If you include reflex responses such as blinking one's eyes upon the approach of a fast-moving object, then the answer is clearly 'no' -- not all behavior is learned; some behavior occurs regardless of any learning. There are many sort of behavior that combine what is given and what is learned -- certain ways of walking or waving, for example There are also behaviors that are too original to rightly describe as learned. A dancer may execute a movement that has never been seen before, or a singer may make a sound that has never been heard before.

Philosophers usually think of morality as applying to the way that people treat other people -- not the way that humans treat things like cups and chairs, and not the way that non-human animals treat each other. The way that we treat a cup may be better or worse, but it can't be moral or immoral. And the way that a cat treats a mouse can be kind or vicious, but it can't be moral or immoral. If this is right, then there can't be morality in a world without human beings. This does not mean that judging that something is moral makes it moral, however. The way that Jack treats Jill may be moral even if no one (not even Jack or Jill) notices. And Jack's treatment of Jill may be immoral even if everyone involved (including Jack and Jill) thinks that it is moral. Virtue is not always recognized, and evil can be disguised. A much larger, and more difficult question concerns the ultimate source of morality. Do the standards of morality depend on human judgements and concerns, or do they...

I do not know what the subject matter of your daughter's textbook is, and do not know the context in which this statement occurs. But I can think of at least two ways in which it is possible to over analyze, even in the context of philosophical inquiry. First, by trying to acquire a precise understanding of the many different relations between various aspects of a phenomenon, we may divert attention from more important considerations like the social context in which a given phenomenon flourishes. Fastidious analyses of skepticism about other minds, or the justification of war, for example, may encourage one to treat certain positions more seriously than one ought to, given the worrisome way in which they function in actual social contexts. Second, the parts and the relations that characterize some phenomenon are so fuzzy and/or so complex that the very attempt at a complete analysis is bound to make things seem clearer or simpler than they really are. Beauty is something that can be over...

There are real cars, with real sizes -- five feet high, twelve feet long, for example -- and they would be these sizes even if there was no observer to notice them. When a real car appears to an observer to be smaller, or larger, than it actually is, we can speak of its apparent size as opposed to its actual size; but the notion of an apparent size only makes sense in relation to an observer to whom the car appears to be one size rather than another. That is why Prof. Moore considers the real size of a car to be an intrinsic property while the apparent size of a car is a relational property. The distance between a car and an observer does not translate into a difference in the apparent size of that car to that observer since a distant car may appear to be its real size to some observers, and a nearby car may appear to be bigger or smaller than its real size to some observers. Thus, there is no general answer to your question about what distance a car must be in order for us to see its real...

I think that an organism must be conscious in order for there to be something that it is like to be that organism. This may seem like an obvious truth, but some people believe that there is something it is like to be asleep even though we are not conscious when sleeping, and some people believe that there is something it is like to have unconscious desires. If you believe either of these things, then you may well believe that there is something it is like to be an animal without consciousness. But I have trouble understanding the phrase “what it is like” to be a bat without assuming (at least some sort of) consciousness on the bat’s part. To decide whether a particular animal is conscious at a particular time, I would want to know whether it is engaged in certain sorts of information tracking. To be conscious is to be attentive in some way and being attentive, I suggest, requires one to track a given object or event across time – despite various changes in its appearance or surroundings. (A strong...

When we deceive another person , we intentionally cause that person to hold a view that we think is mistaken. We can do this with our words, with our actions, or even with our refusal to speak or act. Deceiving ourselves seems paradoxical, though, since as deceiv er we must consider a certain view to be mistaken, yet as deceiv ed we must adopt that same view. One way to resolve this apparent paradox is to divide people into different parts or stages, with one part of a person functioning as the deceiver and another part of the same person being deceived. So, for instance, you might suppose that the unconscious part of your neighbor's mind knows that her sons' actions are wrong, and that part succeeds in deceiving the conscious part of her mind into believing that her sons' actions are right. Or you might suppose that there was an earlier stage in which your neighbor realized that her sons' behavior was wrong, and that that earlier self acted so as to produce a later self that...