There are some practical reasons for using viability as the standard for when a fetus may no longer be aborted. In particular, the viability of a fetus means that its life could be sustained without the mother's involvement -- which makes it much easier for others to effectively intervene. With scientific and technological advances, of course, life outside of the womb has become possible at earlier and earlier stages, so that disallowing abortion in cases where the fetus could survive apart from the mother'sbody would effectively disallow abortion during most of a woman's pregnancy. Moral reasons for emphasizing viability are largely due to the idea that human beings have a right to autonomous existence (an existence which is not dependent on the desires of others) only insofar as they are capable of autonomous existence. (Compare: I have a right to make my own choices only insofar as I am capable of making my own choices.) This rationale is problematic, however, since (a) no...

It is rational to reject a purported explanation for a number of reasons: 1. Because a better explanation is available. (This is what you don't have in the case of strange happenings in your friend's house.) 2. Because the explanation relies on assumptions that are sufficiently doubtful for independent reasons. (The ghost explanation, for example, assumes that individual people can continue to act in the world even after their bodies disintegrate. Since we have independent reasons for believing that an individual's memories, desires, and plans all depend on the existence of appropriate brain states, we have good reason to doubt this assumption.) 3. Because it is too general, or too vague, to account for the specifics of the situation. (Explaining sounds in the night by reference to a ghost's movements, for example, doesn't say enough about why these particular sounds would be made by this particular ghost, at this particular time.) 4. Because there is a long history of similar...

I am not sure why you use quotation marks around the word "emotional". Certainly there are cases where one person is more emotional than another -- in a given situation, or in general -- so there is nothing suspect about the word. Perhaps you are marking the fact that "emotional" can be used as a term of disparagement, and you do not want to accept this usage. Or perhaps you are thinking of the difference between having emotions and showing emotions, realizing that those who show their emotions are often considered more emotional, whether or not this is true. Your question, in any case, concerns a possible difference between the amount or intensity of emotions in the lives of (most) women lives versus the lives of (most) men. It is hard to design a study that would settle your question since it is not clear how best to measure the presence of an emotion (self-report? bodily changes? facial expression?) and because it is not easy to create situations that have the same significance for many...

There are many different definitions of intelligence (the ability to solve problems quickly and accurately, the ability to generate creative responses to new situations, the ability to synthesize diverse information into a coherent whole, ...), many different measures of intelligence (tests that focus on spatial tasks, tests that focus on understanding stories, tests that focus on analyzing social situations, ...), and many different areas of intelligence (formal, emotional, artistic, ....). This does not mean that intelligence is relative to the person observing it; rather, it is relative to the assumed definition, the means of measurement, and the type of intelligence at issue.

There are several different ways to read the sentence that you quote from Kant: 1. The way that we experience things as being is totally unlike the way things really are. 2. The way that we experience things as being is somewhat different from the way things really are. 3. The way that we experience things as being is a product of the way things really are and the way we are -- factors that cannot be understood in isolation. 4. There are no things in themselves , just things in our experience. It is only the first reading that leaves reality "forever beyond our knowledge", as you say. Reading #2 allows us partial knowledge of things in themselves, and reading #3 grants us a modified knowledge of things in themselves. Reading #4 dismisses the very possibility of things that are beyond the reach of experience. When we experience ourselves or objects as "individuals", we make distinctions between people or objects that may not accurately represent the world as it is...

Certainly, there is a difference between saying "Harry is rude" and believing that Harry is rude since we can say things that we don't believe and we can believe things that we don't say. But I think your (first) question is about how closely the content of our words matches the content of our beliefs in cases where we do our best to say what we believe. Here are a few cases where the content of my sincere words and the content of my beliefs may diverge: 1. I may say "Harry is rude" without really understanding the difference between being rude and being obnoxious, in which case the content of what I say may be somewhat different than the content of my belief -- if what I really believe, without having the right word to express it, is that he is obnoxious. Once someone explains the difference to me, I would recognize that I believe Harry is obnoxious rather than rude. 2. I may say "Harry is rude", knowing that this is a rather simplified expression of my belief yet being unwilling...

Freud made many questionable claims about the function of dreaming (e.g. as the fulfilling of wishes) and the meaning of particular dream images. I wouldn't want to defend everything he says about dreams, but I do want to resist your conclusion that dreaming is "meaningless" and dream interpretation is "at best harmless entertainment ." Many therapists (Freudian and otherwise) treat a person's dreams as a source of insight about that person's thoughts and feelings, preoccupations and fears. This is entirely compatible with your claim that dreams are a by-product of moving information from short term to long term memory since it is (at least in part) our thoughts and concerns that determine what information gets moved into long term memory. The things that a person continues to remember over time show us something about the topics and the feelings that preoccupy that person. All recent events have some connection to a past event,but not all recent events make it into our dreams; so it is...

There are two different distinctions that are of interest here. First, there is a distinction between ends and means. Going to the kitchen is a means to the end of eating food. That is one way in which your desire to go to the kitchen is derivative from your desire to eat. Given the complexities of achieving most of our ends (buying and cooking and preparing food, earning money to be able to buy food, setting the alarm in order to get to one's job in order to earn money, and so on), the majority of our desires are bound to be derivative in this sense. Second, there is a distinction between original goals and evolved goals. The original goals of a child may be few and simple (to eat, to avoid pain, to be loved, etc.) while the evolved goals of an adult are many (to travel, to learn about plants, to enjoy music, to learn other languages, to have children, to deepen friendships, etc.). It would be a mistake to assume that the adult's many goals are all just means to the original goals of a...

I would recommend a very readable but also very serious book called Caring , by Nell Noddings (University of California, 1984). An attitude of caring has often been considered to be an important part of being ethical -- one virtue among many. Nodding and other care-theorists, however, want to put caring at the center of ethics; and they do build a system-of-sorts around this attitude. One interesting aspect of her view is its accommodation of the notion that we owe the most to those we care about the most -- as opposed to those most in need, for example.

In order not to get bogged down in disputes about the nature of rights or the nature of rationality in general, let me rephrase your question as follows: If someone in sound mind decides to end his or her life, should this be allowed? If not, why not? One reason we might not allow a person of sound mind to commit suicide is that we think that person's decision is based on seriously incomplete or misleading evidence -- e.g. if her reading has led her to believe that her cancer is incurable when in fact it is quite easily eliminated. No matter how reasonable, and how well-read, a person is, it is possible to make bad decisions because one lacks good evidence. At the very least, we ought to intervene in such cases to make sure that the person has accurate information before acting. The very same evidence can lead different people to different conclusions, however, and we must not assume that everyone who disagrees with our own view (or an expert's view) is of unsound mind. Some people believe that a...