It seems to me that much contemporary philosophy is a bit obsessed with clarifying arguments and analyzing statements and lacks real wisdom about the world. For example, I can imagine a typical situation where an ordinary person asks a professional philosopher a question relating to an applied ethics question. The philosopher answers by analysing the component parts of the statements contained within the question and attempting to assess the technicalities of the implicit argument put forward by the ordinary person. The outcome is that everybody is none the wiser as to the real answer to the applied ethics question because the philosopher has no real wisdom about the world but is merely trying to analyse argument structures! What do you think about this? Thanks

Recently a 19 year old woman killed herself after she was taunted by her high school classmates for doing a porn. The while situation makes me angry and upset. (though looking at the reported online comments they don't seem as bad or as I voluminous as you might imagine, and they were not all directed her. So there may be some other issues) Maybe it makes me angry partly because I often watch porn with women of that age but part of me feels uncomfortable about it because I don't know how it affects their lives or if they are doing it with a sufficiently developed sense of ownership about the consequences that decision may bring. But really should I feel bad for watching porn with younger women or should I direct my feelings toward a society that is unfairly judgmental and hypocritical about sex?

How would a legal philosopher deal with the trolley problem compared to a moral philosopher? Would he come to a conclusion that is neither switch nor not switch? That is, either choice is equally legal?

When you start a controversial, difficult debate with someone, for example about world poverty, war, crime, abuse, etc. should you regard the personal limitations of the other person involved in the conversation or just keep going in order to increase more social awareness about the problem you are discussing even if this might cause the other person to be partially in shock because of the overwhelming topic? Should raising social awareness and trying to provoke critical thinking in people be also subject to ethical standards even at the cost of limiting possible positive results (if the means of conversation and other type of critical propaganda are more moderate, not managing to achieve such bigger social awareness and positive response due to the basic human need for conformism)?

Does allowing one's child to become obese constitute child abuse?

Is inter-country adoption immoral? (I'm a college senior doing an independent study on Korean transnational adoption and the Korean diaspora.)

Some people study or know a great deal about ethics as it's taught in philosophy departs, and yet those same people we may not judge to be highly ethical or to have elevated moral characters. If this assumption is correct, how do you explain this? Is there a way to solve this problem?

During The Troubles the IRA would sometimes make a telephone warning beforehand prior to exploding a bomb. Even if the authorities are unable to evacuate every person in time resulting in a single digit death toll, does this make them less guilty or immoral than al-Qaeda according to virtue ethics?

If animals have feelings then isn't that enough reason not to kill them for food? Some would say that self awareness is required. Why would that be relevant? Could the idea that a creature without self awareness lacks a unified state of being over time be a reason? They just sort of exist one moment to the next. Death for them would no different than the passage of time. But then how can mere concepts of self awareness have such an ontological significance? Much of their experience probably or may not be especially pleasurable and many wouldn't exist in the first place if they weren't bred to be eaten. I wonder if the inability of most people to form a moral opinion opposed to animal eating shows something dreadful about the human condition. Here I am sitting and eating meat while asking these questions in the abstract while I've never had the willpower to go vegetarian for any extended period just in case my fears about meat eating are right.

I am a recently married thirty year old living in Oregon. My wife and I don't want to have any kids and we don't subscribe to religion or any ideology. Because of this why should I be concerned about global warming which won't affect me in any major way in my lifetime? I do not have any responsibility to future generations because all my friends and family are either older or around my same age as well.