a rape victim to kill the rapist after the fact, then why should it be legal for the rape victim to kill a baby that is the product of the rape? It seems to me that abortion is "vigilante justice" in a sense. This is all assuming, of course, that the unborn child is considered a living, human being. If it isn't, then why is an unborn child not then considered "evidence" to be used by a third party? I do not think an unborn child should be considered anything in between a "living human" and an "object," but please take this distinction into consideration.

Do you agree that hedonism (or some related ethical egoism) is the best life philosophy in this turbulent world? Eighty years is the average timespan of a human life on Earth in which dependency on parents during youth and dependency on others in feeble old age take almost half that time. Pain or sickness, dealing with problems of urban living, climbing the corporate ladder, and menial tasks take almost half of the rest. So what is life for but for enjoyment or pleasure? It is for this reason that I and many other people find the well-dressed gentlemanly self absorbed playboy to be much more worthy of admiration than the monk who tries to save starving children in a far away land that ordinary people would not want to set foot on. We are the helpless straw dogs of the natural forces that made us, that gave us our unchosen ancestry and inalienable character. We ought to embrace and accept this fate without complaint, and not be fooled by all the artificially constructed nonsense of Gods, religious dogma,...

Is there a philosophy of luck or does luck not exist? Is luck deterministic in that some people always are more lucky than others? Can luck be considered inborn?

Look at what I've just read on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "There are no laws of nature that hold just for the planet Earth (or the Andromeda Galaxy, for that matter), nor are there any that hold just for the Eighteenth Century or just for the Mesozoic Era." I agree that this looks absolutely true, but why is it so? I suppose science cannot prove that there is no fundamental law of physics that holds only in a small part of the universe or only during some short period. Sure, such a law would be unexplainable, at least scientifically unexplainable, but aren't ALL fundamental laws of physics unexplainable? That's why they are fundamental. If the above quotation is only stipulating some meaning of "laws of natures", isn't it arbitrary? Thank you.

Which branches of philosophy are more likely to be made redundant due to advances in science, and which ones are more likely to endure despite major advances in science? Joe W.

I have MA degree in Philosophy from a Russian University. It is not a high ranked one in the world, however. How can I get a job in Philosophy in the U.S. in the future? I live in Russia and have no money to pay for Ph.D. program and residence. Whether there is a discrimination against the followers of Buddha (Falun Dafa, a self-cultivation system) in the American Philosophical World?

Can studying philosophy make one's life worse? I've been reading philosophy in my spare time for the last four years and it has not improved any facet of my life other than make me more critical of everything and most philosophers living or dead except for a handful. It has not led me to "wisdom" in the slightest and it has made me more argumentative with others in a sort of shallow legalistic sense.

I just can't get my head around what Kant means by "transcendental" in the term "transcendental idealism". Can you help? Also, Kant CAN"T be serious suggesting that we create space and time! If I create it, how did YOU get in my space-time and I in yours? After all, we're talking to, and recognizing each other. (Not sure I'm even understanding this really). Also, idealism seems, as Popper says somewhere, very anthropomorhic. We think we are so special, so crucial to reality. My, we are quite full of ourselves.---Baffled.

The standard way of thinking about 'mental disorders' goes like this: Take some phenomena and think of a name that stands for all phenomena together. So far nothing wrong. But then it happens, the given name is being crowned as cause of the phenomena... as in the expression; "depression causes low self esteem, a sense of emptiness,..." while depression is just a given name for all those phenomena. To me that seems as an insult to the laws of logic. Can someone state a logical proof that this way of thinking is against logical laws?

Should love between a man and woman be diminished in any way by differing political viewpoints? My boyfriend and I both think politics is a minor part of life that neither of us gets directly involved in but when we do speak about it he isn't afraid to philosophize about his radical political views. As it follows, he is opposed to marriage including straight marriage and especially gay marriage because he does not accept the legitimacy of any state or institution. I don't mind spending the rest of our lives together unmarried because this in no way negatively impacts my life even though my political views are rather different. I disagree with his stance on gay marriage because I have gay friends but this does not diminish my love since we are both straight, so do political views matter when it comes to love?