I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of a "right to feel indignant" and a right that varies in magnitude. So can we just repharase this in terms of it being more or less appropriate for you to feel indignant? The issues you raise are very important. They play a large if poorly understood role in ordinary moral thinking and they are almost entirely neglected by philosophers. In response to your first question, I would say: almost always. When you have never wronged the person who is now wronging you, then you can express this fact in your indignation: "What have I ever done to you that you are treating me this way?" That you are able to say this makes your indignation more appropriate and its expression more forceful. When you are unable to say it, your indignation is correspondingly less compelling than it would otherwise be. The only possible exceptions I can see are cases where the present wrong she commits against you is way out of proportion to the wrong you committed against her. You...

May I refer you to my answer to question 1114? I fully agree with you that organs could save lives, very many lives each year, not to speak of health improvements. But nearly all of this problem can be solved rather easily by reversing the standard default. Instead of assuming that a person who dies without leaving specific instructions does not want his or her organs to be used, we should stipulate the opposite. We should institute easy and convenient ways for people to register their veto against the posthumous use of their organs. And we should then assume that all who have not registered such a veto are consenting to the posthumous use of their organs for saving the lives or restoring the health of other people. This simple change in the law would give us the needed organs without the problems I discuss in the response to Q1114.

Maybe yes, if you unreflectively act to promote your own enjoyment and to avoid unpleasantness for yourself. But this condition may not be fulfilled. One example is that of a person who has worked hard to become someone who takes deep pleasure in the (morally appropriate) happiness of others. Philosophers as different as Aristotle and Kant agree that we can and ought to promote such a disposition in ourselves -- Aristotle because he believed this to be a necessary element of true virtue, Kant because he believed this would avoid temptations that could lead the agent to fail in her duties. Another example is that of a person who finds that helping others is what she most enjoys doing, but who also reflects on this enjoyment and conscientiously approves of it in moral terms. Had she found that sadistic conduct is what she most enjoys, she would have restrained herself and tried to change her own desires insofar as possible. In both these case, the enjoyment conferred by the helping act is...

He will ruin his arm -- that's a major burden for a child who loves sports. The goal of saving his arm seems a lot more important than the other considerations you mention. But perhaps you don't actually have to make this choice. Instead of informing the league, you might just talk to the MRI technician (who already knows that you know, and is responsible for your knowing, the boy's condition). Urge the technician to tell the doctor that the boy is being pitched by his coach and that his parents apparently approve of this. (The technician can say that this information comes from someone else without saying that this someone else -- you -- knows about the severity of the boy's injury.) The doctor can then decide what to do -- e.g., telephone the boy and/or the parents or write them a stern letter, and, if all else fails, communicate her or his concerns to the league. The doctor best understands the boy's condition and can speak about it with the greatest authority.

When Mary is depressed, this rubs off on those who are close to her. It casts a shadow over their lives and deprives them of what Mary might otherwise add to their flourishing. Her depression also, and more substantially, blights her own life, makes it less rich, interesting, successful than it would otherwise be. Both points support the conclusion that it is ethically desirable that Mary get over her depression. For her own sake and for the sake of others, Mary ought to do what she can to get over her depression and others should support her effort. This conclusion goes against your hypothesis that Mary should spare her friends the effects of her depression. This on your very plausible assumption that isolating oneself from one's friends has adverse effects on one's depression. Mary needs friends in the state she's in. And, realizing this, her (true) friends wouldn't want her to withdraw. Putting this in terms of the Golden Rule, Mary might ask herself: If a good friend of mine were depressed...

"I don’t see why a person who would never, ever consider raping a woman might not still enjoy fantasizing about raping a woman." I agree that this is possible. But this does not really answer the question whether there would be anything wrong with such fantasizing and such enjoyment. Leaving aside chess (which offers enjoyment of a very different kind), I think that this would be wrong - even if it did not lead to any kind of violent behavior toward actual women . Why? First, it would be wrong because the rape fantasizer could not know in advance what we assume to be true, namely that his fantasies would not cause him to be violent. He cannot know that, drunk or sober, exuberant or depressed, he'll never act out his fantasies when a "safe" opportunity presents itself. (To this one might respond that actual violence may be as easily triggered by not fantasizing about it as by fantasizing about it. Refraining from violent fantasies is as likely as its opposite to cause violence. By...

Even if the question suggests rationalization and some self-deception, there is still the more philosophical question of why this affair is wrong (if it is wrong). Contrary to what you suggest, the fact that the wife does not know is probably sufficient to make the affair wrong. She stuck to this man throughout his serious illness and thereafter, because she believed and still believes that they have a certain relationship with each other which she values highly. She does not in fact have such a relationship -- her husband feels no attraction for her and is in love with you. If she knew that her life in fact lacks what she values highly, that her husband describes her to his lover as abusive, that he stays with her only because she looked after him when he was ill -- if she knew all this, then she would very seriously consider leaving her husband to try to build a new relationship of the kind she values. The deception deprives her of this opportunity and leads to her life failing miserably in a...

It may also matter what sort of operation we are talking about. If this is cosmetic surgery (beautifying belly buttons, say), then the service does seem quite similar to other commodities (face cream), and the reasons against the surgeon's charging what she will seem quite weak. As we move to the other end of the spectrum -- to operations that are a matter of life and death -- Peter Fosl's points become ever more compelling. Such operations should not be rationed on the basis of wealth: A medically important operation that is routinely available to the wealthy should also be available, in roughly the same quality, to the poor. Call this the medical equity principle (MEP). It does not follow from the MEP (here comes my second point) that it is unethical for the best surgeons to charge more. Societies that have organized themselves around the MEP need to have enough high-quality doctors to take care of the medical needs of all. To attract people into the profession of surgeon, and to entice them...

Doctors try to avoid such situations, and, I think, for good reason. They add extra stress to what is already a difficult task -- stress for the surgeon and also stress for the patient. Such extra stress, in turn, is likely to diminish the prospects for success. And a surgeon who performs a major operation on his mother may then be acting unethically by not giving his patient the best chances of a successful outcome. If so, he should step aside, even if his mother would prefer to be operated by him. But what if some surgeon is, and is known by his mother to be, especially cool and unemotional, thus adding no stress to the proceedings? Or what if he is much better than the other available surgeons so that his greater skill more than makes up for the extra stress? In such cases, I would think, there's nothing unethical about him doing the operation himself -- provided, of course, his mother agrees. So, as I see it, performing a surgical operation on a loved one is not unethical as such, it is...

Such language is demeaning, as you say. It demeans women in general and members of that group in particular. It would be better if such words fell into disuse. When young women use such words in reference to themselves, it is important to understand why. Is it lack of self-respect? Is it preemptive (they feel that others refer to them in this way and want to show that they don't care)? Or something else? An effort to explore this question with your girlfriend may be preferable to simply asking her to stop. It's more respectful (less controlling) and also offers the prospect of overcoming the underlying problem rather than merely its most obvious symptom.