I am not sure what you mean by "an absolute pacifist." If you mean that you would not even disarm a person who was attempting to kill you, then you may have a problem reconciling it with practising a martial art. However, there does not seem to be any good nonreligious reasons to be an absolute pacifist in this sense. One can be a pacifist in a fairly absolute sense by refusing to ever seriously harm another person, and though there might be situations in which even this view would be hard to defend, it is somewhat more plausible than absolute pacifism. Another even more plausible form of pacifism is refusing ever to kill another person. If practising a martial art does not involve practising killing anyone then it is not incompatible with the most plausible form of pacifism that I mentioned above. If practising a martial art does not involve practising seriously harming anyone, then it is not incompatible with the somewhat plausible form of pacifism that I mentioned above. I assume that practising...

People use the word "stupid" in many ways. Sometimes it is used as a synonym for "ignorant." Sometimes it is used as a synonym for someone with low intelligence. This is unfortunate, for it makes it difficult for an important distinction to be drawn. A person who does not know some fact is ignorant of that fact. A person of low intelligence does not know some facts that most people know. A person who is stupid acts in a way that almost no one with his knowledge and intelligence would act. But, this must be qualified by saying that the person does not have a mental disorder, for people with mental disorders sometimes act in ways that no one with that knowledge and intelligence would act, but their actions are not regarded as stupid but as due to their mental disorder. What is called "asking a stupid question" is often not stupid at all, just for the reason you give. It may seem as if no person with that knowledge and intelligence would ask that question, for the answer seems obvious. But once the...

Death is not only considered to be the permanent and irreversible end to life, it is the permanent and irreversible end to life. Thus, it is not possible for someone who died in the present day to be cryogenically frozen and bought back to life. But it is certainly possible for someone who we have considered to have died in the present day to be cryogenically frozen and later to have been shown not to have died at all, but simply to have been in a cryogenic coma. However, if people who we have considered to have died in the present day were cryogenically frozen and and later to have been shown not to have died at all, but simply to have been in a cryogenic coma, this would have very serious implications. Reading of wills and other social practices, such as stopping social security payments, that depend on a person having died would have to be changed. It is possible that someone who was declared dead by the current criteria, would thereby be treated, for all social purposes as if he were dead, no...

If you mean by "hedonistic by nature" that human beings always act so as to secure the most pleasure for themselves, then your next remarks shows that you correctly do not think this is true. However, you seem to equate being hedonistic with doing what is in one's self-interest, and this is not true either. It is not always in one's self-interest to do what gives one the most pleasure. You also seem to take reason to be used solely to further one's self-interest, as if it were irrational to sacrifice one's own self-interest in order to save someone else from harm, but it is clearly rational to act in order to prevent a serious harm to someone else, even if it is not in your own self-interest. However, the main point of your question seems to involve the supposed conflict between reason and the passions. It is true that sometimes our emotions lead us to do something that will cause us harm when there is no compensating benefit for anyone. But, in general, our emotions do not cause us to act...

The morally right thing for the barman to do is to refuse to serve the clearly intoxicated senior member of the staff. He should also try to persuade the managers not to serve him. This answer assumes that it is true that the more senior member of the staff is clearly intoxicated. Given the truth of this assumption, the barman should point out to the managers that they are not acting in the best interest of the company that owns the bar. Most obvious, if the senior member of the staff has an accident, there will be serious problems for the bar and for anyone who served the alcohol to an intoxicated person. The barman could point out that his refusal should be taken as a confirmation of his good performance as a barman. By refusing to serve the intoxicated senior member of the staff, even under pressure, the managers can be sure that he will not get the bar into trouble by serving alcohol to clearly intoxicated drinkers. He can present all of this in prudential rather than moral terms, as moralizing...

Both theism and atheism presuppose that there is some clear meaning to the word "God." However, this does not seem to be true. For Spinoza, God has none of the personal characteristics that the God of various religions is supposed to have. Spinoza has been called a pantheist, and another view of God in which God does not interefere with the world at all, is called deism. Many theists regard pantheists and deists as atheists. The term "agnostic" seems to have clear sense only when talking about whether there is particular kind of God, e.g., the Christian God. I doubt that Bertrand Russell was an agnostic in this sense. The only sense in which I can imagine Russell being an agnostic is that he might have thought that there could be some concept of God that was plausible, perhaps a concept like that of Spinoza. I should point out, contrary to what I suggested in the previous paragraph, there is not even any clear concept of a Christian God. Aquinas thought that we could not make any positive...

Philosophy takes a long time to have any influence, but eventually it may. For example, Hobbes and those English philosophers, like Hume and Mill, who were greatly influenced by him, affected the English language in a way that allowed morality to be distinguished from religion. This is very important as it allows religion to be criticized on moral grounds. Thus, almost every college and university in America now prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual preferences. Although these schools are not yet ready to criticize those religions that condemn homosexuality, many people are prepared to do so. Although religions have been responsible for much harmful conduct, it is not clear that the absence of religion would improve matters very much. Stalinism and Nazism, as well as various other isms such as nationalism have caused as much or more harmful conduct. Any movement in which people are taught to accept some authority rather than thinking about the matter themselves and making their own...

If you mean by "is there a reason or purpose?" did someone have a reason or purpose in creating the world, that presupposes that someone did create the world. All the evidence we have shows that this is not true. Reasons and purposes presuppose beings that can have them. Whether you came about through chance or because your parents loved each other and wanted to have child together is something that only they can answer. Some children were the result of planning and some were not. None of this is relevant to the question of whether you now have a reason to do various activities. As an intelligent being you do have strong reasons to help others and to try to prevent bad things from happening. Whether these reasons motivate you to do these things depends primarily on how you were brought up. If you were a planned child, there is a good chance that you have been brought up to act on these kinds of reasons. Even if there were a creator, that would not make any difference to helping others and preventing bad...

To talk about Kantian ethics is an example of a new kind of relativism, as if there were many and varied kinds of ethics: Kantian ethics, consequentialist ethics, virtue ethics, contractualist ethics etc. Kantians, consequentialists, virtue ethicists, and contractualists should not be thought of as presenting alternative moral systems or guides, but rather as attempts to justify or show the lack of justification of our common moral guide. It is a sign of confusion to think that what they say should be used to settle real life situations. Further, most of these philosophical theories assume or claim that there is only one correct answer to every moral question, including controversial questions like those involved with abortion. But none of them provides any argument showing that there is not sometimes unresolvable moral disagreement concerning controversial moral questions.

The new thought does not invalidate the selflessness of your action, but it is morally unimportant whether your act was completely selfless or not. Most actions are done from mixed motives, and all that is morally significant with regard to how the action reflects on your character is whether you would have done it even if you were not to be rewarded for doing it. And since you initiated the action without thinking about being rewarded, later thoughts are of no moral significance. However, whether your act was morally good or right, or morally wrong or bad is not affected at all by whether your motives were selfless. Many immoral actions are done from selfless motives. Indeed, altruistic immorality probably results in far more harm than immoral actions done because of self-interest. Most of the people fighting in wars or performing terrorist acts are not doing so for self-interest, and may be acting from completely selfless motives.