Thank you for your questions. Onecan imagine a strong 'no' answer to your first question, which isfounded upon the following argument. It stresses the notion offiction. If the novel or film is called fictional, that means itdeviates from, and is known to deviate from, an accuraterepresentation of reality. Fictionseem to function by creating 'worlds' that we as readers or viewerscan occupy in the mode of 'as if'. To get carried along by a story,to be affected by it in any way, is to treat it 'as if' it were real.So, to be sure, in the midst of the experience, the differencebetween fact and fiction is blurred. Now, of course, normally wedon't carry on being affected after the film is over; we're able tosee the story as fiction and thus the world it presented asfictional. So (this argument continues), why should oneelement of its fictionality bother us? Or, expressed differently, whyshould we assume that readers and viewers are perfectly capable oftelling the difference between fiction and reality in...

That's a very interesting question,thanks for asking. There seems to be a difference between your twoexamples that is worth thinking about. The first example clearly anddirectly involves a moral choice. There we have a person who lives acontradiction in that they believe that X is wrong in a specificallymoral sense of 'wrong', and yet are complicit in X. In the secondexample, though, there doesn't appear to be anything moral at stake(there may in fact be, but for the sake of argument here let usassume that there is not). So, we have a person who thinks that X iswrong in the sense of false, but still behaves as if X. If there is a duty to removecontradictions in our beliefs and behaviours, it seems more urgent inthe first case. The contradiction there involves some moral wrong, orsome failure in the consistency of moral character. Consistency is afeature valued in most moral systems. See this question and answer: http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/715 In the second case, there may beself...

It is certainly true that all philosophers are influenced by the place and time in which they live, by their personalities, and by the interests they have as individuals. Philosophers are human beings, after all! But what happens as a result of this ‘influence’? Does it mean the adoption of certain styles of writing, the use of particular forms of argumentation, tendency to use this type of example rather than that, more or less frequent reference to certain other philosophers or traditions, choice of topic (since some topics will appear more urgent to me than to others by virtue of who I am and where and when I live), even choice of methods (I may have a predisposition to skepticism, empiricism, idealism, etc.)? All of these effects, however, do not have any necessary (or even likely) effect upon the value of the philosophical work, either to contemporary philosophy or to a previous era, provided they remain either at the level of ornamentation, or are employed undogmatically. The assumption...

A good question.Here are some very limited thoughts. I suggest that we distinguish between rules external to the gameor sport that set it up such that it can begin -- e.g. rules thatdefine the conditions under which participants take part -- and theinternal rules that define how the game is played, such as permitted'moves'. A violation of an external rule is not so much a violationof this or that particular rule, as an attempt to subvert the gameentirely. Not doping is an external rule, and likewise the rulesgoverning permitted equipment, the size and shape of the court/field/ route. Rules like travelling in basketball, or committing afoul, are internal rules. (It may be that this distinction cannot berigorously maintained, and that some rules appear to fall into bothcamps.) Nevertheless, we seem to be able to then say that mostinstances of things we call ' cheating' fall into the infraction ofan external rule. However, there are circumstances where the infraction of aninternal rule is...

An interesting question, thank you. I am certainly not averse to taking a spy thriller, say, on holiday with me! It seems to me that the pejorative sense of the term 'escapism' has to do less with the escape part than what is escaped from. If all that were at stake were the general tension of life – and thus in that sense akin to the massage – then fair enough. However, surely things are different when the fiction in question is inviting us to escape from having concern for serious moral, social or political issues. So, for example, when the setting of the escapist fiction is a war zone, inner city life, or some such, one could plausibly claim that this is unjustly diverting attention from a real problem, or pretending that solutions are easier than they really are. Similarly, if escapist literature is not just a pleasant diversion now and again, but the readership engages with nothing else, then one begins to suspect that the escapism is less a helpful therapy than an unhealthy mode of life that...

There is certainly something of Hume's reasoning in your question (see the end of section v of the first Enquiry ). And, this way of thinking about knowledge becomes a basic definition of knowledge in pragmatism (Pierce, James et al). However, it is inappropriate in Kant. We must take what you term the categorical difference between things-in-themselves and appearances seriously. Appearances are the only domain of knowledge. This is not because appearances are what we are directly acquainted with, while things-in-themselves are in some way hidden. If that were the case, as you say, there would be good reason to think that the former would have to be correlated with the latter, and that through this correlation, the latter could come to be known. Rather, we should say that the thing-in-itself is such as to not be a possible object of knowledge. In other words, whatever forms of knowledge would be necessary to know a thing-in-itself (even talking about a 'form of knowledge' here is probably already...

I, too, like your example! Let me add three comments to Charles' response above. First, we can distinguish between several different interpretative communities. One of these are 'average members of the public' -- consumers of cultural products who have no specialist training in the area. Another would be professionals, those whose career has been devoted to understanding a certain area of cultural production. A professor of literature, for example, or a film critic. A third group, generally rather small, comprises the makers (the scriptwriter and director of your fantasy story, say). Now, we might want to think that these three groups should agree, or should tend towards or strive towards agreement. But there are good reasons to think otherwise. A Hollywood scriptwriter in the 1950s would have had to bury the left-leaning political message of his film under a thoroughly populist and conventional surface. You might even say that in such a case the author’s intention was precisely not to be understood,...

The issue, it seems to me, is that there are more than one set of criteria for what is a good game of football, or even what is fair. So, from the player, fan, coach and owner's point of view, whatever it takes to win might be considered both good and fair and 'part of the game' (thus the 'cheating is really trying' claim). The referee, on the other hand, is interested only that the game runs strictly according to the rules. The commentator or neutral fan is interested in the game as an exhibition of skill, dedication and drama, and blatant cheating (especially if the camera sees it but the referee does not) is likely to be seen as ruining the game. The broadcaster wants something that will raise viewing figures, and controversial or even violent acts might be just the ticket – everything of that type is 'fair' to them. One might be tempted to say that the referee's view is the most valid because it is the most regulated by the rules that define the game, and is free from extraneous factors such...

Boxing is an even more obvious example of a rule-governed sport that involves what would otherwise be immoral actions. The answer usually given lies in the notion of consent. By agreeing to be a part of the game, one consents to be subjected to such actions; and, equally, is given the right to commit them. There are some actions in sport that are not part of the rules. Players have been subject to criminal prosecution for particularly violent tackles during a professional game. The notion of consent, however, is not universally accepted. For example, suppose it is the case that forms of violence in sport feeds a culture of the acceptance of violence outside the sport (among viewers or participants). This is a question for empirical sociology or psychology, but the implications of the answer are ethical. In that case, consent within the sport may mean that one is consenting to more than one has the right to consent to; one is consenting on another's behalf, or even that consent takes away...

The word translated 'monster' in the edition you cite is 'Unmensch' -- thus, 'inhuman' is probably better, because it captures the very Nietzschean ambiguity between concepts of 'animal', 'monster' and 'overhuman'. Anyway, I've not done a really thorough study of late period Nietzsche so I'm not sure if there is a definitive answer to be found somewhere. But, rather than let your question go unanswered, I thought I would venture my suggestions. I suspect he either is referring to Cesare Borgia (see sections 46 and 61, and also Twilight section 37); or, less likely, to himself and/or his Zarathustra (cf Anti-Christ, section 54).