In denying that the dead can "possess" property, you might be understanding 'possession' in a very literal way, one that doesn't conform to how we understand property. A property right is a moral claim, not a physical relation. If some property of mine is stolen and carried to the far side of the globe, it's still my property, despite my not 'possessing' it. Similarly, every time I park my car and walk away, I don't physically possess the car -- but I retain a property right in it. (Note, also, that there any entities with respect to which people have property rights that can't be possessed in any physical sense -- a copyright, for example, or even the money in a bank account, which (in most cases) doesn't reflect ownership of any physical object and is nothing more than some digits in a computer program.) So I don't see any barrier to the dead having property rights due to their being unable to be physically proximate to their property. Maybe your concern is captured by the slogan 'no ownership without...

I'm going to leave aside your own suggestion that there are no moral truths absent moral agents, etc -- that raises some intricate questions in metaethics -- so as to focus on the dispute between you and your friend. On the one hand, your friend tries to demonstrate the existence of 'objective' moral truth by appeal to what is usually seen as a fallacious pattern of argument, so-called 'appeal to the crowd.' It does not follow deductively from 'everyone agrees that killing and eating babies is wrong' that 'it is objectively wrong to kill and eat babies' You seem to have cottoned on to that: as you note, your friend's argument indicates that there is a consensus that it's wrong to kill and eat babies but does not prove that it's objectively wrong to kill and eat babies. On the other hand, what you may be missing is that consensus opinion may not prove some claim true, but it might nevertheless be evidence for its truth. For instance, suppose that some scientific claim is overwhelmingly...

Not sure what to say about trivialism -- but one thing you've put your finger on is that because philosophers tend to question the assumptions of ordinary thought, they will often defend claims that are surprising, controversial, or counterintuitive. The examples you mention (rape, incest, etc.) are ethical conclusions. But philosophers have defended a wide array of unconventional or surprising claims about knowledge (skepticism), metaphysics (we don't exist), and so on. In ethics, it's not that rare for philosophers to defend unpopular claims. I'm not aware of any philosophers who defend rape, the torture of infants, or serial murder. But certainly some have asked not-silly questions about the taboo subjects you mention. - On incest, many philosophers have wondered whether the practice is really harmful, violates norms of consent when it occurs between mature adults, etc. - Regarding terrorism, many philosophers have questioned whether there is so clear an ethical line between terrorism and other forms...

Your questions raise intriguing issues regarding how various goods or values are related. As best I can tell, whatever our reasons for admiring something or someone, these reasons need not be accompanied by reasons to like that thing or person, and can even be accompanied by reasons to dislike that thing or person. I don't much care for golf, finding the game far too genteel and slow moving. But I can certainly admire the skill of a world class golfer or the skill shown by a particular player in a particular tournament. I certainly doubt I'd want to be present for that tournament or want to meet the golfer. Admiration seems, then, often disinterested in a way that 'liking' or 'having a predilection for' is not. You also ask about not liking something or someone because of its "positive attributes." That seems possible too. For instance, one might dislike someone you admire because the attributes you admire in them 'crowd out' other positive attributes. A person can be admirable for being very hard...

Your question seems ambiguous between two interpretations: (1) Is it always better to be able to make more choices? (2) Is it always better to have more options to choose among? Under either interpretation, I believe the answer is 'no' -- though the reason is similar in each case. Start with (1): Compare Ann and Bill. In 2015, Ann was able to make 10,000 choices and Bill was able to make 50,000 choices. Is there reason to think that it's better that Bill be able to make more choices overall than Ann? It's hard to see why. For one, perhaps many of Bill's choices concerned trivial matters -- and it can often be bothersome to have make choices about trivial matters. If (like me) you're sympathetic to Kant's view that autonomy (the ability to govern one's own choices or actions, to rationally determine one's ends and how one pursues those ends) is the defining feature of human beings, it doesn't seem necessarily true that Bill is more autonomous by virtue of making, or being able to make, more choices....

