Emily asked:

Looking at all of the various questions on this site is quite dizzying. Though I find philosophy to be an interesting and worthwhile subject, I can't seem to understand why or how people can ponder such unsettling questions. Sure thinking about these questions takes no small mind and is quite intellectually stimulating, but when you consider the subjectiveness and ambiguity of everything involved in philosophy, doesn't it seem a little wasteful? Anyways, the questions that I really wanted to ask, (which I am afraid to ask my philosophy teacher) is, what is your response to this quote by Karl Marx?:

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point, however, is to change it.

I'm only a graduate student, but I could imagine spending my working life doing philosophy, so the question you ask is a pressing one for me. I don't have an answer, but the Marx quote you mention indicates where I'm looking. You have to ask, change what? Interpretation and bringing about change shouldn't be two separate things. But how to put that into practice...

Steve Butterfill
University of Oxford

What is wasted? And what makes efficiency a supreme edict? Surely many forms of "culture" can be regarded as superfluous, but often superfluity and abundance seem desirable.

Moreover, the fact that there are subjective elements in philosophy doesn't mean that is it merely subjective. There is a subjective aspect to running 100 metres in 9.8 seconds; but this doesn't detract from the achievement.

Karl Marx says that's the point of philosophy. Maybe he's wrong. Why not think of philosophy as a way of changing yourself, and the way the world seems to you, and then deciding whether or not you think there's more to be changed.

Andrew Inkpin
Friedrich Schiller University
Jena, Germany

(A) Not everything in philosophy is subjective and ambiguous. Some is, some isn't. To find out which is which, you have to pursue the issues! And by the way, what counts as "wasteful"? That's a philosophical question, and if you naively assume that you know the answer . . . is it wasteful to ponder what is worth doing in life, and why? What if you assume that the answer is "just subjective," but you're wrong? Think (that is, philosophize) about it!

(B) A philosopher's answer to Marx: "the point of philosophy is to understand the world, not to change it." If you wish to enter the political area and try to change the world, it is advisable that you first understand it! Which will probably take a while. And then figure out which changes would be good, and which bad, and which means are more likely to result in changes for the better instead of for the worse. In fairness to Marx, he did (perhaps contrary to what that isolated quote suggests) spend a good long time trying to understand the world. (Maybe not long enough, since it now looks like he misjudged a thing or two.) And only then did he try to change it, or at least he (in the Communist Manifesto) tried to inspire others to change it, which a good many — Lenin, Stalin, Mao, et al. — (for better or for worse??) did.

Frank Williams
Philosophy and Religion Department
Eastern Kentucky University

The point of what? Of doing philosophy? Of life generally?

The world is certainly imperfect and it is, I believe, our duty to work to change it for the better. However unless we make some headway in "interpreting" it we are not going to be in a very good position to understand how it ought to be changed or how to work effectively for change.

Moreover, as I understand it the goal of change is to free people from the necessity of spending all their time scraping to get the necessities for survival, to minimize drudgery, and to give more people the opportunity to spend more time enjoying themselves by engaging in "wasteful" but pleasurable activities--like doing philosophy.

Harriet Baber
Department of Philosophy
University of San Diego

We expect politicians to change the world, and perhaps Marx was more of a politician. Philosophers are not as interested in economic and social change as they are in truth, personal identity, the concepts of morality, the nature of language, of mind and its relation to body — and I could go on. I don't think this is "wasteful" because I wouldn't like to live in a world where such thinking didn't go on. It's not any worse than literary criticism, art history or film theory. What if economic and social change were the only things we could think about?

Why should philosophers try — or even want — to change things? Philosophy has no social, scientific or political obligation.

Of course, it is "intellectually stimulating", but if you have a very dry sense of humour, it can be funny too.

Rachel Browne

Giselle asked:

What is empiricism?

It ’s about time this question was asked. There is no empirical answer to the question, what is empiricism? That is a good thing. If there were we could find the answer by weighing or measuring something or by performing an experiment or solving an equation. But we can't. We could always go to a dictionary or to an encyclopedia but that would be easier than asking a philosopher.

