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Ethics
Feminism
Sex

Is it unethical to look at a woman's breasts? What if she has cleavage?

Here's a plausible principle: in general, we shouldn't do things that are likely to make people uncomfortable. This is particularly true if our only reason for doing whatever we're doing is that we get some sort of enjoyment out of it. And if we're in doubt about whether we're likely to make the person uncomfortable, better to err on the side of caution. The principle is actually a broad one, as we can see if we change the example a bit. Suppose the person sitting across the room from me has a very sweet face. There's nothing wrong with noticing, but staring is another matter; that's likely to make the person uncomfortable. This is true even if the s/he has made some effort to highlight facial features. Noticing, even appreciating is one thing; staring, let alone ogling, is another. That's the general advice. In real life, there are lots of subtleties. It's not unusual for one person to notice that another is "checking them out," as it's sometimes put, and to be flattered. That might be...
Identity

I have recently been thinking about a comment that one of my philosophy professors made in college that has been causing me a great deal of distress. He said "If you have a problem that you don't want to deal with, go to sleep and let someone else deal with it." meaning that the person who wakes up in the morning is not the same as the person who went to sleep the night before. Is there any validity to this claim? Does our consciousness continue while we sleep or does it stop and then restart? Is the person typing this question the same person who will wake up in my bed tomorrow? If we were replaced each morning by a person with identical memories, wouldn't it appear the same from the inside and the outside? And finally, is this worth getting worked up about? thanks

As I posted this, I saw that Donald had offered a similar reaction. But since I'd already written this up... It's a very interesting topic you've raised, and one on which philosophers have written a great deal. My view fall into the blunt, even philistine category, but I'll point to other views as well. Let's begin with your final question: is this worth getting worked up about? My answer is that it's not. What's at stake is whether some highly abstract, theoretical, and hard-to-settle metaphysical claims are true. Even if they are, life will go on as usual. You'll still experience things, remember things, look forward to things, make plans, carry them out, and in general live a human life. If there's some sense in which there isn't a single "person" that lives this life, the most psychologically healthy response is probably a shrug. You ask whether our consciousness continues while we sleep, or whether, on the other hand, it stops and restarts. One way to read that (probably not the best...
Consciousness
Existence

Is it a common belief among philosophers that the external world does not exist independently of consciousness? That consciousness creates the material world rather than the other way around? How can anyone believe this?

I'd say it's an extraordinarily uncommon view among philosophers. Very few philosophers have believed it throughout the history of the discipline (Bishop Berkeley is the most obvious exception) and I can't think of any contemporary philosophers who do, though I'm sure there are some somewhere. Berkeley was an idealist (that's the usual name for such views) because he thought the conception of matter found in Locke, Newton and other thinkers of the time was incoherent. If you read his Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philnous, you may find some of his arguments more interesting that you would have thought. We could add: orthodox theological views hold that not that our minds make matter, but that God creates the world. And accordng to that same orthodoxy, God isn't a material being. So the view that some mind may be the source of matter is actually not at all uncommon. And for various reasons, contemporary New Age and Magical thinkers often favor a view that puts mind first. If you want...
Education

Is convincing a person they are wrong not a form of indoctrination? After all, it involves changing the way people think such that it conforms with one's own views. Is it not censorship? Since putting opinions in the wrong clearly prevents them from being expressed.

Let's suppose you say to me "How's your brother Paul?" I say "My brother is fine, but actually his name is Peter." Most likely that will be enough to convince you. And unless your reactions are rather unusual, you're likely just to ay something like "Oh. Yes. Guess I got mixed up." It would be really odd to call this indoctrination. Or suppose I've been working on a budget and I send you the figures. You tell me that the total is off by $2,000. I don't believe you, so you work through the math with me, pointing out where I made a mistake. And I end up agreeing. Still nothing that seems like indoctrination. However, those may not be the sorts of cases you have in mind, so try this one. Suppose George thinks that women shouldn't be allowed to run for public office. Mary asks why. George gives his reasons, which reflect false beliefs about women's intelligence, emotions and so on. Mary engages him in a long, calm discussion, after which George agrees that his views reflected various kinds of ...
Language
Sex

I have asked many regular non-philosopher type folks about how to avoid appearing "rude, crude and stupid" when indicating sexual interest in women. Not many well formed answers are given to me but I am told that a necessary ingredient is subtlety. You should never be direct about your intentions. Is being direct and straightforward really rude? What does saying that you must not be straightforward imply about the nature of those intentions in the first place? What then distinguishes rude from non-rude forms of expressing sexual intention?

