This is a neat situation because the meat eater is so unrepentant! It must be infuriating for the vegan. I fantasize the meat eater holds a juicy burger while the debate goes on. Precious! I think the philosophical question at heart has to do with ignorance. Is purposefully dwelling in ignorance morally acceptable? Notice this is not the same thing as Is purposefully dwelling in ignorance psychologically comfortable? We know the answer to that last question is yes. That's why the prisoners in Plato's Allegory of the Cave have to be dragged up to the sunlight. So on to is purposefully dwelling in ignorance morally acceptable. There are some instances in which I think we can say yes, ignorance is acceptable. For example, I have heard it said that the famous philosopher Peter Singer (who advances the view that most Westerners should donate all excess funds to the world's poor) can't play football/soccer and think about the poor at the same time. Say this story is true: he purposefully...

My Atheist Friend, I advise pursuing other options because the two you outlined don't seem to reflect your genuine values. Either one wouldn't really be true to you. I say this because I suspect option 1 violates your sense of ethics - either because you are committed to your friend's right to religious freedom or because you don't want to cause her a depression. (In addition, I predict option 1 will have a low success rate, if 'success' is measured in talking her out of her faith.) Option 2 violates your sense of yourself and your most deeply held beliefs. You would literally be going through the motions. There is nothing wrong with that, and many take comfort in ritual, but I think it might feel like more of a sham for a true atheist. <So I advise option 3: explore existential atheism, which is the philosophical school most aligned with the views you have described. Jean-Paul Sartre is a wonderful author who advances this view. Sartre's philosophy is that once we realize that the...

Congratulations both on your nomination and on your pangs on conscience - the latter is too rarely seen among more experienced politicians! However, I am happy to set your mind at rest. Voting for oneself in an election poses no moral hazards that I can see. (I would change my mind about this if we were talking about a corrupt system, where the vote is rigged or certain voters are unfairly excluded.) I suspect your worries come from two fronts. First, it may seem egotistical to vote for oneself. This would explain your shy refuge in the anonymous vote. Rather than think of it as egotistical you might instead see this vote as confident: you are confident in your ability to work hard and take the job seriously. One thing that tells me this confidence is justified and not ego-driven is the very fact that you wrote in to us. You are already taking the post seriously before it is even yours. Second, you raise the interesting idea that your belief in your candidacy is not due to your diligent...

Yes, I think you're right. Many will complain that this sort of thinking leads to eugenics or worse. Others will complain that all life is a gift, so there can be no bad life. Personally I think these objections can be overcome. There are major kinks that need to be straightened out, however. These kinks come in the form of ambiguities: How much risk is significant? Who decides how to weigh such risks? What constitutes a bad life? Does it mean it is a life which the live-r would be better off without? Can this really be judged ahead of time, before the individual in question is born (and thus without his or her first-hand testimony)? Will this have implications for lives that are already here and are already 'bad'? Despite these worries, I still think you're right. The abuser who cannot control his worst impulses around children, for example, ought not parent. (By the way, much of our discussion here assumes a world where teens and adults are reproductively empowered - where birth control...

I have a couple of suggestions for you. The first is to look into books that pair philosophical analysis with contemporary culture. Both Open Court Press and Wiley-Blackwell have book series of this nature (called "Popular Culture and Philosophy" and "Philosophy for Everyone," respectively) . For example, there are books on comic book characters, television shows, sports, and many other topics that will appeal to high school students. The articles in such books are designed for a general audience. The entire book will not be about just ethics, but I can promise each book of this type will have several articles about ethics. It might be worth getting your school or local library to stock a selection. (Disclosure: I myself have published an article in one.) Another idea is to look to literary classics that have ethical themes. If you would like an ethics anthology you might try Peter and Renata Singer's The Moral of the Story (Blackwell 2005). This book is nice because it features short...

I think the basic reason why it is acceptable to sterilize non-human animals and not impoverished people is that animals do not have reproductive rights, but people do. I think it is a fundamental human right to have choices regarding when to have children, with whom to have them, and how many to have. Being very poor does not weaken one's claim on human rights. (Even people who philosophically or religiously object to contraception believe in reproductive rights to a limited extent. They believe they have the right to let nature or God make the reproductive choices for them.) Animals, on the other hand, have no reproductive rights. This may seem odd, given the recent progress in animal rights. I am sure there are animal right activists who believe that pets ought to reproduce without human intervention, but this must be a small minority. Most mainstream animal rights groups urge sterilization to benefit animal welfare.

Yes. The reason is that when it comes to human relationships, "all things" are never equal. I mean that we are not equally positioned to strangers and siblings. We have more connection to our siblings than to strangers. Notice this does not mean we automatically have satisfying relationships with our siblings, mothers, stepsons, in-laws, and other relatives. It means just that we are more closely connected to them. In the case of siblings, the connection is (for many people) is a double-stranded connection of shared experiences and biology. So if you rescue your sibling before a stranger from a burning building, others would see this choice as reasonable, as emotionally sound, and therefore justified. Even if the stranger died I believe people would console you by saying that they themselves would have made the same choice. Now, if the connection between siblings is fraught with strife (for example, mutual jealousy and distrust left over from unhappy childhoods) there may be good reason to...

I really like this question because I have often wondered the same thing! What follows is merely an answer-in-progress. There are several related concerns touching this question. One is to consider resources at the macro level. According to Prof. Singer's book One World , the average American burns more than 5 tons of carbon a year while the average Japanese burns about 1.6 tons. The average Indian burns .3 tons a year. Assuming that burning carbon hurts our atmosphere, the planet, and thus all living creatures, the last thing the world needs is more Americans - be they adopted or biological children! Therefore, American movie stars who adopt African children are not doing the planet any favors, given the resources those Americanized children will likely consume as they grow up. But this resources analysis seems rather heartless, no? I think it is heartless because it prioritizes something abstract - important, but abstract - over the needs of particularly helpless...

I feel your pain. You like philosophy and want it to be relevant, but when confronted by real-life problems the theories always seem to fall flat. As you observe, most ethical writing tends to be abstract, removed from actual cases, and too densely packed with fancy terms to be of use. There are major exceptions to that generalization; much of applied ethics or feminist ethics might meet your demands for less speculative and more concrete writing. I recommend both approaches absolutely! However, I would like to try sticking up for the good old boys (Mill, for example). Even if reading about the 'decided preference criterion' might not tell you how to raise your child, Mill might arm you with a helpful set of principles that seem appropriate, or even wise. (Example: if sending my daughter to her grandparents will likely cause more overall good than ill, I ought to do it, even if I personally regret seeing her go.) So I think there is good stuff in ethical theory, stuff worth...

As you say, purchasing a gun with the intention of causing harm to someone else is definitely unethical. (Or make that a ‘definite maybe’ - do deer count as ‘someone else’? To the animal rights activist, yes and to the hunter, no.) There are many of people who enjoy gun collecting as a hobby, from what I understand. To the collector, a gun could be a crafted object of beauty. Personally I’d rather have a nice oil painting. Or maybe a pastel. Anything, really, looks better over the couch than a gun. But from the tone of your email I don’t think you are contemplating hunters or gun connoisseurs. You are thinking of someone believes that guns are dangerous but nevertheless useful, someone who is drawn to gun ownership but fears her worst impulses (and/or lack of marksmanship). Such a person should not own a gun. I don’t it would be unethical, so much as impractical in this case. Having a gun in the house, I suspect, would be a source of discomfort and unease – which is probably the exact opposite...