I don't think so. The allegation here doesn't seem to relate to the two acts in isolation. The worry is not that Decrying tax breaks for the wealthy is wrong. Nor is the worry that Taking advantage of tax breaks for the wealthy is wrong. Rather, the wrong is a kind of compound: It is wrong to decry tax breaks for the wealthy while also taking advantage of those same tax breaks. In other words, the charge is one of moral inconsistency or hypocrisy . The reasoning here seems to be as follows: [1] Moral hypocrisy is wrong. [2] For a wealthy person to decry tax breaks for the wealthy and then take advantage of those same tax breaks amounts to moral hypocrisy. Therefore, for a wealthy person to decry tax breaks for the wealthy and then take advantage of those same tax breaks is wrong. This argument is clearly valid: If [1] and [2] are true, then the conclusion necessarily follows. So if there's a problem here, it lies in the truth of the premises. Are they true? [1] is tricky....

Suppose we accept your proposal that if something is morally good, then everybody has a moral reason to prefer it. It doesn't follow though, at least without additional argument, that if everyone has moral reason to prefer something, everyone has a moral duty to do that thing. For there may be moral reasons incumbent only on some rather than on others. If Lucretia has a child, I may concede both that her child's being well fed is morally good and that everyone has a moral reason to prefer her child being well-fed, but it may not be true that everyone (me included!) has a moral duty to feed her child. For instance, it may be true that I don't have such a duty precisely because Lucretia does have such a duty — she being her child's mother, she has a special duty to ensure that she is well fed that I (and others) have. Such special duties seem relatively common: A firefighter has a duty to rescue someone that I do not. I have a duty to educate my students that the firefighter does not. And so on....

I'm surprised that you weren't able to find some philosophical material on this issue: The topic of the morality of political communication is an old one (Plato's Allegory of the Cave can be read as a commentary on political manipulation). Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent) is a well-known exploration of political manipulation, though perhaps not very 'philosophical' in its approach. More recently, Jason Stanley has defined propaganda as "“manipulation of the rational will to close off debate” and argued that such manipulation undermines democracy. (http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10448.html) This recent collection of articles (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/manipulation-9780199338207?cc=us&lang=en&#) may prove useful to you also. I think you capture the case against manipulation in the public realm quite well: Your case against it has a decidedly Kantian ring — that individuals have the right to the information necessary to form...

You're certainly correct that there is a tendency in suppose that reason and emotion are antagonists, and that with respect to morality in particular, we should be guided by reason rather than emotion. And there may be major figures in the history of philosophy (Plato comes to mind) who really did see reason and emotion as in stark and irreconcilable tension. But there's a pretty significant segment of philosophers, both historical and contemporary, who don't think that reason and emotion are such enemies when it comes to moral reasoning and decision. On this view, reason and emotion are essential partners in moral thought and deliberation instead of implacable antagonists. A popular account (one that I myself find attractive) distinguishes between moral truth and moral knowledge: Emotions, on this view, are not a source of moral truth, but do enable you to know moral truths. Suppose that, as you end a day of busy holiday shopping, you see a fellow shopper carrying a large bundle of shopping bags. She...

Your remarks raise some of the oldest questions in moral philosophy: What is human nature? How should the relationship between morality and an individual's good or interest to be understood? What motivates the morally good person to act morally? It should be said, though, that your reasoning seems to germinate from a fair number of controversial assumptions. First, you condition your first question on our being "egocentric." Whether we are in fact egocentric — where I take this to mean that we necessarily act to advance what we believe to be in our best interests — has long been debated by philosophers. Hobbes arguably thought so, but many philosophers have disagreed. One famous contemporary critique of this kind of egocentrism ("psychological egoism") was put forth by Joel Feinberg. (http://web.mit.edu/holton/www/courses/moralpsych/feinberg.pdf) Feinberg in effect argues that psychological egoism either rests on a tautology (that everything a person does stems from her own motives doesn't entail that...