I think that most of us have had the experience of making a promise to ourselves. A person might promise herself that she will study harder next semester, for instance, or quit smoking. Is it immoral to break promises to oneself? Is it just less bad than breaking promises to other people, or equally as bad?

That's a really fantastic question! It raises interesting questions about how to understand promises and the moral obligations they impose (a much-discussed topic in philosophy) and also about how to understand personal identity through time (when I promise myself I'll do X in the future, is the promiser the same person as the promisee?) and weakness of will. When I see such a good question, my first thought is some philosopher must have written about this. Indeed, a quick google search turned up this very recent article by Allen Habib. Since I don't know the literature and am writing this before reading that article, I just offer two thoughts off the cuff: 1. One might answer your question in a somewhat circular way by simply defining promises in certain ways. For instance, if one defines a promise as a vow one person makes to a different person, then you could not really make a promise to oneself (one might be doing something analogous to promising), unless one takes an odd...

I have two questions about fairness and value in relation to achievement. Suppose student A works very hard for his exam results and gets the grades he wanted. Suppose also that student B is much lazier, putting in significantly less effort, but achieves the same results due to their greater "natural" ability. Firstly, which student's achievement, if any, is of greater significance or greater value? Secondly, is it fair that student B achieves the same results as student A without putting in the same level of effort (albeit the same level of effort was not required from student B due to his greater "natural" ability)?

The answers to your interesting questions depend on how we understand 'value' and 'fairness'. In some contexts we value outcomes more than efforts. So, if our goal is to target students who are most likely to understand difficult material, we may value the one who can understand it without too much effort (your Student B), especially if we think we can motivate her to work harder in the future. If we have reason to think that your Student A will be unlikely to understand quantum physics or Kant, no matter how much effort he puts in, and if, say, a graduate program is looking for students who can advance physics or philosophy, we will value B's abilities more than A's, and our grades may reflect that assessment of their respective value in these terms. Clearly, we will value student C, who has the capacity to understand these subjects and the hard work-ethic required to succeed more than A or C. But (perhaps mistakenly--see below) we tend to think that people can increase their work-ethic more...

If the only financial institution in town is located on the only riverbed in town, is the sentence "Judy went to the bank" still ambiguous?

Nice try. But the answer is yes, it is still ambiguous. The river's bank is presumably much bigger than the financial bank, so "Judy went to the bank" could mean she is fishing on the river's bank outside the financial bank or she could be cashing a check inside the bank on the bank. Now, if you had said that the only river in town is located entirely within the financial institution and the only place to be in the bank is on the bank ...

What does a person do when his or her co-workers do not do their job and he or she is always doing their job?

Stop. Let their ineptitude and laziness shine forth in all it's glory. Hope they will be replaced by people who do their own work as effectively as you do. If this fails, try to ensure that higher-ups know what you are doing so you are compensated more appropriately.

After researching on what it's like to be a budding PHD hopeful, I'm a little scared at the thought of going for a PHD. Being in debt, along with the high drop rate, is a little intimidating. Combine that with the fact that I might be a nomad if I graduate. What I want is to be able to read cutting edge journals with some ease, and contribute to the discipline by writing in them too. I am aware that I'm able to do this without the paper, but how exactly would I know I'm not a crank? This is why I want the education. Would going for a master's give me the skills to read and write for journals? Is it much harder to read journals or write in journals with just a master's degree? Is that an area that is totally reserved for someone with a PHD (skill wise anyways)? As I've stated before, the road towards a PHD is very intimidating, and it seems there is a lot less to lose if i go for the MA.

You sound like you have a clear picture of the costs and benefits of getting a PhD in philosophy. You should continue to talk about it with your mentors in the field. You also sound like you might benefit from getting an MA (full disclosure: I teach at Georgia State in Atlanta, a terminal MA program). It would give you more background in philosophy and give you a better sense about whether you are interested in going on to get the PhD and whether you have the right skills, background, and demeanor to devote your life to professional philosophy. And if you do have those interests and abilities, an MA will enhance them and situate you to get into a better PhD program (the market is rough, so if you want a job where you have the time and encouragement to do research, you will be much better off going to a highly regarded PhD program). It will be difficult to be an active part of the field (publishing and presenting your work) without a PhD and an institutional affiliation. It can be done but you also...

