Are all non-self-contradicting ethics systems equal? Say I don't physically discipline a child because I believe it is unethical to intentionally harm another human. Do I have any reason to say that another person ought not to physically discipline their child if they believe that there is nothing unethical about harming another?

I read somewhere that a human being's DNA is almost the same as a rat's. (I think the percentage of similarity is 90%.) In other words, we're animals. If I saw a group of grey squirrels killing a group of brown squirrels in a park, I wouldn't judge the actions of the grey squirrels as "immoral." I would just wait for a biologist to give me some explanation. (There is a limited supply of nuts in the park; the grey squirrels have a mutation in their brain that makes them overly aggressive; etc.) So when one group of human beings commits genocide against a different group of human beings, why do we label it as "immoral" when we wouldn't do the same for squirrels (considering that humans are merely animals in the end.)

I am a first year Philosophy teacher at a private high school. Do you have any suggestions for where I can find age-appropriate excercises and activities? I teach high school juniors and seniors.

Dear Philosophers, I'm currently reading an excerpt from Descartes' Meditations, specifically the part where he attempts to prove the existence of god. I found myself unable to properly understand his notions of 'formal' reality or truth as compared to 'objective' reality or truth. The fact that an idea appears to him as something specifically, does not mean that it IS that something in reality (it might be merely appearance). However, taken purely in itself, at least the mental representation of the idea is real. Is the former here what Descartes continues to denote with 'objective' reality and the latter 'former' reality, or the other way around? Every time I think I have it figured out what these two terms mean, he uses them in a confusing manner two sentences later. Please help! Sadly, I'm reading an (undoubtedly terrible) translation which does not contain original page numbers; I hope you are able to answer my question without these as reference! Thanks in advance, and with regards, Paul

what is the fundamental difference between science and non-science? aware of popper's theory of falsification, i still am unsure of how a theory can only be scientific if it can be proven false? this seems rather contradictory; what about if a scientific theory had been rigourously tested so much that it is in fact true, and cannot be proven false? thanks in advance :)

Do ethical truths change in response to social or technological developments? Or is what was true two thousand years ago still true today?

It is said that whether sexism is intentional or not does not matter - it is sexism all the same. How does that work, though? We generally distinguish between, for instance, killing someone by accident (as in manslaughter) and killing someone on purpose (murder, especially premeditated murder), and we generally agree that the longer or more intensely a crime has been intended, the worse it is. Why, then, should accidental sexism be just as bad as sexism that is intentionally perpetrated by somebody who explicitly approves of sexist ideas?

Back in 2010, somebody asked a question about group rights, and mentioned the right to transmit one's language. Thomas Pogge replied by saying: "You have a right to speak to your children in the language of your choice; but do you also have a right that they be taught this language in school? Not, presumably, if you're the only speaker of this language far and wide. But if thirty percent of the adults in your town speak Spanish as their native language, then that could be a very compelling reason for requiring that Spanish be taught in the local schools." My question is: Isn't this what democracy is for? If a sufficiently large proportion of a community has an interest in one thing or another, deliberative democracy ought to provide them with a way to satisfy that interest (opening their own schools; mandatory Spanish classes in all schools; extra funding for schools with Spanish classes; etc.). Is that all group rights are, then? People negotiating situations favorable to their interests within a...

What are some of the most common mistakes of reasoning or logic that you have experienced being made by non-philosophers? What are some aspects of reasoning schools should particularly focus on?

Why do so many people insist so strongly, even aggressively, that without death, nothing would have any value? What's the big deal?