One of the formulation of Kant's Categorical Imperative is that we should never treat humanity as a mere means to an end. I wonder, then, whether this means that horror film directors are behaving unethically. After all, in a horror film, terrible things are made to happen to human beings, solely for the purpose of frightening/pleasing the audience. The human beings may be fictional, but it is nevertheless the fact that they are fictional *humans* that makes horror films effective (as opposed to a horror film where the victims are all robots). It seems to me that the humanity of the fictional characters is being used as a tool to manipulate the audience's emotions. Does this fall under the umbrella of the humanity formulation of the Categorical Imperative? If not, why not? It certainly seems that it is the humanity of the victims (including their emotions, their aspirations, their mortality, their ability to suffer) that is key to the function of horror films.

Hi, First let me say that I truly appreciate the time you all put in to answering questions from the public. Hopefully I can add one more decent inquiry. I've been reading Parfit's fascinating "Reasons and Persons" and there's something that's been nagging at me. Since I'm reading it for pleasure and I'm not a formal student of Philosophy, I don't have access to professors for assistance. I was hoping one (or some) of you might be willing to help me out. In general I find the book brilliant and, needless to say, illuminating. I think my life will be changed by it. However, I'm struck by several sentences in which Parfit seems to let his personal judgements guide the direction of his work after he says many times in the book that we might need to shelve certain personal judgements in light of the strength of the arguments. For example, at the end of section 105 (page 318 in my copy), where he is discussing a particular "discount rate" applied to our actions' effects on our future selves, he writes: ...

Could someone please explain to me what Sartre meant by "negating the absolute."

I have read that authors such as Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek and Judith Butler write in such a way as to intimidate or subdue the reader into accepting what they have to say, using rhetorical techniques as well as obfuscation. The accusation that Derrida practiced "obscurantisme terroriste" is a good example of the kind of accusation I'm talking about; Martha Nussbaum made a somewhat similar critique of Judith Butler, and there are several other such instances besides. The core idea seems to be that these writers write using disjointed, heavy-handed rhetoric and difficult-to-decipher prose in order to discourage the reader from challenging their ideas. What do you think? As someone who is not a professional philosopher, I sometimes find myself hard pressed to distinguish between things I am not equipped to understand and things that are actively trying to make me stop trying to understand and simply submit. Do the authors named above engage in such practices, and if so, to what extent? Are there...

Why is Schiller's reductio ad absurdum of Kant's argument considered unfair: “I like to serve my friends but unfortunately I do so by inclination. And so I am bothered by the thought that I am not virtuous. There is no other way but this! You must seek to despise them. And do with repugnance what duty bids you.” Kant does argue that for an action to have moral worth and elicit our moral esteem it must be done from duty and not from inclination. Surely then, because Schiller serves his friends by inclination and not from duty, according to Kant he is not virtuous?

A recent while ago a person asked why their were so few religious persons in Philosophy departments these days. One philosopher responded that there were many opportunities for abstract thinking in the religion department of universities. Most religion departments are centered around particular religions such as Christianity while historically philosophers have often been spiritual but not affiliated with a religion. So I guess you could still ask why are so few philosophers spiritual in orientation and what educational department could they possibly turn to?

Struggling with Wittgenstein. "The World is all that is the case". Does this mean both positive facts ("Paris is the capitol of France") AND negative facts ("Lyon is not the capitol of France") I can say "It IS the case that Lyon is not the capitol of France". Or does Wittgenstein mean only the pos. facts, i.e what has been actualized? Thanks.

Hume stated that there is a gap between "is" and "ought." What about hypothetical imperatives? For example, it seems that, given a certain state of the material world, if I want to arrive on time for a certain meeting, then I ought to leave the house before, say, 8 AM. Did Hume's statement make room for such constructions, or does he not believe that the premises of hypothetical imperatives justify their normative conclusions?

It seems today that in mainstream media and political discourse proponents of neoliberalism equate freedom with consumer choice. Many arguments about the restructuring of safety net programs, such as social security and medicare, along market logic of private competition and less government involvement, usually mention how this would bring about more "choice" for individuals and thus more freedom. Neoliberalism has brought a shift in discourse about freedom and liberty more inline with market type of discourse. The shift seems to be from having the freedom OF choice, to freedom IS choice. Much can be said about this from many different philosophical perspectives (an interesting one that comes to mind being Foucault and governmentality), but I want to go back to further, to Kant. My question is what would Kant say about this idea of freedom, that freedom is equated with choice - specifically- consumer/market choice? This type of questions plagues me because this neoliberal logic seems to reduce,...

Dear Philosophers, I'm currently reading an excerpt from Descartes' Meditations, specifically the part where he attempts to prove the existence of god. I found myself unable to properly understand his notions of 'formal' reality or truth as compared to 'objective' reality or truth. The fact that an idea appears to him as something specifically, does not mean that it IS that something in reality (it might be merely appearance). However, taken purely in itself, at least the mental representation of the idea is real. Is the former here what Descartes continues to denote with 'objective' reality and the latter 'former' reality, or the other way around? Every time I think I have it figured out what these two terms mean, he uses them in a confusing manner two sentences later. Please help! Sadly, I'm reading an (undoubtedly terrible) translation which does not contain original page numbers; I hope you are able to answer my question without these as reference! Thanks in advance, and with regards, Paul