Hi! I was looking at images from Abu Ghraib today, and I was wondering -- is there any sense to thinking that the mere act of looking at the prisoners is wrong, or even in some way harms them? Many of the prisoners are not identifiable from the photos, so I'm not sure that my worry is about reputational damage. The same might apply to other sorts of images, and even text. For instance: "Fapgate", where nude images of celebrities were distributed without their consent. Or what about if I find a person's diary on a train and read it? Is there any sense to the feeling that I am violating someone, though that person and I will always be strangers to each other? To add one more twist: what if the author of the diary, or a prisoner depicted in one of the photos, is now dead? Can I still be said to harm them?

People often die in car accidents due to their own negligence or incompetence. For example, a cyclist may be fatally struck by a car as a result of failing to stop at a red light. In cases like this, I have often seen observers express the following sentiment: "The cyclist should be denounced. He was the one at fault, and because of his failure the driver must live with the burden of having killed someone. If anything, it was the driver who was wronged by the cyclist, even though the former killed the latter." This seems to me puzzling attitude, and I was wondering if the panel had anything to say about it.

After my mother's sister was diagnosed with cancer, all of the siblings were urged to be genetically tested for the cancer-causing gene. Sadly, my mother possesses that gene. She urged my siblings and me to be tested as well; however, due to personal convictions and leanings towards absurdism and fatalism, I don't think I want to be tested. My sisters' reply to this range from acceptance to curiosity to anger. Should I be tested and make them happy or accept that whatever is going to happen will happen?

When a human kills an animal for food, the human does not pay for the crime of killing that animal. But when a human kills another human; there is are arrests, forensic investigations, court drama, imprisonment, and even death penalty. What makes mankind so important and animals so disposable? Why are animals denied from justice? Why does a human feels the need to bleed an animal for food when he/she can survive on plants? For the religious lot: In the eyes of God, all beings are equals. He loves each one of them equally. So by this logic, he cherishes each life equally. For God, a human who has killed seven innocent humans is as guilty as a human child who has killed seven birds for thrill. Then why are crimes against animals not the same as crimes against humans?

I'd like to ask about the morality of homewrecking: if two people, say B and J, are married, is there anything wrong with a third person, A, actively pursuing B? It seems to me that A could say: it takes two to tango; everyone has a right to maximise their happiness; one should respect B's autonomy; and I'm not responsible for the consequences of B's actions. J could reply: but you cause foreseeable suffering by your actions. To which A could respond: I think autonomy and the morality of what actions are permitted should trump the morality of thinking about consequences, but even when applying the morality of consequences: if B stays, then both he and I will be unhappy; if B goes, then it is only you who are unhappy. What do you think? Is homewrecking clearly morally wrong?

Are feelings/emotions susceptible to moral judgment? For example, can a person be blamed for merely feeling in a certain way, without acting on it?

John needs money to buy the farm he has always dreamed of. If his aunt dies this week, John will inherit the needed money from her, although John does not know that. He does not like his aunt very much. Miles away, his aunt is stuck in her home, which is in flames. Mary breaks into the house and saves the aunt, who would have died otherwise. My question is: did Mary (unknowingly) harm John? (I am a lawyer.)

How do we know that some beings have a status as 'persons' and some beings do not? If we attempt to delineate certain characteristics of personhood, we run into the quandary of, say, labelling the mentally ill as non-persons or labelling cancer cells as persons. Is this a problem? Is there a way to avoid this? Must we have the rights which personhood entails in the first place?

Pre-reflexively, I find myself of the intuition that many matters in life simply fall outside the scope of moral concern, even if we can subject them to moral reasoning. For example, there doesn't seem to be any moral question to be had about the simple act of buying a cup of coffee in the morning, even if that money spent could've been donated to charity instead. On reflection of the particulars, some moral considerations might come to bear on that purchase or on a habit of purchases, but, ceteris paribus, morality just doesn't seem to bear on the mere act of buying coffee. Even describing the act as "morally permissible" sounds a little strange, as if permission were needed in the first place. Moral reasoning seems simply out of place here. My sense is that while some normative ethical theories (e.g., Kantianism) are relatively hospitable to this intuition, utilitarianism cannot be, at least in its traditional forms. After all, the utilitarian calculus can easily be applied to just about any human...

It is said that one should put others before oneself, but isn't this impossible? Consider two people, Mr A and Miss B. If A succeeds in putting B before himself, B can't put A before herself. Hasn't B been forced into being selfcentred by A?