It's an interesting question and not easy to answer. Let's start with what may seem to be a minor point but actually isn't. It's not right that we should never be direct. The most obvious exception is when two people already have a sexual relationship and they're both comfortable about it. But even there, being blunt isn't always welcome. Sex isn't one-dimensional. There's lusty animal sex and there's also tender romantic sex. What works for one doesn't necessarily work for the other. If it's complicated even for people who are in a relationship, it's not hard to see why rude and crude doesn't tend to work when that's not so. Human relationships just are complicated; after all, there are completely non-sexual matters that most of us don't like having broached too directly. When we add sex to the mix, things certainly won't get simpler. Leave male vs. female aside for a moment. If someone hints to me that they're interested but the feeling isn't mutual, I can ignore the hint in ways...
Ethics

I don't know whether this question is stupid or not, but I have been thinking over it for a long time and couldn't find an answer, so decided to post it. I think that everyone does what he/she feels good by doing. Those who help others, do good to others do so because they feel good by doing so. More than helping others, i think that the motivating factor is their sense of achievement of having done something that drives them. Those who find happiness in other things like money pursue happiness in that way. Then why is it that most of the people consider, or at least show, that those who do good or help others are better than those who run after money. Both are pursuing happiness in their sense, that is being selfish. I agree that those who help others/do good make others happy certainly do a better job, but ultimately if you see it is that they feel good/satisfied/happy with their work and that's why they do it. Ultimately it boils down to the point that they are doing it for themselves, NOT for others.

Your question isn't stupid; variations on it have been discussed many times on this site, and the issue itself has been around for a long time. There's a subtler and a less subtle point. Start with the less subtle. You say "I think that everyone does what he/she feels good by doing. Those who help others, do good to others do so because they feel good by doing so." But this just seems wrong. Most people I know have had plenty of experiences of doing something that didn't make them feel good at all. They did it because it was what had to be done or because it was just clearly the right thing to do. So your claim about the facts seems wrong. You might say (many have) that they know they'll feel bad if they don't do whatever it is that needs to be done, and that this is their real reason. But there are two problems here. The first is that, once again, it's just not obvious that this fits the facts. But it also brings us to the subtler point. Even if as a matter of fact, I feel guilty when I don't...
Justice

I always took the the word "tolerance" to mean to endure something until it cannot be endured anymore, i.e. something which is bearable for a while but eventually unbearable - like carrying a heavy load - eventually one has to put it down. Similarly with house guests - no matter how fond we are of them eventually we want them to leave as we cannot tolerate having them in our homes indefinitely. However, unending "tolerance" is demanded of us by our Governments - we have to endure, indefinitely, "guests" (people who do not pay their way) who stay indefinitely, always taking and never giving back. Surely what is demanded of us is not tolerance but rather suffering - and the word tolerance is used, deliberately erroneously, instead to imply that we are being virtuous when instead we are simply giving in because we have no choice - and if we do not want to give in we are accused of not being virtuous. My point is that the word "tolerance" is misused to manipulate. What are your views?

I'm a bit puzzled by your example; I'll get to that. But first, let's check a dictionary. Here are the relevant meanings from Webster: "To allow to be or be done without hindrance, prohibition or contradiction" "To put up with" You're certainly not obliged to tolerate your stale house guests in either of these senses. If you ask them politely to make other arrangements, you're well within your rights. But not all cases are like that. Sometimes I'm obliged to tolerate certain things even if it causes me pain to do so. If I don't like it that members of a certain group frequent my favorite coffee house, that's tough. I shouldn't do anything to hinder them, even if that makes my latte-sipping less pleasant. I may also not like the views you express as you address the town council. But I should tolerate your expressing them - whether or not that makes me happy. The point so far, then, is that there are things we really should tolerate whether or not it somehow makes us suffer. There's...
Logic
Religion

I have been teaching philosophy for a year now, and the Paradox of the Stone has come up again and again, boggling my student and me later on. The standard answer is that God cannot create the stone since it would imply a contradiction, and these philosophers say that even God cannot do that. But if He is God, why can He not create a contradiction? Is there something wrong with accepting the conclusion that God can make 2+ 2 = 5, given that God is all-powerful? Or put it another way, why cannot the concept of omnipotence be the ability to do everything, even if that would imply a contradiction?

