I've been thinking a lot about Utopianism and the people who strive toward a certain type of communal perfection. It seems to be a distinctly human longing and one that recurs constantly through history, even though all previous attempts to create utopias (in life: Fruitlands, Oneida, Fourierism, 1960s experiments in communalism; and even in literature: Thomas More, Christine de Pizan, Campanella) typically end in disaster. How do utopias benefit humanity when all they are is a series of failure after failure? Is there something "higher" or "more truthful" gained from such experiments?

Doesn't the fact that prostitution is illegal imply that pleasure is not a considered a legitimate and significant moral good? Prostitutes are said to be people who provide nothing of value to society. Nothing of value? Really? Perhaps this is because our society has a deontological system of values? In a utilitarian standpoint wouldn't it not only be moral to make prostitution legal wouldn't it in fact be extremely immoral to make it illegal since sex is extremely pleasurable and in a utilitarian calculus more pleasure equals more good?

As the Lays Potato chip ad goes, "bet you can't just eat one." Yet I will sometimes find myself eating potato chips even when they no longer taste good. Why do we continue to desire things that when they no longer give us pleasure?

Why is it that people talk such awful things about each other, but still seem worried about what others think? Why is this self-image we are trying to uphold so important to us?

Why does it always seem that inner beauty, or beauty in personality and character is more often believed to be more beautiful than just outer beauty? As such, you will hear people saying, "I'd rather have an ugly wife with a beautiful soul than a gorgeous woman with an ugly soul?" Should this kind of attitude towards beauty be followed?

If we made contact with an alien species which was clearly intelligent/sentient, but at a very different level to us, for example, if in the future humans found a planet inhabited by a species which was approximately as intelligent as our distant ancestors (and ancestors which were less intelligent than us for genetic, not simply environmental reasons), should we consider one alien to be as important as one person? Whatever conclusion I come to seems to throw up problems: if we say yes, then should we consider the life of a chimpanzee to be as important as that of a human? If we say no, then presumably we would have to concede that if we met aliens more intelligent than us then we would be less important than them. Or perhaps there's a base level of intelligence above which all sentient beings are equal, but how would we determine that base level? On the other hand, if we move away from intelligence and look for something else like signs of a capacity for love or mourning to evaluate a species moral...

As an individual that feels a sense of 'alienation' and a lack of meaning in the world, I still feel obliged to confer some kind of meaning to my own life to keep living a productive and composed life. However, existential thoughts about the possibility of not having existed before, then coming onto the stage of life and being confronted with a vivid reality and possessing tools to understand it and the imperative to act upon it while taking it to be the only reality one can ever understand, and then facing the paradoxical nature of death that will seemingly completely extinguish this effort and the identity of the individual, can be the most shocking and anxiety producing thoughts. Such thoughts makes it extremely challenging for an individual to find a sense of incontrovertible meaning that dissolves such contradictory thoughts (like the above) and also provide true meaning for the individual to act productively in their environment. How does one cope with this kind of a human condition?

My question is about how we can value religion from a secular perspective. When it comes to thinking about the religion of Islam for example, there are a multitude of ways to rate the religion's value (or lack there of). It is evident that Islam gives meaning and hope to billions of people, but at what cost? The end result is that the believer is left with a worldview that is erroneous in relation to history, science and the very meaning and purpose of life. Should we base our valuation of Islam upon how closely its teachings cohere to reality, or base it on how much the religion positively effects those who follow it?

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...

Often times, a common argument offered to stop people from complaining about their problems is to tell them to "be thankful for what they have and not complain too much". This can be quite irritating and annoying to a person that hasn't really found life to be all that enjoyable. Firstly, no one has asked for them to be brought into the world. As much as it seems hard to function in a world without a clear purpose or a sense of meaning, the thought of having to be 'thankful' for being alive, is hard to arise, perhaps even offensive when times are tough? How does one deal with this dilemma? Does the evaluation of life always have to be relative to other less fortunate beings in the world in order to feel better about one's situation?