Many people do find philosophy quite difficult, but most people find that doing philosophy at least at some level is profoundly natural and fundamentally human. Aristotle said "philosophy begins in wonder." I think that's right. So my advice to you would be to allow your "wonder" not to be stunted by the artificial limitations of worries about grades. If you do start doing badly, have a chat with the teacher to see what you can do to improve. But here is something you probably already know: You do better at things when you find a way to enjoy them. This can be hard, yes; but it can also be great fun and very interesting...actually wonderful . So try to enjoy it, rather than fretting about grades!

The latter sort of question certainly is philosophical, but there is also such a thing as applied philosophy, and in particular, normative theory, which do attempt to provide grounds for specific kinds of decision-making. I do think that normative theories could at least provide reasonable grounds for making one decision or another about one's marriage, depending upon the circumstances of that marriage. For example, it seems to me that (other things equal) most normative theories would counsel abandoning an abusive marriage, especially where reasonable efforts to end the abuse (via counselling, say) have failed or have been rejected.

As someone inclined to virtue theory, I am not really very sensitivee to sorting out claims of "rights." Is it a "natural right" to reject one's background? Weird question! Instead, let's ask whether it is a good thing to reject one's background, just because it is working class. If being from (or in) the working class is not a bad thing, then rejecting anyone (especially one's own family members) for being in or from that class seems like it is a bad thing. Rejecting one's own background sounds on the face of it to be a kind of self-rejection--can't say I find that something I wwould generally recommend. Of course, some backgrounds do deserve to be rejected--those involving abuse or violence, for example. But just because a family is working class? I don't really see that as a good ground for rejecting one's own past and family! I suspect there may be other factors at work here--some a bit more complicated. "Working class" may also be a kind of code for a set of values that one...

As you say, even those of us not trained in reading lips can often make out what is being said. So all that is censored is the actual sound of the word(s) being spoken. Don't ask me why people find this comforting or morally improving. In my view, most allegedly bad language is simply in bad taste. Etiquette is not the same as morality, no matter how vigilantly it is someetimes enforced. Of course, not all bad language is simply bad taste--hate speech actually is immoral, I think. And I also would allow that the border between hate speech and other "bad" language (e.g. certain obscenities) can be somewhat blurry. So *+#!~+%$* that!

It doesn't look that way to me! OK, seriously, then... I think we are doing just a little bit of apples and oranges here. I would certainly rather spend the rest of my life with someone who was decent and kind and patient and nururing and... (we can see where this is going), than someone who was all of the opposites of these, but physically attractive. But I don't think this is correctly depicted as an "attitude towards beauty." Good ethical/moral/social characteristics can make someone attractive in these ways (ethically/morally/socially), but do not make someone attractive in that way (physically). So if we must talk about "inner" and "outer" beauty, then let's be clear that we are talking about two completely distinct qualities or characteristics, and these qualities are not really commensurable--each has its own value and counts as more important in some areas of endeavor. Physical attractiveness has been shown to be a significant benefit in career advancement, social success,...

Like so many questions in ethics, this one seems to me to depend on which actual ethical theory we apply. If we take a very strict kind of consequentialist theory (according to which the goodness or badness of an action is to be measured by the value of the consequences of that action, "wasting time" will be fairly neutral--not as good as actions that yield good consequences, and not as bad as those that produce bad consequences. On some version of deontological theory, "wasting time" would also be neutral in any case in which no moral duties needed to be satisfied at that time. On the other hand, it does not look like "wasting time" could possibly satisfy Kant's notion that right actions are those we are prepared to universalize for all agents and times--plainly, if everyone "wasted time" all the time, we'd be in pretty bad shape! From a virtue-theoretic point of view, we might ask whether the best sort of person would be one who "wasted time," and the answer would seem to be "no,...

I don't think you have a valid criticism of intelligent design here. I actually find the very idea of beings who did not see order in the universe as rather more difficult to imagine than you seem to think--after all, it seems to me that they would have to see some degree of such order just to survive. (Imagine not seeing enough order in the universe to support decisions about whether or not certain things you perceive are edible or drinkable). But more than this, I don't see why the relativity of perspecive in your case proves anything. Why do you think it follows that if A (one group of organisms) sees something one way (e.g. as orderly) and B (a different group of organisms) sees it otherwise (not orderly) that this proves the relevant judgment is (only) a subjective one? Some animals (e.g. dogs) are color-blind, but we don't take this to show that colors are purely subjective. Maybe your aliens are "order-blind"! Their loss!

I think there is a difference between saying that something is right to do, and saying that something is morally justified (or justifiable). I think, accordingly, that killing in self-defense should be understood as morally justifiable (and justified in some cases), rather than insisting on saying that it has to be either right or wrong . The same goes for violence--it can be morally justifiable (and justified in some cases). Understanding this, we will not have to think of it as (simply) right or wrong.

I'm not aware of any philosophical uses of this phenomenon. I myself would be inclined to think that unless we can show that these experiences are veridical (in other words, if by some scientific process, we could show that those who experience deja vu actually were "there before"), we should not count them as evidence for anything other than the (obviously true) claim that many human intuitions and experiences can be highly unreliable, and so we should be extremely cautious about which of these we allow to count as evidence for or against anything.

I hope Jennifer Church will also answer this one. But I don't quite see why the decision to commit suicide must be based upon the fallacy of thinking that one will be better off. The value of eliminating something bad does not have to derive from some (other) benefit achieved in the process. (See step (C) in the argument below.) (A) S's life now involves unbearable and irremediable pain and/or suffering of some other sort. (B) If the life is ended, so will the pain and/or suffering of some other sort. (C) Ending unbearable and irremediable pain and/or suffering of some other sort is at least sometimes a good reason to do something. Hence, (D) There can be a good reason to end a life of unbearable pain and/or suffering of some other sort. I see nothing in this argument that presupposes the fallacy you mention--for example, it is not assumed that by ending the pain and/or suffering of some other sort that the one whose pain or suffering has been ended will be "better off." As...