Is one obligated to keep a promise made under a threat? If a robber threatens to assault me unless I promise not to report his theft to the police, am I obligated to keep my word?

I am transitioning from male to female, along with physical changes I notice changes in my thinking and emotions. Am I the same person or am I becoming some one else? How do we know who we are and do we become different people over time?

I am an extremely lonely and isolated person due to a developmental disability. Nobody (absolutely nobody) has ever expressed compassion toward me with regard to my isolation despite the fact that people in our modern society are educated enough to know how traumatic and damaging isolation can be. Why is indifference toward people who are socially isolated a near universal social norm in modern western society (at least in America) Does this norm have any ethical underpinning? How could it possibly have an ethical underpinning when you consider that in general we believe that a person who undergoes distress warrants our compassion?

Fox "news," busily enjoining viewers to mock the idea of wealth redistribution, has posted a story entitled "College Students in Favor of Wealth Distribution Are Asked to Pass Their Grade Points to Other Students" http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/17/college-students-in-favor-wealth-distribution-are-asked-to-support-grade/ Their ludicrous point is "if wealth is going to be redistributed, we should do the same with grades." Is this a "fallacy by false analogy?" If not, what would be the most succinct explanation to explain what's wrong with this comparison? Thanks, Tom K.

About philosophy of color: It's very interesting but I'm having trouble understanding it because most of the works I encountered aren't "beginner-friendly". My question is, what exactly is color relationalism and what does this have to do with phenomenology? Thank you!

Could someone explain to me like I am five, why Sartre believed that the shame was the inevitable and basic (authentic) existential response to the gaze of the other? I can understand somewhat when he says "that no once can be vulgar alone" but I don't understand how he can say that the other in some basic existential way can produce shame.

Should philosophy be considered among the group of disciplines we consider sciences or among the humanities? I understand that the answer to this is typically taken to be that philosophy is among the humanities but I also know that philosophers sometimes resist this categorisation. Obviously we'd need to refine our definitions of these categories first to see if we can produce a useful answer. And perhaps the answer is that there's a third category that philosophy should belong to all on its own?

John is 30 years old. Jack is 10 years old. They are clinically sane. One day, John feels a sudden, uncharacteristic urge to kill. He murders an innocent stranger. On the same day, Jack feels the same urge to kill. He also murders an innocent stranger. John and Jack both admit responsibility for the murders. They acted in the same way for the same reason. Their actions had the same result. Should they be punished in the same way?

Is the doctrine of the trinity illogical?

As an argument against bestiality, it is often said that animals are not able to consent to sex. If this is the case, though, wouldn't that mean that every instance of two animals mating is an instance of rape, since presumably neither of them are able to consent?