Take stuff. For an empiricist, stuff is the sort of stuff you can kick or bite or taste or smell or see 'that sort of thing' and the world is mostly made of it. Or appears to be. Other sorts of stuff, meanings, beliefs, intentions you cannot really do that with. And there is another kind of stuff, even more remote than meanings and beliefs, etc., that you cannot bite or kick either and this is made up of things-in-themselves (ultimately real things, where our questions stop). Kant called these noumena and contrasted them with phenomena which we are able to rub up against or which manifest themselves directly through our sensory mechanisms.

If you try to see beyond the surface of a thing (by scraping the paint off, for example) you just run up against another surface, this time unpainted, which also refracts light which impinges on your retinas, optic nerve, cortex, and much more, but ’t doesn't get you any closer to the real stuff, because the light refracted by the paint did the very same thing and you are no farther along. The real stuff cannot be got at by scraping the paint or peeling the banana. So you might as well have stopped there unless you want to eat the banana. Then it should be peeled.

Plato thought this was a bad thing. He derided sense experience as providing us with only bad copies of real stuff, the Platonic forms or eide. These you can't see or bite, etc. They are unchanging and timeless. Mere stuff, stuff in the world, depends on them. The world is constructed top down. In empiricism it is constructed bottom up, starting with sense data, or sense experience, and ending, perhaps, in abstract concepts, such as humanity, by a route that has yet to be convincingly explained.

Paul Trevor

Georgina asked:

I was wondering if you could help me with my homework. I need to find the quote written by Confucius, I am not sure of the exact wording but it I think that it starts with "Friends from afar...". The quote implies that long distance friends are the best friends that you can have.

Please, please help me and tell me the exact wording of this quote. Thank you for your time.

A very quick search of the web has yielded these translations of the Confucius quote:

"How can I not be happy when there are friends come from afar?"

"What a great joy to receive friends from afar."

"I feel very happy when I have friends coming from afar."

"It's a greater joy to receive friends from afar."

"Isn't it a pleasure to have friends coming from afar?"

"When friends come from afar, is it not indeed a pleasure?"

"We are only overjoyed to receive friends from afar."

Robert Martin
Philosophy Department
Dalhousie University>
Halifax, Canada

I can answer Georgina's question. She is evidently thinking of Confucius Analects I/i which contains the saying that translates roughly:

"Is it not delightful when friends visit from distant places?"

David asked:

How was Immanuel Kant exactly outlived? NOT by whom, but rather why and how...Thanks.

1. Kant saw the categories (cause and effect, space and time, quality and quantity etc.) as either objective or subjective. He said the categories belonged to the spontaneity of our thought. They were not objective. Therefore they were subjective. But Kant called them objective because they were universal and necessary. The subjective is the merely felt, he thought. "Thoughts, according to Kant, although universal and necessary categories, are only our thoughts, separated by an impassable gulf from the thing, as it exists apart from our knowledge" (Hegel, Logic 41). The problem with Kant was that he reduced ontology (the question of being) to epistemology. "The world of sense is a scene of mutual exclusion: its being is outside of itself" (Hegel, Logic 42).

2. "Fichte called attention to the need for exhibiting the necessity of these categories and giving a genuine deduction of them" (Hegel, Logic 42). If the categories are specialized 'forms' of the 'I', how do we get at them?

3. Given this reductio, for Kant, the ego becomes an absolute. "The 'I' is as it were the crucible and fire which consumes the loose plurality of sense and reduces it to unity" (Hegel, Logic 42). This is what Kant calls "pure apperception", the process by which disparate things become 'mine'. This 'unity' is a category too. But the absolute ego is at odds with the natural mind and our everyday sense of "out there". "Though the categories, such as unity, or cause and effect, are strictly the property of thought, it by no means follows that they must be our merely and not also characteristics of the objects." The absolute ego needs to be deconstructed by ontology. Hegel performs this deconstruction in the Logic on the Kantian 'soul', on the antinomies' and on the existence of the divine.

(a) In each case Hegel agrees with Kant to a certain extent. Kant is right that the old fashioned idea of the soul-substance confused experiential fact with intellectual formulation of them (paralogism). But that does not put pay to the soul idea, Hegel goes on, it merely shows that "this style of abstract terms is not good enough for the soul, which is very much more...".

