Could you talk a little about the notion of "respecting people's beliefs"? Honestly, I don't respect anyone's beliefs. When someone starts rattling on about some belief they have, whether religious, ideological, or personal, I feel contempt for them. (I don't show it because I try to be polite.) I also don't like beliefs in myself. I try to root them out as much as possible. Is the notion of "respecting beliefs" supposed to just be political -- a way of saying that people shouldn't be discriminated against on the basis of their beliefs? Or are we really supposed to feel respect for the person sitting in front of us rambling on about vaccinations causing autism or Jesus saving their soul or whatever?

Is it wrong to lie when we're questioned on matters of our intimacy? I mean cases where the other reasonable option would be to refuse to answer but for some reason we prefer not to. More specifically, I mean cases where it was wrong to ask in the first place.

I'm a scientist. The results of my research may generate technologies that could potentially be used in both and offensive and defensive military applications. These same technologies could potentially help people as well. Here are two examples: (1) My work could potentially create odor-sensing devices to target "enemies" and blow them up, but the same work could aid land-mine detection and removal. (2) My work could help build warrior robots, but it could also help build better prosthetics for amputees. For any given project, I have to decide which agency(ies) my lab will take money from. I do not want to decide based on the name of the agency alone: DARPA has funded projects that helped amputees and killed no one, while I would bet (but do not know for sure) that some work sponsored by the NSF has ultimately been used in military operations. So I'd like to base my decision on something more than the agency acronym. How can I start to get my head around this? What sorts of questions should I...

I've read several times about some "care ethics", but I'm still not sure what exactly is it about: seems like a part of an ethical theory rather than a complete system, but I really don't know. What is it, exactly, and what can I read to get a somewhat general (but deep) acount? Thanks, TT PS: please excuse my English, I'm from Argentina.

Was I right or wrong in marrying out of a sense of duty as opposed to marrying for love? Some years ago I fell in love with an unavailable woman. We did not have a relationship but while still in love with her I met, had a long term relationship with and married a woman I was fond of and needed. My wife believes that I love her and she loves me. I am aware that if I had not had a long relationship with my wife she might have met and married someone who truly loved her. However, I stayed with her in the hope that she would help me get over the unavailable woman and that I would eventually grow to love her. This did not happen. Had I told her after being with her for a few years that I did not love her and that I wanted to end our relationship it may have then been too late (we are both in our late thirties) for her to meet another man and have children with him. Also deep down I must have felt that I had used her and did not want to admit this to myself. I felt I was obligated to marry her. Was...

Would it be morally wrong to start a relationship with someone, if you knew that they were going away? For example, would it be wrong for me to start a relationship with my friend who is moving away next year?

Is, say, necrophilia ethically wrong? Arguably the ultimate societal taboo, necrophilia is something which the vast majority of people -- myself included -- consider disturbing and repulsive. It seems, however, that if we deem it morally objectionable we are left in a precarious situation, as we are forced to acknowledge that certain sexual behaviors without victims are wrong in and of themselves. If we accept this fact, what's to stop a person from deeming gay marriage wrong on the same grounds? Where could we possibly draw the line? Having read some of the responses posted on this site, I have recently accepted the position that a person can be harmed even after their death. So, when I am speaking of necrophilia here, let's assume the person gave their consent before dying.

If someone who has been a high achiever, who has earned respect for work done in, say, a creative field, most explicitly forbids the writing of a biography, is anyone entitled to ignore this stated position and write the book anyway? Assuming the subject is no longer living, should friends and associates supply what they know of the life lived and its effect on the work done? And what if someone who believes the original request should be respected, accidentally comes into possession of information which would influence ... or at least colour the finished account? Should this person, in the interest of a balanced account, divulge what has been learned? This is assuming that the second person has already argued that the biography was not wanted by its subject, which probably would anyway be well known, and had the objection waved aside.

No matter whether one adopts a deontological or consequentialist account of ethics it is apparent that there exists a moral imperative to prevent genocide. To what extent and to what cost this imperative must motivate our actions is, I suppose, a subject of serious debate, however. But how can we define genocide? Surely we can all agree that the murder of 10,000,000 people constitutes genocide. But what if we subtract one fatality? Still genocide, of course. Minus one more? The same is still true. But at some point that logic fails; when we get down to the death of one, a few, or no people we certainly no longer have a case of genocide on our hands. It seems there is a sorites paradox here. If the number of people killed is ultimately arbitrary, how is the concept of genocide meaningful? Surely we can still find moral value in the deaths of millions (or even in the death of an individual), but it seems the label in itself is ultimately kind of subjective and meaningless.

Richard Holloway, in 'Godless Morality', argues that "ritual practice" is not the same as "ethical principle." As an example, he argues that the practice of refraining from eating pork in Muslim and Jewish religious cultures is not per se an ethical action, merely the instantiation of an ethical principle which is keeping a promise to one's god. Thus, to eat pork, the ethical principle broken would be that of breaking a promise; the eating of pork itself would not be unethical, as the proscription of pork was merely a historical/sociological/anthropological/geographical accidentality. Clearly there are many ways to break a promise, but only one ethical principle for each 'set' of manifestations of it (following Holloway's theory). The above is, at any rate, the way I have tried to explain it to my grade 12 (last year of high school) Philosophy students. Does this explanation hold, and what are the problems with it? (I am presuming it is problematic because, although it appears convincing, I am still...