Voluntarists say just that: God can make contradictions true. And if someone is really prepared to say that contradictions might be true, it's not exactly clear -- to me, at least -- how to answer. But I'll confess that I've never understood the pull of this solution. Here's a way of getting at what bothers me. Suppose, to see if it could make sense, that there's an omnipotent God. (Our goal is to see if the concept is coherent; not whether it fits any actual thing.) Suppose we have a computer screen with 1280 x 720 pixels. (Let them simply be on or off; ignore color.) Suppose we ask God to turn a set of pixels on so that there's a circle on the screen. (We have to allow for a certain amount of approximation, but that won't affect the real point here.) God can easily do that. (So can anyone with a good Paint program.) Now suppose we ask God instead to arrange pixels so that there's an equilateral triangle on the screen. Once again, no difficulty. But now suppose we set God a third task: turn...
Consciousness
Death

I recently read a story in the news about near death experience...People seeing dead relatives, bright lights etc. The article mentioned that the science community is currently researching and one of the things they are doing is placing objects in operating rooms and/or taping pictures to the ceilings to understand if this is purely something the mind makes up to deal with the situation it finds itself in or if this is an indication that conscienceless can survive outside the body. I've never had such an experience but it poses an interesting question... Does philosophy have a perspective on consciousness surviving outside the body and/or does it have an opinion on this kind of experience?

Lots of interesting questions here, and I won't try to do all the issues justice. But a handful of quick thoughts. First, philosophy doesn't usually have a perspective on a question because the questions philosophy deals with tend to be inherently controversial. Philosophers have views, but there's almost always disagreement amongst philosophers on almost all philosophical topics. This one is no exception. That said if you were to take a poll these days, I'm pretty confident that at least among philosophers in the "analytic" tradition (very roughly: influenced by formal logic, science, careful attention to language and meaning...), you'd find that most don't think there can be consciousness without a body to embody it. This is largely because the more we learn about the workings of the mind, the more we see that it's intimately connected with the functioning of the brain. Turning briefly to one of your examples: suppose a bit of information were taped to the top of a tall object in an...
Justice

My question today is concerning authority. I ask: how is authority ever justified? Let me frame my question. Let us allow that "authority" in a governmental sense is to stop the subjects from being murdered, pillaged, to stop violence, to stop thiefs, to moderate economics, etc. Now let me ask you this. If, say, a murderer thinks about killing his victim, but is ultimately unable to do so due to the various laws/punishments involved, the government has been "successful." They have deterred the murderer from committing the crime because of the legislation in place. In this sense, we can say that a government replaces "freedom" with "security". Essentially, the more totalitarian a government becomes, the more "freedom" is traded for "security". However, is it not also true that in the saving of the life of the victim, we have "murdered" the free will of the murderer? Why can authority, in essense, save the existance of one individual, while condeming the existance of another, even if that existance...

I'll admit to being a bit puzzled. Here's the bit where I start to feel things spin: ...is it not also true that in the saving of the life of the victim, we have "murdered" the free will of the murderer? Why can authority, in essence, save the existence of one individual, while condemning the existence of another, even if that existence involves violence or crime? If the police stop me from popping someone off, no one nor nothing is murdered. In fact, my free will , such as it might have been, stays intact. Stopping someone from acting on a particular choice isn't the same as killing their ability to make choices at all. And if it wasn't a matter of someone literally stopping me, but me thinking the crime isn't worth the punishment, then I've made a free choice between two options. In other words, as you describe the case, it's even less clear that my "free will" has been murdered. There's nothing odd in the thought that, when I make a free choice, I'm often weighing up pros and...

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