Recent Responses
Would you consider a 16 year old an adult, i.e. a rational agent who is capable of of making decisions on their own? To what extent can you hold a 16 year old, or similarly aged person, accountable for their actions?
Oliver Leaman
December 25, 2014
(changed December 25, 2014)
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There are plenty of rational and responsible young people and just as many adults who clearly are not capable of making their own decisions. States have to posit an age when certain activities can be legally carried out because they use generalizations about how most people are at those a... Read more
Do people have something like a right to have children? What would be the basis or justification for such a right?
Oliver Leaman
December 25, 2014
(changed December 25, 2014)
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It might be argued that people who want to have children and cannot then fail to live the lives they choose for themselves, and since other things being equal children are generally taken to be a good thing, their efforts should be supported. After all, we are naturally designed to have c... Read more
If a philosopher or any thinking individual thinks an act is moral or not, then should that apply to everyone in the world equally including his own family members? Suppose he thinks performing in pornographic films is not immoral, then should he think any less of his daughter who decides to do so?
Oliver Leaman
December 25, 2014
(changed December 25, 2014)
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Morality is generally taken to be different from subjective taste. If I think something is right then that claim is taken to apply to everyone, whether they know it or otherwise. I may respect those who differ from my opinion, but still think their action is immoral. Whether someone is in... Read more
What would a consequentialist say about acts that have seemingly moral dimensions but no apparent consequences? For instance, it seems wrong to wish for something really bad to happen to someone (e.g. to be hit by a car), but if this wish has no impact on what actually happens, it seems it cannot be wrong due to its consequences.
Oliver Leaman
December 18, 2014
(changed December 18, 2014)
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Well, having bad feelings about other people may not directly impact on them, but it impacts on us, and this has consequences. For example, the more we contemplate their undoing the more we accustom ourselves to think approvingly of others suffering and this might well weaken our disappro... Read more
My reductionist friend argues that rice noodles are not noodles since the very first noodles ever made and the noodles most commonly eaten around the world are made from wheat by definition. That is to say, the term "rice noodles" is an oxymoron, much like "vodka martini" so just how valid is it to argue about features of rice noodles such as length, taste, and texture in order to conclude that noodles made from a different ingredient really are noodles?
Stephen Maitzen
December 18, 2014
(changed December 18, 2014)
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I would question your friend's claim that "the very first noodles ever made and the noodles most commonly eaten around the world are made from wheat by definition." I don't see the justification for the final two words in that claim. Even if the first noodles happen to have been made fr... Read more
I'm a first year philosophy student and I really don't understand what it means when philosophers present the three usual normative ethics of Aristotelian, utilitarianism, and deontology. If all three are equally valid, then that would seem to imply that there are no moral truths and utilitarianism wins out. If there are moral truths, then it would seem deontology takes precedent. But if all three are not equally valid and there are not moral truths, does Aristotelian ethics win out by virtue of elimination? If so why bother teaching the other two?
Allen Stairs
December 11, 2014
(changed December 11, 2014)
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Philosophical accounts of ethics (e.g., utilitarianism) are theoretical proposals. They are attempts to sum up right and wrong in tidy formulations. It might be that utilitarianism captures right and wrong perfectly, but this is controversial. It might be that the Categorical Imperative do... Read more
Is there any way to prove that you are telling the truth when it seems false to others?
Allen Stairs
December 9, 2014
(changed December 9, 2014)
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My answer is bound to disappoint, but here goes anyway.The obvious options for proving that I'm telling the truth are 1) to give reasons for thinking what I say is actually true, 2) to give reasons for thinking that I'm honest and 3) to give people a basis for doubting their own reasons for... Read more
I'm developing a rebuttal to Biblical literalists and I'd like to know whether the following is a recognized/named type of syllogism or other type of argument (and if so, what it's called): Verse X prophesied that <whatever> would happen <whatever> happened in verse Y Therefore, the prophecy was fulfilled (If this is not a recognized/named type of syllogism or other type of argument, could it be made so by adding one or two lines?)
Charles Taliaferro
December 7, 2014
(changed December 7, 2014)
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This is still a little confusing to me, but I take it that you may be looking for the term:Vaticinium ex eventuThis occurs when a writer (whether Biblical or not) offers a prophecy that some event will occur when (it is assumed) that the writer already knows the event has taken place.... Read more
How convivial are modern day philosophers towards other philosophers who have differing views? Is academia totally free of ad hominem attacks and focused on debate?
Charles Taliaferro
December 7, 2014
(changed December 7, 2014)
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Good question. At our best, there is conviviality between persons across different philosophical viewpoints. In fact, for many (but hardly all) of us we are invested positively in the welfare of those with whom we disagree. I myself oppose probably as much as 80% of what the philoso... Read more
There has been much made of Hawking and Harris using brain scans to demonstrate a deterministic explanation of "free will". My question is, how do they treat a case where I think about moving my arm, but don't? How can the experiment they site test thoughts, subjective experience, etc. which do not lead to any outward physical effects? Must we accept that for all cases of mental phenomena that the brain scan test constitutes a proof?
Stephen Maitzen
December 5, 2014
(changed December 5, 2014)
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Must we accept that for all cases of mental phenomena ... the brain scan test constitutes a proof?
I think the important philosophical question here is "A proof of what?" Suppose that science did somehow establish that all of our choices are causally determined by our earlier brain states... Read more