As I understand your argument, much of it depends on understanding the predicates religious and empirical as mutually exclusive. This allows you to infer that, if a claim is empirical, then it cannot be religious -- and that, if evidence is empirical, then it cannot be religious. If I wanted to argue against you, I would dispute that understanding and this inference. Since you are making an assertion about all religious claims, your opponent is free to present you with any one such claim as a counter-instance. So, let me give you the claim that the prayers of truly pious people are very often answered: What they pray for very often comes true, much more often than what less pious people pray for. I say that this is a religious claim. Now you ask me for evidence for this claim. To give you evidence, I ask you to join a group of people who together grade a randomly selected population of 2000 self-declared believers in terms of their piety. We do this by interviewing each of...

Such hypothetical protest would indeed be hypocritical if the two cases were relevantly alike. But are they? You point out two respects in which the cases are alike: Agents A are blocking the path of agents B, some of whom do not agree with the reasons for A's actions. But the cases may be different in other morally relevant respects. One such further respect is the quality of A's reasons (with which some of the Bs disagree). It matters morally, I would think, whether the police are seeking to prevent the burning down of a church or abortion clinic, on the one hand, or whether they are seeking to prevent a peaceful demonstration against a morally dubious war, on the other hand. And it matters whether students are shutting down the universities in protest against a government policy that permits blacks to attend or in protest against a government policy that forbids blacks to attend. The students could then argue against your charge of hypocrisy that their own blockade is protesting an...

I don't see a serious ethical problem with taking a long lunch break, assuming you worked a little longer at the end of the day as needed. Nor is it wrong to take an afternoon off, assuming you properly advised your employer to give him/her a chance to book is as a half-day of vacation. So the only plausible candidate for wrongdoing here is the dishonesty of your excuses.Such dishonesty might be justifiable in three ways. First, it might be that, in the context of your work environment, it is generally understood by employers and employees alike that such dishonesty is standard practice (much like assault is standard practice in a boxing match). Second, it might be that the particular employer you lied to had forfeited any claim to your honesty. S/he might have done this by lying to you, for instance, or by acting wrongly toward other employees who had honestly reported that they were seeking new jobs. Third, it might be that your dishonesty was necessary to achieve some greater good. For...

If the very expensive life extension you envisage is available to all, one might defend it as a permissible collective choice. Of course, there would be fewer births, and fewer deaths, each year -- perhaps just 20 million annually instead of 125 million on the assumption of a steady human population of 10 billion. (Currently, there are about 131 million births and 57 million deaths each year.) Such scarcity of children would change our social world considerably. But I do not see how it would be wrong for humankind to move in this direction. Serious moral problems arise when we envisage the (more likely) possibility that such expensive life extension would be available only to a minority while its great cost would contribute to most people on earth leading short and miserable lives. To a large extent, this sort of dramatic inequality in health and life expectancy is already a reality today. About one fifth of all human lives are cut short by poverty-related causes before the age of 5. One important...

Most influential on US history was probably John Locke (1632-1704, see plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke), who influenced our conception of limited government (as developed especially in the Federalist Papers ) as well as the relative unconcern in the US with economic inequality. It is hard to find influential philosophers in US history. I would rate as the most influential John Dewey (1859-1952, see www.iep.utm.edu/d/dewey.htm ; plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey-political). His pragmatist philosophy left a lasting mark especially on the US education system, emphasizing learning by doing as well as civic education. Generally, the historical influence of philosophers is very indirect and slow to manifest itself. Judgments about such influences are therefore difficult to defend and controversial. Still, it seems that philosophers have played less of a role in influencing US history than they have played in the history of other countries such as China, Germany, France, and Great...

There are a fair number of distinguished philosophers in contemporary Canada. Among the better known are Charles Taylor, Will Kymlicka, Thomas Hurka, David Dyzenhaus, Frank Cunningham, Jennifer Whiting, Arthur Ripstein, Daniel Weinstock, Michel Seymour, Wayne Norman. But there are many others who have made substantial contributions to philosophy. A good way to find out more is to surf the philosophy faculty lists of major Canadian universities. They often provide links to faculty CVs which, in turn, offer lists of publications.

With the help of a former teacher, perhaps, s/he can write a philosophy essay in an area s/he is most interested in. This essay can serve as a basis for assessing whether s/he really has the talent, preparation, and commitment for graduate training in philosophy. If so, this essay can also serve as a writing sample for applications. But it is probably also important to have at least one reference letter from a professor familiar with the applicant who can explain the special circumstances. It may also help to take another philosophy course or two before applying. This may help in developing a suitable essay topic and also in yielding another good grade and strong letter of recommendation.

There is nothing incoherent about the ideal of world peace, even when we hold fixed that human beings have conflicts and disagreements as well as greed, pride, and a desire for power. Nonetheless, world peace may be empirically highly unlikely in a system of states like the one we have been having for the last few centuries. One might argue for this pessimistic conclusion as follows. Some people strive for power, and such people are likely to be substantially overrepresented in politics (as those who like power are more likely to go into politics and as those in politics acquire a taste for power). The domestic power of politicians tends to increase in times of tension and hostility as a frightened public is willing to cede to politicians greater authority. The international power of politicians may be increased or decreased by heightened tension and hostility. Which it is depends on what their country's power is mainly based on. There are three main components of a country's political power:...

Extreme contrasts of privilege and poverty are often the result of unjust social institutions such as feudalism and serfdom, for example. In such a context, people in dire poverty may well be justified in violating their society's property laws, in practicing civil disobedience, and even in overthrowing the established order, because those laws and this order lack moral standing. But even in a context of severe social injustice, it is generally not morally permissible to violate any and all laws (e.g., by killing children or by stealing from people even poorer than oneself). Those administering and enforcing the laws in a seriously unjust society will rarely admit that these laws are seriously unjust and that some violations of them are justified. Still, they ought to reflect on the justice of the laws they apply and enforce and, if they find the justice of some of these laws to be dubious, may well conclude that they ought to punish leniently if at all. They ought also to reflect...

It is fair to point to the harms that would befall others, because such harms are surely not morally irrelevant. They are relevant, for example, when the potential suicide has caused others to be dependent on him or her, e.g. his or her children whose lives are likely to be blighted by the suicide of a parent. And even if the harm that would befall others is not due to earlier decisions by the agent (getting married, having children), he or she has moral reason at least to do what can be done to ease the pain of parents, siblings, friends, etc., left behind. In these ways, perhaps suicide is not all that different from other actions people take: They may have a right to take these actions, in the sense that it would be wrong to prevent them from so acting. But this does not mean that such actions are beyond moral criticism: Their execution may be morally flawed in diverse ways, and sometimes these actions may be morally wrong altogether. Thus consider divorce. People have a moral right to walk...