To my understanding, organisms evolve in order to adapt to their environment and its pressures. If that is the case, how come we are conscious? It seems like consciousness is an unnecessary add-on. Why aren't we p-zombies? P-zombies can do the same thing any other organism can, right? Or is it possible that consciousness is an illusion?

Suppose there are two mutations that would allow a species of plant to gather more sunlight for energy, one that would make it grow taller than competing plants and another than would make it grow wider. The species happens to evolve to grow taller. It is true that it might have achieved the adaptive function of gathering more energy without growing taller (i.e., by growing wider instead). So, growing taller was not necessary (i.e., the only way) to achieve this function. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to say that the plant's height is causally irrelevant to its capacities to gather energy from sunlight. Similarly, it might be that a species (call them p-zombies) might have evolved that could gather and synthesize information about various features of its environment just as well as us but without being phenomenally conscious. But the possibility of such a species tells us nothing about whether phenomenal consciousness in us (and other animals) plays a causal role in gathering and...

I am interested in and confused by an emerging branch of philosophy called 'experimental philosophy', and was wondering if any good examples could be provided that might help settle this confusion and direct these interests? Could Kinsey be regarded as an experimental philosopher as well as a psychologist, since, in many ways, he helped to revolutionize the way sexuality is defined in terms of a spectrum instead of the reduced dichotomy of gay/straight?

Experimental philosophy does not have a simple definition, but here's one way to describe it: Experimental philosophy involves (a) doing experimental research that is relevant to philosophical debates, and then (b) explicitly considering how such experimental research informs philosophical questions. Lots of scientists do research relevant to philosophical debates (including Kinsey, I suppose, and including lots of physicists, biologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, linguists, etc.), but typically the only ones who fall into the experimental philosophy camp are the ones who explicitly discuss the way their research relates to philosophical debates (as in b). Meanwhile, the philosophers who fall into the "x-phi" camp typically do relatively simple survey studies on the way ordinary people answer questions about philosophical thought experiments and then they consider how the results (1) may challenge "armchair" claims about what is intuitive or commonsensical (philosophers often say things...

How can the diameter of a rainbow be measured?

To quote from the great SNL philosopher, Mango, "Can you touch a rainbow ? Can you put the wind in your pocket? No! Such is Mango." I think he has it right. I don't know much about the optics of rainbows, but I'm pretty sure they move relative to the observer, so they do not have an objective diameter. At least that's what I thought until I found this answer on the magical internet here : "It's probably not impossible, but it is difficult. A rainbow looks circular because it's basically the circle where a cloud of rain droplets intersects with your cone of vision, like the circle on the end of an ice-cream cone. Imagine said ice-cream cone with the point in your eye (don't actually try this experiment unless you're looking for a career in piracy). Now make the cone bigger and bigger until the round end hits the cloud of raindrops that are reflecting the sun's light. The big circle on the end of that cone is where the rainbow appears to be -- as someone else pointed...

Is it possible for two people to love each other without meeting? For example if two people were to meet on the Internet and fall in "love". Scientifically speaking love is based on pheromones and physical attraction so how can one love someone when physical and chemical attraction is taken out of the picture? According to scientists it should not be possible yet people claim that it happens all the time.

It depends on what you mean by love, but I can't think of any definition of love that would suggest it is impossible or even unlikely to fall in love with someone you interact with (a lot) on the internet. I don't think there's a (credible) scientist in the world who would say love between humans is based solely on pheromones, chemicals, and physical attraction. They might say that physical attraction, perhaps lust, is based largely on pheromones and various chemical and hormonal processes. But I think it's fair to say that, even so, people can be very physically attracted to (lust after) someone they see on the Internet (or TV or movie screen)--no pheromones detected!--and I'm sure part of that feeling of attraction has to do with the chemical and neural changes the beautiful images cause in them. (Just to take a crazy example, I suspect it is possible to feel very attracted to Catherine Zeta-Jones or George Clooney without meeting them in person--I'm just guessing here based on what other...

How can an amazing philosopher fall for something stupid like this? http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/iconic-french-philosopher-bernard-henri-levy-falls-for-literary-hoax/19351050

Well, your question suggestions a modus tollens argument: If one is an amazing philosopher, then one could not fall for something so stupid. Since Levy did fall for it, he must not be an amazing philosopher. That seems to be the conclusion drawn here . However, I know nothing about this philosopher (except that he's trying to take down Kant!), so I don't know if there is some explanation for this bizarre behavior that might salvage the 'amazing' label.

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