Two quick points. The first is that I've heard a great deal of talk about the dependency issue. Ad when I say "I've heard," I don't mean in my own social circle. I mean from politicians and professional pundits. Indeed, this issue of dependency has been a long-time GOP taking point. The second is that whatever the merits of that point, your questions suggests that most people on public assistance stay on it more or less permanently. But as far as I know, this is not actually true (except for the permanently disabled population.) Although I realize that Huffington Post is a liberal rather than a conservative site, the figures that this article draws on are not from a partisan source, and they're consistent with what I have heard from other sources: most (non-disabled) people who get public assistance get it temporarily. Here's the link. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/29/public-benefits-safety-net_n_7470060.html

As it turns out, we don't get paid. One reason is that, as you may have noticed, there's no charge to ask a question and there's no tip jar. ;-) On to the question. It's an empirical question; it depends on how our minds and bodies actually work. But it's pretty safe to say that the answer is yes: sometimes you can tell things about a person by the look in their eyes. It's far from perfect and not always reliable, but there's no completely reliable way to know what a person's state of mind is, so that's not a special problem for this case. In fact, there's not much mystery here from the point of view of common sense. Most of us are at least tolerably good at reading facial expressions. And as for the eyes, they're part of the expression. A fake smile won't give you crow's feet; a genuine smile raises the cheeks and makes the corners of the eyes crinkle. We can learn to tell the difference. That's just one example. Of course, it's not always so simple. A person's facial expression (eyes especially) may...

It depends on what you mean. I'd be mistaken if I thought that members of my family were more valuable or worthy than other people just because they're my family. In the general scheme of things, my children's well-being is not a bit more important than the well-being of anyone else's children. The same goes, of course, for parents, siblings, spouses, lovers, friends, fellow citizens. But I have a feeling that's not the question you're asking. Im guessing you're asking whether it's okay to treat one's own family, friends, etc. preferentially. In some cases the answer is no. Suppose I'm in charge of hiring a new employee. It would be wrong to hire my daughter instead of another candidate simply because she's my daughter. That would be giving my daughter an unfair advantage. The right thing to do, if at all possible, would be to turn the decision over to someone who doesn't have a personal stake in the outcome. On the other hand, to use a sort of example well-known among philosophers, if I have to...

Others on this panel have more insight into this sort of problem than I do, but my inclination is to say that there's no one answer. It depends on the actual situation and slate of candidates. Suppose one candidate, if elected, would be truly bad for democracy---would support all sorts of anti-democratic policies, and would have a good chance of getting them passed. Suppose the relevant alternatives are two candidates, neither of whom would support policies that undermine democracy, but one of them is markedly more to your liking on other issues. Then if you place highest value on preserving democracy, strategic voting may be exactly what your own values call for. If there's a real threat that a lot of votes for your preferred candidate would throw the election to someone who's truly undesirable by your own lights, it's hard to see how strategic voting could be a "perversion of the process"---the process is already perverse; you're just trying to mitigate that. Here's the problem. To say that...

I fear I'm misunderstanding. The obvious answer is that Plato wrote books in which his teacher Socrates is the main character. There are many similar examples in literature. How much of what Plato attributes to Socrates was really said by Socrates is harder to say.

An argument is valid if it's impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. The argument you've given doesn't mean that standard. For one thing, the premises neither define nor mention the term "self-defeating." That already means that your argument relies on unstated premises and hence, as stated, isn't valid. But we can see the problem without resorting to technicalities. What you argument shows, at best, is that capitalism sometimes has unintended bad consequences. To make your case, you'd need to show that capitalism, due to the "greed" (profit motive) it relies on, typically produces bad consequences, and that these bad consequences typically outweigh the good consequences. But the most your argument shows is that in one particular case, the bad consequences produced by the profit motive "cause problems for the capitalist system." There's no way that one example can establish the broad claim your conclusion makes. My point isn't that you're wrong. For all I've said,...

I think we can begin with this premise: a soldier's life is every bit as important as a civilian's. The fact that soldiers volunteer to protect civilians doesn't give us any reason to believe otherwise. Many soldiers believe that serving their country is a higher cause, and worth sacrificing their lives for if that's what circumstances demand. That's not a judgment about the comparative value of their own lives compared with the lives of the civilians they save. In fact, it's perfectly consistent for someone to think that any able-bodied citizen should be willing to sacrifice his or her life for the good of the country, if that's what's called for. Good parents may well be willing to give their lives for the sake of their children. But that's not a judgment about whose life is worth more. Related but not the same: Mary may be willing to die to save her child. She might not be willing to die to save a stranger's child. But that doesn't mean she thinks her children are more valuable than children...

I'd add: foundations of quantum mechanics is my field. I have at least a nodding acquaintance with many of the physicists and philosophers who work in this area. I don't know a single one of them who thinks that the equations of quantum mechanics provide evidence for the existence of any sort of a Deity. And I'd have to add that this seems right to me. Quantum mechanics may provide interesting concepts and analogies for theological thinking (physicist/priest John Polkinghorne thinks so, for instance.) But that's far short of providing arguments for the existence of a god.

No. A PhD would't be necessary. We have had Russian students in our PhD program, and they did not come to us with PhDs. The most important thing will be evidence of philosophical ability. Course records matter; so do informative letters of reference. The writing sample is particularly important. And if there are publications (not required) they would be useful too.

I don't think there's any general injunction about getting the science right, but sometimes getting it wrong can be a distraction. One example that's been discussed by various critics comes from Lord of the Flies . Piggy's glasses are used to focus sunlight and start a fire. But Piggy is nearsighted; his lenses would be concave rather than convex and couldn't be used to start a fire. (Thanks to John Holliday for this example, which he discusses in his dissertation.) Many readers won't realize the problem, but the glasses and Piggy's nearsightedness aren't just an incidental plot element. This is the sort of detail that Golding could have gotten right and once you know that it's wrong, you may never be able to read those scenes in the same way. Needless to say, this doesn't show that getting the science right always matters. It surely doesn't. It's also plausible that these things will be matters of degree. The more esoteric the bit of science, and the less central to the story, the less it's likely to...