(b) Hegel says yes to the antinomies. But goes on to say that it is ridiculous to limit their number to the special cases enumerated by Kant. Antinomies abound "in all objects of every kind, in all conceptions, notions and ideas".

(c)The divine or God. The point here is that while Hegel says yes to Kant' s idea of the transcendental, he argues that this does not make the transcendent merely transcendental. The 'rising' if thought is its transcendent quality — or in ancient terms, its capacity for ecstasy, to 'stand outside itself.' This is what Hegel argues, except not in terms of ancient metaphysics. "The rise of thought beyond the world of sense, its passage from the finite to the infinite, the leap into the super-sensible which it takes when it snaps asunder the chain of sense, all this transition is thought and nothing but thought." This talent for "exaltation" is what makes us more than just animals. The ontology of Dasein starts here.

4. In this way, Hegel tries to redress the balance and antinomy which must exist between ontology and epistemology, but without reverting to traditional metaphysical thinking, which takes its oppositions very literalistically as 'real'. "Phenomena [are so] not for us only, but in their own nature" (Hegel Logic 45).

Adam asked:

Can you give me a thumbnail version of Kripke's interpretation of the Private Language Argument? What is Wittgenstein's skeptical conclusion? Is Kripke on to something important about Wittgenstein?

Kripke claims that Wittgenstein's skeptical conclusion, following from Paras 201—202 of Philosophical Investigations is that nobody can ever be proven to follow a given rule, since what has so far looked like following that rule can evolve into irregularity.

For example, someone who has used a '+' sign the way it's normally used can suddenly start using it the way the '-' sign is normally used, and claim that he was following a rule according to which the meaning of the '+' sign is first normal, but then changes at a given point in time.

Kripke is not on to anything important about Wittgenstein, since he ignores Wittgenstein's key point that following a rule is typically something that happens among a community of people, and a community of people provides a standard of what it means to follow a given rule that is independent of any one person. It's generally accepted that Wittgenstein is actually fighting the position Kripke takes him to be arguing for.

T.P. Uschanov
University of Helsinki

Jeff asked:

Why does aesthetics receive so little treatment by modern philosophers? So much of life's pleasure and meaning derive from ideas of beauty. Even computer programmers and mathematicians use aesthetic terms like "elegant" and "pretty" to describe their work. Aesthetic arguments pervade discussions about environmentalism. Why is something so fundamental, so ignored?

It's at least partly because aesthetics has become a separate academic subject during the past fifty years. It's no longer conceived as a part of philosophy in the sense in which logic, ethics, theory of knowledge, etc., are conceived. It is mainly the separate profession of aestheticians who take aesthetics seriously nowadays, not philosophers. (Which is a pity, in my opinion.)

T.P.Uschanov
University of Helsinki

It seems to me that you are concerned that in the world today we are giving aesthetic value to objects which we feel should not have such value, but there isn't any real shift in objects taken to be beautiful.

A term such as "elegant" is applied appropriately within the parameters of the concept. For instance, elegance implies some dignity and may be applied to Doric pillars but not sheds. To use an evaluative term of a computer or a mathematical formula is to claim that it has aesthetic features, but this is not to claim it is a work of art. While there is a sense in which I can see that my computer can be seen as elegant this is only comparatively with big cumbersome computers of the past. There is no sense in which I would claim it was beautiful or a work of art.

The institutional theory of what a work of art is would, however, allow that a computer can be a work of art. Duchamps' Urinal and Tracey Emin's Bed have become works of art simply by being admitted to galleries. But to display something in a gallery cannot make it beautiful, or even pretty or elegant. These problems are not ignored by philosophers and aesthetics is still studied in philosophy departments, at least in the University of London.

Rachel Browne

Jim asked:

If, as many claim, we are not free, where do you suppose we even get the idea of "freedom" from? (I asked a former philosophy teacher this, and he just said he didn't know.)

This is a harder question than it looks. When asked by a philosopher, "What makes you think you have free will?", we are tempted to stage a demonstration: "See? I moved my arm. No-one made me do it. I did it all by myself!"

