This sounds like the kind of a question a first-year philosophy student would ask, but here goes... Why should anyone be interested in philosophy in the first place (i.e., why should I care about Cartesian knowledge, or Locke's primary and secondary qualities, or bother with questions about the meaning of life if I'm already happy)? It would be nice to get a rational response to some of these very introductory questions...

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.

Do you think that women can sign away their reproductive rights? Let's say man really hates abortion, and refuses to have sex with his partner unless she agrees to never abort any fetus of his. The woman agrees, and the two sign a "no abortions" agreement. Is she morally obligated to fulfill this agreement? Should the law force her to honor this agreement?

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...

This is a twist on the "If a tree falls in the woods" question: Certainly there lived in the past a person, but the person in question has some very typical attributes: Nothing was written about or by this person. The person in question made no lasting contributions or left any tangible artifacts. No-one living has any memory of this person, nor are there any stories, legends, or tales being told. Did this person ever exist even with no known qualities, age, timeframe, or attribute other than "a human in the past?" There may well have been the faceless masses that are written about and populate historical accounts and ancient Greek plays, but what about specific but unspecified persons? They must have existed, but did they exist as individuals or only as a type?

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!

As a vegetarian, when I consider the prospect of having a child I must ask myself whether to bring her up on the same diet as mine. I have met people who resentfully continue to be vegetarians because their parents brought them up that way and they could never ingest meat properly. Is it fair for parents to treat a child in this way and would you answer that question differently if the majority of adults, but not children, had freely chosen to be vegetarians and were now asking themselves the same question?

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. ...

I have to write a persuasive essay in English class and the subject of my choice is the meaning of life. I knew ahead of time of the difficulties that will plague me in trying to properly define meaning and discuss the multiple views on the subject. My aim is to prove that a secular person can live a meaningful life. However, I want to know how I can argue for a meaningful life (more or less objectively, since it would have more grounding) without begging the question against the nihilist (who would claim that without a transcendent cause that there is no meaning at all)? It seems that to argue for a meaningful life I would have to presuppose that certain things have meaning, which they would deny. I could probably argue from analogy, and show that subjectively the fulfillment of someone's projects or the relationships we create with others have meaning to ourselves and that is enough (which I think it is) for someone to live meaningfully (or that without certain things, e.g. relationships our lives...

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 go to church regularly and say things I don't believe. I justify this by saying that it's necessary to support an institution that I believe does more good than harm and that the usefulness of a statement is more important than its truth. I think my grounds are utilitarian and pragmatic, and do not share the vulnerability, among skeptics, of belief in the statements. I am satisfied with my justification until I am asked to teach a seventh-grade Sunday School class. If I decline I leave it to somebody else, maybe as much a skeptic as I am, to give the support I want given. I can't do that, and don't expect a philosopher to give me a justification for it. If I accept the job I do the things that make me ask for help from a philosopher. My question: How I can avoid harm, and if I can't will I do enough to tip the utilitarian balance and remove me from the church? As I see it, I risk doing three kinds of harm. First, pedagogical harm. I will be teaching credulousness. They can't believe what...

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...

Why do my parents tell me it is morally wrong to have a "hickey" or love bite on my neck. I am in a socially recognized relationship. Both of us are above the age of sexual consent in our country [several years above]. Neither of us are religious. Neither of us care about the judgment of the rest of the world. No one can see the mark, when my hair covers it. I am not in a professional setting that requires me to uphold any dress code or manner of behavior. I would just like to know what is so wrong about acknowledging that we enjoy giving pleasure to each other. Why is it morally wrong to have passion, and reciprocated enjoyment. Maybe we would be a less uptight society if we spent more time trying to find ways to bring people enjoyment and less time worrying about upholding some sort of stilted Victorian morality. Perhaps he takes umbrage to the fact that I, a woman, am enjoying sex? After all, it should be done for reproductive purposes only, in the dark, with only the man enjoying himself. Can...

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.

Do animals have morals and ethics? Otherwise, are ethics natural or is it something humans made up?

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 .

Do the members of a married couple with children have a moral obligation, not (just) to each other, but to their children, to not cheat on each other?

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.

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