You can find out about Singer's position on infanticide here-- http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/faq.html

I certainly don't agree with Socrates' famous assertion that the unexamined life is not worth living. So the reason why you should be interested in philosophy is not because otherwise your life will not be worth living! I would say that you should (morally should) be interested in ethical questions because otherwise you may act wrongly. Certain other questions in philosophy (is there a god? do I have free will?) deal with the basic nature of human existence. Here there's no moral obligation to be interested, but it might be a tad shallow to have no interest whatever. Many questions in philosophy are neither ethical nor about the fundamental nature of human existence (what is reference? what is causation?). I don't see why anyone should be interested in them. They are fun and fascinating (to some people). I can say nothing stronger than: try it, you may like it.

This seems like many other agreements two people might make, and not in a class by itself. On the whole, we should keep our promises, but we don't want the law to step in and enforce all of them. If a woman promises not to have an abortion, then she surely she should keep the promise. It would be the same in the other direction. A woman might ask a man to agree not ask her to have an abortion, if she should become pregnant. Morally, both have at least a prima facie obligation to keep their promises. The law is another matter. If by making any promise we incurred the risk of being dragged into a courtroom, we'd make promises very sparingly. And then a valuable way of managing our personal relationships would be virtually lost. In this particular situation, either party would be able to foresee that the other could renege on the agreement. After all, as we all know, it's hard to predict what one will really want to do about something as life-changing as a pregnancy. A reasonable person...

You exist right now, right? You have some specific number of hairs on your head, and your toenails are some definite shape, etc. Nobody's keeping track of any of these things, though. Now flash forward to the year 3000, when you've completely and totally faded into obscurity. There is no possibility whatever of retrieving any information about you. Did you every exist, with your specific attributes? I suspect you're going to say "of course." Ditto for all the people who preceded you. To be is not to be remembered!

I've thought about this issue a lot, as a vegetarian with two children (now both 12). We decided it would be better to let them choose for themselves. My thinking was: if we raised them as vegetarians, they would inevitably come into contact with meat and feel curious, tempted, guilty. Out of concern for their wellbeing, I wanted to avoid that. I also thought they would experience vegetarianism as an imposition and eventually rebel against it. Plus, I wanted them to have the experience of confronting a moral issue for themselves. This is how things have turned out (so far)--When my kids were very young, all the food I prepared was vegetarian, but I bought cold cuts for sandwiches, let them order meat in restaurants and at school. At age 6, my daughter decided to stop eating meat. I practically discouraged this, giving her permission to change her mind, give in to temptation, etc. In fact, she became steadily more consistent, resolute, and outspoken. At age 12, my son made the same decision. ...

You'd be begging the question against the nihilist, and presupposing or presuming too much, if you simply declared that there can be meaningfulness without God, but didn't argue for it. If you can find a way to argue for your view, then you haven't committed any of those sins. Of course, not everyone will find your argument (whatever it is) persuasive, but you'd be doing much more than begging the question, etc. So--how can you argue for your view? You'll surely want to discuss the meaning of "meaningful." What does "the other side" think it means? Once you've figured that out, you may be able to make objections. For example, the idea behind the popular book "The Purpose Driven Life" is that having a built in purpose is the key to our lives being meaningful. That can be questioned through the artful use of examples. If the truth is that aliens are growing us as a food source (to be harvested when we hit a world population of 7 billion), would that give our lives meaning? (This is a question...

I have struggled with similar dilemmas, as a non-believing member of a Jewish religious congregation. It looks like you have four options--(1) leave the church entirely, (2) teach in the normal fashion, (3) teach non-literally, and (4) remain in the church but don't teach. You've made up your mind against (1), and you're struggling between (2) and (3). I think you're right to be worried about (2). It concerns me the way Sunday school teachers stand before children and present religious stories exactly as if they were history teachers or science teachers. This does exploit the credulousness of children in a way that is problematic. It's been way too long since I read Austin, so I don't know what he says about the "backstage artiste," but I think it's fine for children to be taught that religious material is "meaningful to us" but not historically or scientifically true. The problem is that I doubt other congregants would think it's fine (unless your church is extremely liberal). So I can't...

From what I recall (and I'm recalling going to a US highschool way back in the 20th century), there's quite a bit to the semiotics of hickeys. The bruise says something--to you personally, but also to the world (if you hair is mobile). It broadcasts "I have a boyfriend and we're intimate," but it also hints at sex to the point of hurting. Maybe your parents have concerns about the broadcasting, or about "to the point of hurting." Maybe they're wondering "what next?" Maybe... Well, you could speculate endlessly. There's no way to know without asking them. You might discover that they're worried not so much about morality but about your emotional and physical health.

I'm inclined to think there is rudimentary morality in non-human animals. Rather than try to convince you, I'll suggest a good book on the matter (with "objections" at the back)-- Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved , by Frans De Waal. As to whether ethics (our ethics) is natural or made up (I'd say some of each, but it's crucial to explore what "natural" means), you might like to read: Russ Shafer-Landau, Whatever Happened to Good and Evil and (for a different view) Richard Joyce's The Evolution of Morality .

I'm guessing what the questioner is wondering is roughly this-- "Considering the way that infidelity tends to increase the probability of divorce and considering the known ill effects of divorce on children, do couples have a duty not just to each other, but also to their children, to be faithful?" My answer to that question is: yes. Then there's the question whether people should be faithful even if they've redefined marriage so that infidelity is truly a non-issue (if such people exist). And there's also the question whether we have a duty to children not to redefine marriage that way. No, and no, to those two questions. But if the question is about people in ordinary marriages, I'll go for the idea that infidelity puts children in jeopardy, so the obligation to refrain is partly to one's children.