I agree with you that Dworkin's arguments "horribly simplify" the relationships between men and women. But I would also say that this kind of simplification is unavoidable in arguments of the general kind she makes--from any point of view. For one thing, notice the difference in how I put my agreement with you--from the way you put the point. In my agreement, I put "relationships" in the plural. Dworkin understands well the generality of male domination and oppression. But arguments such as hers fail (and cannot help but fail, by their very nature as generalities) to take into account the indefinitely great variety of ways in which human beings can be related and can interact. This is not at all to say that Dworkin's arguments do not deserve our attention and respect. But we should always take care not to allow such arguments to obscure the fact that the generalities to which they point are, to some degree and by many individual cases, not at all without exceptions.

I suspect that "philosophical intuition" really has something to do with one's capacities to do logical and analytical reasoning. But your question really depends upon what you mean by "intuition." Plenty of the most significant and controversial philosophical theories would not qualify in anyone's view as common sensical (consider Plato's theory of Forms, Berkeley's immaterialism, Quine's nominalism), but the brilliant philosophers who arrived at these theories applied their talents and capacities in developing them. If it is these talents and capacities (which I suspect are both natural in their basis, but also highly developable into their fullest realization) are what you mean by "intuition," then "philosophical intuition" is certainly not the same thing as common sense. Moreover, from many years of observation, I can say with certainty (and with some personal embarrassment over being an exemplar of the sort of thing I am about to note) that there seems often to be little correlation between a...

I agree with Richard Heck's response, but would like to respond to the first part of this question. I think there are some fairly persuasive reasons for thinking there is no such thing as eternal life--though I doubt that an argument could be given to show its impossibility. So: (1) If we agree that the body dies and is ultimately destroyed as an entity, then the only way there could be eternal life would be if the living self is entirely distinct from the body. But the kind of mind-body dualism that might make this possible has been shown (in many ways and by many philosophers) to be at least profoundly problematical, if not simply incoherent. Indeed, many philosophers regard the very idea of "disembodied existence" as problematical, if not simply incoherent. (2) Even if survival of death means re-embodiment in some form, it would still appear that the living self is entirely separable from the body that dies, so that does not solve the problems of (1). Similarly, there seem to be fairly...

You have given a number of examples, each of which probably deserves specific responses. But as a general reaction, I think your cases do show that there certainly can be pleasures taken from things that also arouse or contribute to sadness or melancholy. There may be any number of reasons for this, though I suspect that many of these reasons have to do with the ways in which we have evolved as a species. For example (and purely speculative at that!)--as a social beings, we often take pleasure from the experience of being put in a position to see or empathize with the way other people experience things. Seeing a sad film may induce a kind of empathic sadness in us...but even so, we may experience some pleasure at seeing things "through the eyes" of the characters in the film. According to a general approach to virtue theory, there is nothing wrong with "getting sad about sad things." What would be inappropriate, surely, would be to fail to get sad about sad things. On the other hand,...

It really depends upon what you mean by "element" or "energy source." If you mean by these what these terms mean as they are used in contemporary science, then at least in principle we could understand and explicate thoughts and thinking wholly in the terms of contemporary natural science. But there are a number of reasons philosophers have given for doubting that a full explanation of thoughts and thinking can be given in such terms. Let me just mention a few: The problem of qualitative content or qualia : Thoughts have aspects that seem as if they would, in principle, resist wholly physicalistic explanation--for example, the experiential properties of what it is like to have such thoughts. Conscious beings who are thinking understand that the experience of thinking is a certain kind of experience-- different, for example, from the experience of having an itch or the experience of being about to sneeze. Even if we can correlate these experiences with certain states of the brain, it...

Most philosophers, when they teach the philosophy of religion, actually teach their classes the arguments they regard as the best ones for (and also against) the existence of God. These include several versions of the cosmological argument (in which God figures as the first cause, or as the cause of the universe as we know it), the teleological argument (in which the universe is understood as showing signs of having been intelligently designed, indicating a Designer), and the ontological argument (in which God's existence is argued to be derivable just from the definition or conception of God). I find the argument that works best with students who are inclinded to be atheists or agnostics is some version of the ontological argument. I usually teach several versions, but here is a version of one of the most famous of those arguments, by Anselm: Even the atheist grants that God is that being than which no greater can be conceived. Hence, even for the atheist, God exists at least in the...

I assume Alan Soble's response is at least partly tongue-in-cheek: Anyone who calls Aristotle a "pinhead" is surely either joking or provides a decisive example of that disability. I rather suspect that most of us who have actually managed (at least sometimes!) to have loved and been loved in return would prefer this condition to the alternatives. A good life may be possible without love, but anyone who says that it is not important is surely a pinhead!

I agree with Joseph Moore's insight, but have some reservations about the question itself. As squeamish as our own culture is about sex, I think it would not be wise to generalize this fact about our culture to all others at all times. The varieties of practices and taboos across cultures can be striking. The degree to which prostitution, for example, is anathematized in our own culture is not at all to be found in many other cultures. For the ancient Greeks, prostitution was entirely socially acceptable ("everything in moderation" still applied, of course), whereas free males were expected never to commit oral sex (on any sex partner, male or female). Most cultures are completely intolerant of extreme violence against the members of that culture, and the punishments for murder, for example, are generally much more severe than any sanctions put on (especially legal) sex acts. So I do not think I accept the assumption behind the question.

Important in what sense? Religions, in one sense, are more important in the actual lives of people--for the obvious reason that they influence people's lives whether God exists or not. But if God doesn't exist, then much of what religions say is based upon falsehood. Truth is sometimes less important to people's actual lives than falsehood. But don't you think that truth has value in itself--intrinsic value--even if people find it easy or desirable to ignore it? If truth has value apart from what people want or do with it, in that same sense, then, the existence of God is more important than the existence of religion--since religions can exist and even flourish even if most or all of what they proclaim is false.

I suppose that at least part of an answer to your question would come from a clearer picture of what we take to be the proper role of journalism (or the mass media). Your question seems to suppose that it is the proper role of the media to "propel mankind to a higher level." But why shouldn't those involved in the mass media simply reject this, claiming instead that it is their role, at most, to keep us informed about what we are most interested in? In this view, the media serve--rather than fundmentally shape--public opinion and our actual interests (as opposed to what, perhaps, we should be interested in). In fact, of course, it is not quite as simple as this--for surely the media also help to shape our interests, which is why, for example, businesses and industries use the media to advertise their products, thus shaping our interests to suit their commercial goals. But I do think there is a very delicate and ethically precarious balance between provisions to allow freedom of the press,...