Let's look at this. First, it's not clear what is meant by 'the idea of freedom'. You could be asking, Why is it that we believe that we have free will? Or you could be asking, Why is it that when we act it appears to us that we have free will? On the face of it, those are two different questions.

When someone makes a claim about the way things appear, one has to ask, How would things appear otherwise? Consider the following thought experiment. Alice is looking at her reflection in the looking glass.

"Did you know," we say to Alice, "that there is really another world on the other side of the glass, where everything is topsy-turvy and back to front?"

"No, really? Can I go through?"

"Just try. Push the glass as hard as you can."

"When I push, Alice in the Looking Glass world pushes just as hard against me!"

"Exactly. But have you thought of this. When moved your hand, it was because Looking Glass Alice moved her hand. When you had the thought, 'I'll try to move my hand,' it was because Looking Glass Alice had the thought, 'I'll try to move my hand'."

"I don't believe you! You've got it all wrong! When I move my hand, that causes Alice in the Looking Glass world to move her hand. When I have the thought, 'I'll try to move my hand' that causes Alice in the Looking Glass world to have the thought, 'I'll try to move my hand'...."

We know what to say to Alice:

"How would it appear to you if Looking Glass Alice's actions were the cause of your actions, or if Looking Glass Alice's thoughts were the cause of your thoughts?"

There is no answer to that, because there is no difference in the appearances. In other words, it does not appear to us that we have free will. But surely, even if it does not appear to us that we have free will, we believe that we have free will?

If I believe that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden, then even if it is part of my belief that the fairies will never appear — let's say that they are invisible fairies — then at any rate I must be able to point to something in the world that would not have been there, had there not been any fairies. (Say, the fairies help with little gardening chores, deftly picking out weeds, protecting the roses from green fly.)

But there is nothing in the world that I can point to, that would be different, depending on whether or not I had free will. That is the force of the classic, Humean dilemma posed by opponents of free will: 'If determinism holds, then your actions are not free because they are determined. If determinism fails to hold, then your actions are not free because they are not determined.' In the light of this, one doesn't know what it would mean to say that we believe that we have free will.

That's not the end of the argument. But I would venture the speculation that if we could give a coherent account of 'where the idea of free will comes from', that would go a long way towards resisting the classical argument against freedom of the will.

Geoffrey Klempner

Tania asked:

I am asking this question in regard to the complex idea of nothingness. If I have nothing, do I still have something? What is nothingness?

Nobody is my friend. And I saw nobody in the street. Does this mean that I saw my friend in the street? Of course it doesn't.

We use the word 'nothing', on the surface, in the same way we use words for objects. (I might saw that I have money in my pocket, or that I have nothing in my pocket.) And this is the start of the confusion. But rather than being the name of a particularly 'complex' something, it means the absence of something. To say that there is nothing in my pocket is to say that I don't have any objects in my pocket. To say that I have nothing is to say that there exist no objects which it would be true to say that I have.

Will Greenwood

Adam asked:

I read that there are two ways of trying to deal with skepticism — to prove it false or to refute the reasoning leading to it. What would be examples of each and which is the best strategy for dealing with skeptical arguments?

The situation is a little more complicated than that.

One kind of sceptical move considers the class of statements which are taken to provide evidence for a claim, and argues that no statement from that class or set of statements, however large, is capable of supporting that claim. An example would be the claim that there exists a world of objects outside us, which is taken to be supported by the evidence of our senses. In his first Meditation, Descartes argues that it is consistent with all the experiences I have enjoyed up to the present moment in time, that there is no world of objects outside me, and that I am merely being fooled by an Evil Demon into thinking that an external world exists.

Another, more subtle, kind of sceptical move takes the kinds of everyday things we take ourselves to know and points out that we would withdraw our claim to knowledge if we were asked questions that we had not previously considered. For example, I would declare without hesitation that I know that Tony Blair is Prime Minister of England. But if I were asked, 'Do you know that Tony Blair has not resigned in the last hour?' I would have to answer, No. I haven't been listening to the News, so obviously I cannot say whether, during the last hour, he has resigned or not. In that case, I cannot say that I know that Tony Blair is Prime Minister. If we try to restrict our knowledge claims to take account of such questions, we find that we are able to claim less and less. If I don't' know everything — if I can't rule out the various possibilities that would undermine the knowledge claims that I would normally make, then I don't, in fact, know anything.

