It would be hard to deny this, though some philosophers have claimed that morality may be grasped a piori or independently of experience. Perhaps simple reflection on what it is to be a person or to be rational can generated some reasonable moral claims, but it certainly appears that our values from the value of friendship to justice to happiness are shaped by the broad spectrum of human experience, and it therefore appears that experience and reflection can 'provide us with the data for making a decision about what is morally right or wrong.' One can see in simple cases how experience might play a crucial role: someone might have no sympathy for those who are unemployed until he has lost his job, a person might not care at all where her food comes from until she sees a film on factory farming, someone might not care a fig for a country's foreign policy until his neighbor's son is killed in a foreign war, somoene may think homosexuality is an unnatural perversion until he realizes several seemingly...

Good question! Analytic philosophers have had some influence in specific areas of American cultural life. So, for example, analytic philosophers such as Nagel, Raz, Dworkin, Murphy and others have had some impact on jurisprudence, philosophers have contributed to political treatments of medical public policy (Dan Brock was on some presidential panel under Regan), Danto and some other analytic philosophers have contributed to art criticism and thus the artworld, some analytic philosophers contribute to general cultural conversations on politics, religion and science (see, for example, the New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, etc). A host of analytic philosophers have also contributed to Blackwell and Open Court philosophy and popular culture volumes that cover films, telivision, etc... In my case, I have contributed to books on Narnia, Running, the series Lost, James Bond, Spielberg, Johny Cash, and even a book on Canabis and Philosophy. One of the most popular books in the...

Interesting! The historical relationship between "philosophy" and "psychology" is a bit complex. Some in psychology tend to see themselves as principally working from within the sciences or an applied science such as medicine, but some philosophers tend to see psychology as something that emerged historically from philosophy. In any case, the claim that human beings have a basic motive or drive to gain power is a bit abstract. I wonder if the professor meant something specific, such as the power to dominate or control other persons or something less sinister such as the power to think, feel, grow, act justly, and so on. In any case, theories of human nature are (in my view) naturally described as philosophical. Hobbes thought we fundamentally desire power and safety (social bonds are based on our shared fear of premature violent death). And this seems to be properly described as a philosophy that is distinct from, say, Thomas Aquinas' or John Locke's, both of whom thought we had a fundamental...

Great question. One way to think of this would be to hold that you both have an equal duty to care for the parents, but in your case this might mean more visits and in-person contact, due to geography. So, imagine your older brother lives in China while you are in the states and 8 miles away from your parents. Imagine that for your older brother to make it to your parents' home involves great costs, personally, professionally and economically. In that case, perhaps him coming to help out during a home visit once a year for a week would involve greater costs than you seeing the parents regularly througout the year. On this view, you both would have an equal duty to look after them and both of you would be giving of yourselves in roughly equal proportion, even if that involves you caring for them more frequently. Having been through a similar experience of caring for parents and having siblings, I might add that while such care-giving for parents can be quite strssful and taxing, you also have an...

Hmmmm. Not sure which "you" you have in mind, perhaps a particular panelist who made this claim? However, I shall venture a reply as to why someone might think philosophy is not merely a matter of cleverness. Beginning in Ancient Greece the practice of philosophy was distinguished from the practice of the sophists. "Philosophy" comes from the Greek the love of wisdom, whereas the Greek word for sophists (sophistes) refers to those who profess to make people wise. The sophists were judged to be clever insofar as they were well trained in argument (they were especially interested in persuasive speech, rhetoric, language), but not principally motivated by the love of the good, the true and the beautiful. Studying with a sophist might equip you to argue for or against any point, much as a lawyer or somoene in a debating society may be trained to argue or defend any point, depending upon who hires the person or what thesis the debaters have been assigned. This may, I suggest, be a matter of being...

Yes, there is a book just out that you might like, called Philosophy for Everyone: Cannabis: http://www.amazon.com/Cannabis-Philosophy-Everyone-Talking-About/dp/1405199679 The sub-title is quite fun: "What were we just talking about?" That book, just published last year, should give you lots to consider. Probably the most positive treatment of psychotropic drugs by a philosophically minded author is Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception.

Interesting! The topic of authenticity in music has been a lively one, especially (for some reason) in the 1980s and 1990s. The topic was usually defined by disputes about whether a musical performance of, say, Bach, could be authentic if it was performed with instruments that were unknown to the composer. Might it be the case that to really hear Bach's B Minor Mass one has to hear it on instruments modeled on those employed by the great German Baroque era composer? I believe Peter Kivey has a good book on authenticity in the arts, especially music. I think that the majority of philosophers who have considered this question concluded that authentic Bach does not require using only Baroque era instruments. But quite apart from concerns with instruments or questions about when music is faithful to a composer's intentions, etc (which you did not ask about!), I think there are other ways of talking about authentic music. In your case, I don't think it is odd at all to think in terms of authenticity...

Thank you for this extraordinary question. The matter is quite profound and I feel quite unworthy to respond, but I will make a few observations that I hope are helpful (or not unhelpful)! First, one might question whether it is best to see your response to those who have died prematurely as carrying out what is a duty to them. I know you qualify this by writing "amost" and putting the word "duty" in quotes, but perhaps what has taken place is that the deaths of such good persons has awoken in you an intense realization of the preciousness of life itself. Having just lost a friend who died in his early 50s, I am keenly aware of how Rick would have loved even very simple pleasures (walking the dog) that I can do know. I am made aware of how precious it is that I can spend time with my wife, realizing at the same time how deeply sad (tragic) it is that Rick and Angela are not together. Perhaps this leads to a second observation. Except in some religious systems in which there is re-incarnation or...

You are right that the answer or reply will depend on what is meant by "rational" and "irrational." If "irrational" means something (some state of affairs or entity) that defies the laws of logic, this is doubtful. Take the law of identity (everything is itself or A is A) and the law of non-contradiction (A is not not A). Thinking or speaking seems to require both; we must assume that when we think of A (whatever), we are thinking of A and this is not the same as thinking of notA. But if "irrational hings" is more broadly defined and refers to subjects who act or think in ways that seem unreasonable or (at least to us) unintelligible, then matters change. If we pursue this a bit further, though, and ask about how irrational an agent might be, we may come up with some internal limits. That is, so long as a person is acting it may be that she or he has to have some reason or other for their action; the reason may be very odd or fleeting or not fully conscious or out of touch with reality, but if a...

This is a BIG question! Some skeptics, like J.L. Mackie, will deny that there is any real. objective thing in the world that matches up to "moral goodness." He might say that all we have are definitions, such as the ones you offer, each of which happens to be in error. But probably a majority of philosophers today (or a great deal of them) adopt some form of moral realism, according to which some acts are truly morally good (seeking compassion and peace, to use your example) and some are truly morally bad (torturing the innocent). I assume, too, that your two cases of the Bible-based morality and the compassion-peace morality are going to have some serious overlap. In other words, there are lots of precepts in the Bible urging us to be compassionate and seek peace, and I imagine that someone who seeks compassion and peace probably will be opent to respecting religious teachings that uge us to "help, and do not hinder, others in achieving their own peaceful ends." I suspect that answering...