I can't say for sure how typical your experience is, but I can say for sure that I shared it. Starting to study philosophy is a lot like falling in love (which makes sense, given the literal meaning of the word, right?). When a person falls in love, it's normal to be so enthralled with the beloved that nothing and no one else seems worth a thought. Every conversation eventually turns back toward the beloved. Time spent apart is considered wasted. Other, ordinary folk throw up their hands in exasperation -- and the lover cares naught. Just like a person in love, whether this condition persists, worsens or improves is up to you. When I was writing my doctoral dissertation, at the same time as birthing, raising and educating eight children, I suffered greatly from what I called "Mommy-Scholar Schizophrenia." It was so difficult, so painful, to shift gears between ethical theory and Disney coloring books! Finally, I came to see that one of the magnificent things about philosophy is its ability to...

Whether people need to examine the foundations of their moral beliefs in order to live well depends on what we mean by living well, doesn't it? Socrates said the unexamined life was not worth living, so presumably he'd answer your question with a resounding YES. I suspect many philosophers would, since examining these kinds of things is something we're drawn to...or we wouldn't be philosophers. I'd say yes, as well; I think living well is a matter of living rightly, and living rightly is at least in part a matter of living in a rationally consistent way. So I'd take rational consistency as a kind of baseline requirement for ethical reasoning. How might you go about sorting through the overwhelming variety of theories? Let me share a nutshell version of what I teach undergrads who are compelled to take an ethics class, and see if any of this helps. There is no way to avoid answering the moral question, "What ought I to do?" The answer to this question (let's call it "Q" for short)...

To be a friend is going to mean, among other things, wanting what is best for your friend. It's unlikely that abandonment is what's best, which is probably why that option feels immoral to you. On the other hand, if you wear yourself down to the point that you have nothing to offer him (or perhaps anyone else), or that you resent him, then that's not best for him, either. Sometimes doing what's best for another is not the same as doing what the other wants. It sounds to me like your friend needs more help than you can reasonably supply, and the most loving course of action might be to facilitate this, by putting him in touch with a professional counselor. I hope it works out.

Sure, I think there's a parallel, particularly if you consider that a person is not an isolated, self-contained entity, but rather a being-in-relation. Your identity is defined partly by your relationships with particular others, and the more intimate the relationship, the more it contributes to your identity. Intimacy is a matter of sharing first-person perspectives (what the world looks like from your eyes is shared with your intimate, and what the world looks like from hers is shared with you) as well as plans, goals, projects, etc. In fact, in a truly intimate relationship, you'll adopt the plans, goals, projects, etc. of your intimate as your own. When the relationship ends, especially if it is ended unilaterally, all of this that had been part of you is to some extent alienated, which would suggest that your identity is changed. The person you were, in intimate relation with that particular other, doesn't exist anymore. So it is, in an analogous sense, a death. But it's not as complete...

These options needn't be mutually exclusive, right? A common definition of virtue is "a habitual disposition to act in accordance with the good for its own sake." If courage is the ability to conquer fear, and conquering fear is good, then assuming that the ability is a habitual one and not some kind of flash-in-the-pan inspiration, the answer to your question would be "both." Aristotle counted courage as a virtue, and pointed out that virtue is found in the mean between the opposed extremes of deficiency and excess. The ability to overcome fear, if carried to excess, would not be the virtue of courage, but rather the vice of rashness.

Studying philosophy can indeed encourage the development of synthetical skill as much as analytical skill. Very often philosophers will apply a concept or way of thinking common in one area to another, just to see what will happen. A historical example might be Thomas Aquinas applying Aristotelian metaphysics to Christian theology. It seems plausible that intellectual creativity and certain aesthetic creativities (visual or tactile, for example) would not be interchangeable; people are generally more comfortable in some media than others. But if one's media is thought, ideas and propositions, it can probably be transferred across disciplines (from philosophy to, say, literature or geology). It also seems plausible that intellectual creativity is a talent that people possess in varying degrees, though it can be cultivated, just like any other. How do the really good philosophers come up with their ideas? Wish I knew; then maybe I could be a really good philosopher, too :) In most cases...

This is, I think, an utterly fascinating area of philosophical inquiry, and some new work is tackling this very issue. (David Velleman, for example, has a paper draft on virtual agency that considers what it means for an avatar to do things we ordinarily ascribe to real people, like "have sex" or "be attracted.") I think a virtual relationship (or a real relationship in the virtual world, which may not be equivalent) needs to be understood in the context in which that relationship exists...as you say, "at face value." But as a matter of actual fact, the reason and will behind the avatars belong to someone else, who then have a kind of derivative relationship. So we can understand what's going on in three ways: what are the avatars doing; what are the real people doing; what are the real people directing the avatars to do? The relation of these two relationships -- virtual and actual -- to each other is something that needs exploration, and this exploration may well alter our more general...

The general proscription against teacher-student romance is based first on the power differential in their respective roles. Even if both parties claim that the relationship is one of mutual consent, the presumption is that the teacher may direct it to his/her own advantage, because the student needs the teacher more than vice versa. That you're both not only adults, but more mature adults, ameliorates this presumption somewhat, as does the fact that you already have an advanced degree. Still, it is a factor. A second basis for the proscription is the potential for the teacher's partiality toward his/her romantic partner, which would be unjust to the other students. Even if there is no actual favoritism, the perception could damage the ethical environment of the classroom. I think most professors would agree that it's a matter of simple prudence to avoid becoming romantically involved with a current student. Afterwards, of course, is fair game, and many successful romances had just this...

Like many terms, there is a variety of definitions, and which is most appropriate would depend on the function or context of its use. A classical definition of death is "separation of the soul from the body." But to someone who denies the existence of an immaterial soul, it would probably be something more like, "Cessation of bodily processes, including those on the cellular level." More fundamentally, death would be the absence of life where there once was life. But then, of course, you'd need a definition of life. Philosophy has always been concerned with proposing, criticizing and defending definitions (as opposed to asserting them), so these should be taken as opening round suggestions.

I think the difficulty here lies primarily in understanding God's knowledge and power as sort of "supersized" versions of our own knowledge and power. God's attributes are analogical at best. But the key to breaking through this kind of puzzle has to do more with the concept of time than of either omniscience or omnipotence. It's a commonplace of theology and phil of religion that God is "outside time." In other words, God's experience is not sequential, like ours is, but is eternally and universally present. So it makes no sense to talk about what God may or may not do "in the future" and what he knew "beforehand." Of course, what it means to be outside time is just as much, if not more, of a puzzle than the one you originally set out, but it seems to be closer to the target of inquiry than concerns about whether God's knowing or acting "comes first."