This is an extremely complex set of questions, and really doing it justice is, I'm afraid beyond the scope of this web site. There are many thorny philosophical issues involved in it. But to give a brief answser in the light of these qualifications, I'd say this. Regarding your first question: yes, depending upon what you mean by "moral philosophy and "subscribe." Acts aren't in themselves moral or immoral. Calling them either one involves a judgment on our part, and that judgment is in large measure determined by a set of concepts, ideas, concerns, and feelings that broadly speaking might be called a moral theory. Regarding the second question: yes, depending upon what you mean by "justified." If a set of reasons and statements can be offered that in some sense warrants or licenses or supports us calling an act "moral," then that act is properly called moral. But what gives warrant or license is a very difficult thing to determine. Much of what counts as moral controversy involves figuring out what...

Epicureans thought that the fear of death was something irrational that we'd be better of without and that once we understood how the natural universe operates we'd largely become free from. Along the lines of Epicurean thought, David Hume is said to have remarked along these lines when someone asked whether or not he feared his apprpoaching death (paraphrasing): "No more so than I regret not having been born earlier." Why fear not existing or nothingness? One might be sad or angry about being taken from one's projects, but why be afraid? Rather than soothing us, Epicureans thought that religious stories about the afterlife disturb people. For myself, I have found some peace in Epicurean reflections. But I suspect it that Jyl Gentzler is onto something in her evollutionary-biological explanation. Then, of course, much of what people fear isn't so much being dead as the process of dying. Existentialists have also suggested that what many call the fear of death is actually anxiety in the face of...

I agree with John Moore's response. I'd add these two additional considerations. First, it might be a bit strained to say that non-human animals are guilty of "speciesism" insofar as it may not really make sense to say that those animals possess the concept of "species," much less act upon it. To be a speciesist, I'd say, requires something like this: that "one use the concept of species to justify excluding certain beings from moral consideration" (one might add, I suppose, "in an indefensible way"). Other animals might in practice discriminate among prey and non-prey in ways that we can articulate through the ideology of species; but I don't think they themselves use that ideology to make their discriminations. Secondly, I think it an interesting question as to the extent to which non-human animals might be initiated in meaningful ways into the moral world we humans inhabit. Vicki Hearne, I think, has some interesting thoughts along these lines. In my own work, I've used Hume's theoretical...

Yes, I understand what you mean. I've also been known to smile wryly when reading "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart" (as does taking someone off a respirator, killing a mouse or even a spider). Perhaps more controversially, "Women are Not Incubators" (many are, though none are "mere" incubators) and "Keep your Laws Off My Body" (the same body that even traffic laws, rape laws, smoking laws and indecent exposure laws constrain). Then there's "Abortion was a Nazi Program" (as was the Autobahn highway and the Volkswagen). But I must admit that after indulging myself in a sense of logico-philosophical supercilousness for a moment, I suppress my feelings of superiority and think perhaps that you and the other critics here should reconsider. Remember that what you're reading is a bumpersticker and not a philosophical or legal treatise. I agree that political discourse seems a rather paltry thing today. But that doesn't change the fact that we're dealing with a rhetorical form here to which the kinds of...

I agree with Jyl Gentzler that marriage might for some people take the form of an open relationship, where extra-marital relationships were permissible; and if you find this form of relationship satisfactory, then keeping your then-wife covered by your insurance even while she engaged in extra-marital relationships would be permissible. But I hold a slightly different view of the issue of decption in this case, a view that leads to a different judgment about keeping your then-wife insured even if the relationship was for all intents and purposes over. I think the analogy with "Green Card" marriages in this case a weak one. Green Card marriages are different from cases like the one you describe because Green Card marriages are frauds from the very beginning. They never achieved the status of real marriage in the sense they don't involve relationships of love, commitment, sexual congress, or reproduction. Your relationship, I take it, was at the start a real relationship. Given that your...

I agree with Richard Heck on this one. Rand's view of the human person, of freedom, of perception, of markets, etc., seem to me and to most philosophers I've spoken too about it, unpersuasive, overly simplistic, and sometimes objectionable. But I would add two bits: First, I have encountered a few philosophers of quality who respect Rand. Second, I suspect that there are reasons besides the quality of her thought that contribute to her being relatively unpopular among professional philosophers. Among those reasons I'd include: (a) that like Voltaire Rand is more of a popularizer than an original philosopher; (b) that she worked outside the academy and the professional institutions of philosophy; that much of her work appears in rhetorical forms atypical of profesional philosophy (e.g. fiction); and (d) that her philosophy seems excessively driven by her politics. It's also interesting to consider whether her sex may have been a factor in her not being taken terribly seriously. One might...

"Love means never having to say you're sorry." "Love is blind." "Love is patient." "God is love." There are so many definitions of love. Here It seems you've defined love at least as (a) wanting the best for someone and (b) caring for someone. After that you raise the question of whether love requires that one must also ( c) get pleasure simply from knowing the person for whom one cares and for whom one wants the best. In exploring this question you seem to present the following possible argument for thinking that love isn't possible at all, that even calling a + b love is wrong. Here's the argument as I understand it: On the one hand, it seems that getting pleasure from someone else can't be love because it's self-serving. On the other hand, it seems that if one doesn't get pleasure from the person loved it's not really love either, but better described as something like pity. Since one must either get pleasure or not get pleasure from the person one cares for and wants the best for, love must be...

It depends, of course, upon what you regard as "materialism"--not to mention what you regard as a "good argument." For myself, I think that you might consider that things like relations, sets, patterns, numbers, the self, space and time are not material. You'll also find that much of the controversy about materialism focuses on issues in the philosophy of mind. I'm not sure one can count this as an argument against materialism, but so far as I can tell, reductive materialism hasn't (yet?) succeeded in underming entirely the basis of Descartes's argument that mind is not matter. Here the relevant issue is whether or not mind/mental entities/thoughts/feelings/conciousness possess properties that are adequately explained or defined in terms of matter. If mind/css/etc. possesses properties that have not (yet) been explained or defined in terms of matter, then mind might not be matter. If mind/css/etc. possesses properties that are in fact inconsistent with the properties of matter (for example,...

I'm not familiar with arguments concerned with such a goal, per se. But many philosophers have argued for the importance of something you might regard as related to truthful and complete expression--namely "authenticity." Authenticity might be defined as taking responsibility for what one is and perhaps also affirming it, perhaps affirming it publicly. The use of ‘authenticity’ as a critical term is associated primarily with existentialist philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simon de Beauvoir. Sartre’s and Beauvoir’s conception however was drawn from the work of phenomenologist Martin Heidegger (who is also, unfortunately, sometimes categorized as an existentialist), especially Sein und Zeit [Being and Time] (1927). Arguments in favor of being authentic seem to reliy on the premise that life is somehow more meaningful when lived authentically. Some philosophers have also made appeal to a kind of aesthetic view of life, such that realizing a beautiful self or treating one's life as a...

It's possible for empirical science to come to conclusions regarding "what" the origin of the universe was like and "when" it occurred. For example, it's possible to determine the age of the universe, it's approximate initial mass, whether or not there was a "big bang," the rate of initial inflation, what the initial consituents of the universe were like, howe they behaved etc. Because, however, empirical science is strictly about the causal order of the universe itself, it's not possible for it to come to conclusions about a source or cause beyond or outside of the universe. Metaphysics sometimes takes a stab at addressing those sorts of issues regarding origins.