Thank you for your question. I think you're right to wonder whether treating depression is always justified. After all, sometimes being upset about something is an appropriate reaction. For instance, we wouldn't feel the need to "treat" someone's grief over the death of a loved one. On the other hand, while a certain amount of grief over such a situation seems justified and appropriate, one might also suggest that it is possible to take that grief too far. If I had a friend who was grieving intensely and for a very long time over the loss of a loved one, I might start to think of ways I might try to help. Similarly, while one can be entirely justified in being depressed over the state of the world, I am not sure that being clinically depressed is the *only* appropriate reaction to the world's state. This is for a number of reasons. First of all, there are a number of things to be absolutely thrilled about: a beautiful sunrise, the smell a pine forest, being able to fully trust another person,...

Thank you for your message. I respect your courage in facing this difficult situation and in sharing your concerns. I should make clear that although, as a professional philosopher, I don't have expertise with the problems that you mention, my wife is a CPS social worker, and so I have indirect familiarity with cases like this. If you honestly believe that the boys in question are in danger, or that the dogs you mention are, then I suggest that you do have an obligation to do all you can to get them out of that danger. It is very unlikely that a 45 year old man is going to learn new anger-management skills unless he makes a conscious effort to do so, and it does not appear from your description that he is making such an effort. I would urge you to contact CPS again to raise your honest concerns as to whether their intervention so far is really sufficient. It might also be a good idea to contact your local SPCA to raise concerns about the safety of the dogs. I hope all goes well. Please...

Your last sentence is right: It's not true that in the case you have in mind the parents confer a benefit on child that would otherwise lack it. You're right also that it is a bit strange to suppose that children benefit from this. On the other hand, one might argue that this practice benefits society at large by increasing the overall representation of intelligence. (Whether increasing the overall level of intelligence in the population will benefit it, is an empirical question to which I doubt we have an answer.) Or one might hold that it benefits the parent or parents by increasing their chances of having high-achieving children. (Whether having smarter children in general makes parents happier is also an empirical question, and I also doubt that we know how to answer it at this point.) You might enjoy pursuing these issues a bit further with Jonathan Glover's new book, _Choosing Children: Genes, Disability and Design_, forthcoming in early 2008 with Oxford University Press. Glover is an...

Thank you for your question. First of all, it is not true that philosophy is a product of Greco-Christian culture. There are Buddhist, Chinese and Islamic philosophies (among others) that are not products of Grec0-Roman culture. (Granted, Islamic philosopies were influenced by, for instance, Aristotle, but it's an overstatement to describe them as *products* of Greek culture.) While these philosophies are not as well known in the West as the traditions that trace back to Greek thought, they are complex, innovative and fascinating traditions in their own right. (For a treatment of just one, see Siderits' _Buddhism as Philosophy, published by Hackett_.) But second, and more important, it is hard to see why being a product of a culture would circumscribe a field's conclusions. For instance, it would not be terribly convincing to argue that since Pythagoras was Greek, his Theorem only applies to a certain culture or tradition. Instead, it seems a lot more plausible that his Theorem applies to...

Thank you for your question. In the broadest terms, ethics is a branch of philosophy. Alongside this branch are others such as epistemology, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and logic. Unlike these other fields, however, ethics is now extending its reach beyond the confines of traditional departments of philosophy. For instance it is not hard to find departments concerned with one or another area of "applied ethics" in such places as medical schools, law schools or business schools. Bioethicists are often found in schools of medicine, and scholars of business ethics are often found in business schools. Analogous things can be said for law schools, and engineering schools often have faculty concerned with environmental ethics. Less administratively and more substantively, ethicists share with other philosophers a desire to make progress on urgent questions in spite of the fact that at least right now we in general do now know how to answer them by means either of empirical demonstration or...