In answer to your first question ("Is kissing a person on the lips other than one's spouse cheating?"), the very idea of "cheating" (conceptually) involves breaking a rule or agreement or promise, and so kissing someone other than one's spouse on the lips would be cheating if you had an agreement (explicit or implicit) that one would only kiss one's spouse on the lips, just as you would be cheating if you cried or laughed or sung a particular song with another person if you had promised only to do so with one's partner / spouse. Before moving to your suggestion about promises, a brief note: I am a little curious about the example you give of kissing as there are many cultures (I have no idea how many) when kissing another person (who is not one's spouse) on the lips is not at all unusual or thought to be even remotely sexual (and thus a domain in which sexual fidelity would not be an issue). Actually, in the first two centuries of Christianity in Europe, unmarried men and women would regularly kiss...

Very tough questions that have implications for any person who knows of situations you describe --and those situations that are more extreme as well as those involving less violence. You note that you are not interested in a response that appeals to world views or religious teachings on such matters. I accept this constraint in offering a reply. There are various factors that come into play in thinking through the cases you note --I will put this in the plural form as your questions concern so many of us: Are WE in any sense responsible if only through neglect or not taking any action to secure the safety of the cities or places where we live for these crimes --or wicked or tragic events? If we are guilty or at least not clearly innocent then I suggest we have some responsibility to care for the victims or, in the cases you cite when there are deaths, to care for the families of victims and their immediate communities. And I suggest that, if we are indirectly responsible for these tragedies we...

I express concern for all involved: the owners, looters, bi-standers.... I have experienced times of scarcity and turmoil, but I am keenly aware that I am reading and responding to you in a coffee shop where conditions seem peaceful and I worry about being presumptuous in addressing someone in the midst of great turmoil. I suggest that a good number of philosophers may well be right in thinking that there is little difference between looting and stealing, but some such as Hobbes, among others have held that in a state of nature when there is a collapse of government and no sovereign power to impose limits which all subjects might agree to, it is "every person for him or her self." I suggest that such a reliance on government or contracts to provide a foundation for obligations and rights is implausible --that is, it cannot actually provide a moral duty for each person or citizen to comply with what is contracted or agreed upon and it also cannot do justice to a basic, intuitive sense we have of...

You have raised a question that goes to the heart of one of the most serious relationships: what is the moral role of fidelity and respect in terms of sexual relationships? For many of us in 'the west' the 'cheating' would be equally wrong for a male or female. Just as it would be equally wrong for a male or female to cheat in other areas of life to steal money from innocent children it would seem to be equally wrong for either to cheat on each other. But there are different social, cultural expectations that come into play in some places today that reflect an old, patriarchal bias that tends to look more strictly at cases of adultery or infidelity involving females rather than males. I suggest that there is no viable ethical or religious or evolutionary ground for this imbalance or unfairness today. So, while I suspect that any justification that gives greater allowance to the male is a reflection of distorted values, a perversion of a mature religion or simply bad anthropology, it should probably...

Dear Luca from Italy- When the topic of a principle of falsifiability came into philosophy in the 20th century it was used principally in reference to empirical experiences or observations that involved the senses or were derived from the senses. So, the question of whether a moral theory was shown to be false or might be shown to be false was a question about whether we might be able to make the kinds of observations that would expose the falsehood of an empirical claim about the radioactivity of some material. In that sense, I suppose it needs to be appreciated that moral theories are in a different category, and yet there might be and I suggest that there are different kinds of observations and experiences that can expose problems with moral theories. Some, but not all, philosophers believe that we have experiences of what is truly valuable intrinsically valuable as opposed to experiencing what may be valuable but only with respect to passing interests and desires. Arguably, my enjoying a pasta...

I wish you all the best in your research and thinking about art and ethics. Here are some contemporary thinkers you would find engaging: Noel Carroll --his "Moderate Moralism" (originally published in the British Journal of Aesthetics in 1996 is not the "latest" but Carroll is a clear, engaging writer and he references some of the contributors to the issues at hand. Jerrold Levinson has an excellent anthology on aesthetics and ethics, Berys Gaut is another philosopher of interest, and Martha Nussbaum has probably been the most well published contributor seeking to tie moral education together with literature. In terms of early modern work, the "sentimentalists" (those who sought to understand both beauty and goodness) such as Hutchison would be good to investigate. I have a short book "Aesthetics: A Beginner's Guide" that addresses the relationship of ethics, beauty and excellence or the value of art. One reason for thinking that ethics trumps our concept of the autonomy of art (that is,...

Interesting! I suggest that one needs more of a foundation or framework to infer from someone having intelligence or some other talent, ability or good (such as beauty) to the conclusion that one has certain obligations to one's society. There are foundations or frameworks to consider: in a case where a person comes to have some good like intelligence through the sacrificial contributions of others (imagine one's family and community pool together resources to pay for your medical education and you have the medical skills and intelligence due to others), a person may have a debt of gratitude (of some kind) to benefit those who helped one. Or an intelligent person may have an obligation to contribute to her or his community if she has volunteered or promised to do so or perhaps everyone in a community has agreed to donate their time and talent to the good of group as a whole. In the last case, perhaps someone who is intelligent or talented at building roads might have an obligation to offer to build...

Probably one of the main reasons we shy away from talking with others about sexual attraction unless we are doing so with a partner in a sexually intimate relationship or conversing with a therapist or discussing medical issues (from STD s to pregnancy to birth control) or advising a friend who has asked for advise, is because we see sexual matters as amazingly / profoundly personal and we would find it positively intolerable being told by all sorts of people whether they find you sexy or not. Imagine that in the course of sitting in a coffee shop for an hour you are set upon by hundreds of people who tell you all about their sexual desires as grandmothers who like to have sex while cooking apple pie, former medical students who were expelled from medical school for public nudity, lawyers who have been accused of sexually harassing interns, politicians who will say anything or do anything to get your vote, two tax collectors who have strange, contagious rashes all over their hands and faces and want...

That is a very timely question, as the philosophical world in the USA has been jolted awake recently with reports of sexual harassment charges against philosophy professors (e.g. at the University of Colorado). I am not aware of any studies that compare the wrong-doing or vices of "specialists" in ethics with any other area in the humanities, sciences, and arts. It would not shock me if the percentage of courageous, just, and compassionate persons and the percentage of wicked, nasty persons and those in between were the same among those who study ethics as those who study law, medicine, history, psychology and so on. This is partly because studying, teaching and contributing to the field of ethics can be done in an intellectually vigorous fashion, with historically well-informed precise arguments without requiring that persons undergo deep self-questioning (am I really being a good father? am I condescending with those whom I disagree with? etc) and careful deliberation and action that is morally...

Great question. As a small point at the outset, I think that both the IRA bombing and the bombing by al-Qaeda are equally wrong, and wrong in targeting the military as well as civilians. Neither cause amounts (in my view) to justified use of violence, and the bombing seems senseless not just ethically but given the strategic aims of the IRA and al-Qaeda. In both cases, it seems there is evidence that The Troubles would have ended earlier if non-violent means were used, and the same for the use of terror by al-Qaeda. But there is some ethical difference in the two cases. If the IRA phone call was made so late, that there was no way to evacuate anyone, the cases are identical. But if the IRA' s call was made to insure (or make unlikely) that lives would be lost and so the bombing would only destroy property, then such a practice seems less cruel than bombers who intend and take every step to wound or kill others. In fact, given the strategic ends of al-Qaeda, they may be motivated to...