Thanks for your nice question(s). One issue here is whether there are in fact any words that it is morally improper to utter, at least in a given language. Another question is whether, if there are any such words, the impropriety of uttering them is justifiable in some way. I separate these two questions because the impropriety of something might have no basis, or at least no justification: some aspects of morals might just be "brute". You're right that two words might refer to the same thing and yet only one of them be considered improper. Many philosophers of language would try to explain that difference in the following terms. Two such words might refer to the same thing and yet one of them express an attitude that the other does not. Some racial epithets, for instance, might not only refer to a racial group, but also express contempt toward that group. Note also that some expressions of contempt might be considered demeaning to their target. If I explicitly tell you that you're inferior...

Thanks for your question. It contains two very different sub-questions: 1. Is the opinion held by the majority more likely to be right than that held by the minority? 2. Is one justified in holding onto an opinion in spite of persuasive counter-arguments to the contrary. I should note also that you suggest that you are *certain* of your opinion on the issue in question. That is a relevant factor also. Now, concerning 1: It is perhaps too high-handed simply to *dismiss* the opinion of the majority, though in some cases, that may well be justified. (Just imagine a naive or in some way very confused group of people.) On the other hand, there's no good inference from that fact that most people agree on something, to the conclusion that they must be right. To be safe, perhaps the best route is to reexamine your reasons for your contrary opinion, and so long as they still seem solid, then you're entitled to hold onto it in spite of what others think. Concerning 2: What if the...

Thanks for your excellent question. You're right to be dissatisfied with the "containment" characterization of analyticity. The reason is that containment is a topological or set-theoretic idea, and it's hard to know how to cash it out for the case of language. After all, subjects and predicates don't take up space, and it takes some doing to explain them in terms of sets also. Your suggested definition in terms of 'sufficient to identify unequivocally the subject in question,' is a good idea, but I also think it won't work without a lot of modification: After all, 'containing interior angles' is true analytically of triangles (triangles have interior angles' is plausibly analytic), but that predicate doesn't identify unequivocally the concept of a triangle, since lots of other things have that feature as well. A perhaps better characterization of analyticity is 'true by definition'. It's true by definition that triangles have three interior angles, and that bachelors are unarried. ...

Thank you for your question. For a long while in the history of philosophy it was thought that what was conceivable was a good indication of what was possible. Descartes is a good example of this way of thinking, though he was careful to require that not any old conceiving of a thing showed it to be possible. Rather he required that the conceiving had to be "clear and distinct", meaning roughly that it had to pass the most stringent standards we can muster to make sure the conceiving is coherent (i.e., not subtly self-contradictory). In the middle of the 20th century this methodology began to break down. For instance, in the Sixties Hilary Putnam distinguished between concepts and properties, making clear that our concepts of things like gold may not reveal its true properties. Similarly, Kripke's notion a decade later of "natural kinds" made room for the possibility that what is "metaphysically possible" may not correspond to that is conceivable. This issue is still a topic of intense...

Thank you for your question. I'm smitten by things like apples and trees also. However, implicit in your remark may be a thought about which I'm doubtful: It's the thought that if things like apples can't come into being by pure coincidence, there must be some divine cause to these things. I can't be sure whether this is what you have in mind, based on your question, but if it is what you're aiming at, I'd suggest the following: The theory of Evolution by Natural Selection does not try to explain biological phenomena in nature by appeal to nothing more than sheer coincidence. Rather, apparent design and complexity in nature are in general due to differential rates at which different organisms are able to pass along their genes, and that's not a chance process. (This point is eloquently spelled out in Dawkin's book, _Climbing Mount Improbable_.) Also, I should point out that there lots of biological entities that are not convenient for human beings at all: weeds, poison ivy, noxious fruit...

Thank you for your very good question. You have nothing to apologize for, and we're grateful to you for asking. I don't think I'll be able to respond to everything in what you ask, but here are a few thoughts: Concerning the big bang, you write, " no one can say why it happened and why it did not simply stay as a singularity forever. " I should point out that even if it is true that no one can explain why it occurred, that doesn't mean there is no answer to be found. Perhaps no one can answer this question *now*, but someone (maybe you!) will someday find an answer. If that's right, then the only "randomness" here is due to our own ignorance. Please let me mention also that contemporary physics holds that there is a very common form of indeterminacy, that is, of randomness. I mean what quantum theory has to say about the decay of an atom such as (some forms of) uranium. Whether such an atom decays at a given moment is, according to contemporary qm, entirely random. The most we can...

Thank you for your message. I respect your courage in facing this difficult situation and in sharing your concerns. I should make clear that although, as a professional philosopher, I don't have expertise with the problems that you mention, my wife is a CPS social worker, and so I have indirect familiarity with cases like this. If you honestly believe that the boys in question are in danger, or that the dogs you mention are, then I suggest that you do have an obligation to do all you can to get them out of that danger. It is very unlikely that a 45 year old man is going to learn new anger-management skills unless he makes a conscious effort to do so, and it does not appear from your description that he is making such an effort. I would urge you to contact CPS again to raise your honest concerns as to whether their intervention so far is really sufficient. It might also be a good idea to contact your local SPCA to raise concerns about the safety of the dogs. I hope all goes well. Please...

Thank you for your question. I can't hope to answer it at all comprehensively. Instead I'll try to give a smattering of highlights, and some pointers as to where you might look to learn more. Among the questions that philosophers tried to answer at this time were: ' What is it to be virtuous, and can virtue be taught? What is the soul, and does it survive the destruction of the body? What is the best organization for a society to follow in order to be just? What, at the most fundamental level, is the physical world made of? (Proffered answers included fire, water, and atoms.) In what sense, if any, might the future be "real"? There are lots of others. For a rewarding discussion that puts philosophical inquiry into a broader social and historical context, I would strongly suggest the classic _The Greeks_ by H.D. Kitto. Once you've gone through that, you can't go wrong by looking at some dialogues by Plato, in which the author purports to report various discussions his...

Thanks for your message. Most aestheticians today would, I think, say that there is usually not an aesthetic difference between these two things, but that there may well be other important differences. For instance, a genuine and a fake Vermeer will, by your hypothesis, look exactly the same, and if that is the case then (on the more common definition of "the aesthetic" as having primarily to do with primarily how an object appears to the senses) they will have the same aesthetic properties. On the other hand, the two works will differ drastically in other dimensions, such as historical interest, monetary value, originality, and so on. Above I said 'usually', and here's why: In some cases the aesthetic value of a work does seem to depend on its actual provenance. Imagine a work that literally contains a piece of the artist's flesh, and that was intended to be known to do so. (Supppose he cut off his hand, and preserved it in fluid of some kind in an installation for all to see.) Most...

Your last sentence is right: It's not true that in the case you have in mind the parents confer a benefit on child that would otherwise lack it. You're right also that it is a bit strange to suppose that children benefit from this. On the other hand, one might argue that this practice benefits society at large by increasing the overall representation of intelligence. (Whether increasing the overall level of intelligence in the population will benefit it, is an empirical question to which I doubt we have an answer.) Or one might hold that it benefits the parent or parents by increasing their chances of having high-achieving children. (Whether having smarter children in general makes parents happier is also an empirical question, and I also doubt that we know how to answer it at this point.) You might enjoy pursuing these issues a bit further with Jonathan Glover's new book, _Choosing Children: Genes, Disability and Design_, forthcoming in early 2008 with Oxford University Press. Glover is an...