Descartes solution to scepticism with regard to an external world — the first kind of scepticism — was famously to argue for the existence of a God who is not a deceiver. That is your first alternative: a proof that scepticism with regard to an external world is false. It is false because I do know that an external world exists. I know this because I can prove that God exists, a God would not allow me to be deceived into believing in the existence of an external world, if there did not in fact exist an external world.

Your alternative, of 'refuting the reasoning that leads to scepticism' splits up into two different strategies. If we stick with the external world, one strategy would be to argue dialectically that if we did not have knowledge of an external world, in which we were one object — one conscious subject — amongst others, then we could not have knowledge of our own experiences. This is the basic structure of Kant's 'Refutation of Idealism' and also Wittgenstein's argument against a 'private language'. (Following Kant, these are sometimes called 'transcendental arguments'.) However, it is always open to the sceptic to accept the suicidal conclusion that I don't have any knowledge even of my own experiences, or of my own existence as a subject of experience.

The second strategy would be the kind of move that Berkeley makes with regard to belief in an external world. It is this kind of move that Kripke in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language calls a 'sceptical solution to a sceptical challenge.' (Kripke gives the example of Hume on causation.) Berkeley effectively concedes Descartes' Evil Demon hypothesis, but argues that all we can possibly mean when we make statements about objects in the world is that we have certain kinds of experiences. There is nothing to be sceptical about. — However, agreeing with the sceptic is a pretty desperate strategy.

Which of the three alternatives is the best way to resist scepticism concerning an external world? Take your pick.

It is what I called the 'second, more subtle sceptical move' that makes us begin to realize how elastic is our concept of knowledge. Sometimes it seems right to say you know, or that she knows, and sometimes it doesn't. Cases shade into one another. Sometimes, you kind-of know. It is because the concept of knowledge is so difficult to pin down, so elastic, that 'the problem of scepticism' figures quite low down on the list of major philosophical problems, and also why it is so hard to get students to take it seriously.

Geoffrey Klempner

Amy asked:

I have to devise a question and answer it on the European union and its legal-philosophical foundations, along the lines of the basis of European law and the role of the nation state. Any help on a possible focus would be great.

The general aims of the EU set out in the EC Treaty are to establish a common market and economic and monetary union and a "convergence of economic performance, a high level of employment and of social protection, the raising of the standard of living and quality of life, and economic and social cohesion and solidarity among member states." The Treaty also commits member states to "lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe" by "pooling their resources to preserve and strengthen peace and liberty".

You could formulate a question along the lines of how the idea of the solidarity of the EU can be maintained along with the recognised sovereignty of each member state.

Each member state is a sovereign entity insofar as it should have freedom to choose whether to implement policies. The Government of each state is answerable to the people of the state and its sovereignty lies in its constitution which in the UK is the Houses of Parliament. The Houses of Parliament have the power to enact and repeal any Act even if this is contrary to European policy. The very notion of the sovereignty of the state is challenged by the idea of European Union and yet each State retains its individual constitutional powers. There is a basic incompatibility between freedom and union.

At the level of Community decision making the freedom of each member state is compromised in several ways. For instance, the EC Treaty allowed the creation of autonomous bodies able to develop policies independently of member states. The European Court of Justice stands as a higher court of appeal which can make pronouncements upon national law. The Maastricht Treaty allowed that the European Community could act beyond its powers relating to free movement of goods, persons and services where a proposed action "cannot be sufficiently achieved by the member states". There is also the issue of "qualified majority voting" whereby each state carries a different number of votes which means large states can outvote small states. The first three points are ways in which the freedom of member states is challenged, and the final point challenges "solidarity".

Rachel Browne

Magdalena asked:

I have to write an essay for my philosophy class and I would like to receive some input. It is as follows: As far as the Platonic Socrates is concerned, it is often alleged that the views he expresses in the Crito on a citizen's obligation to obey the law are in conflict with the defiant stand to Athenian law/court he takes in the Apology. Do you agree/disagree with this view?

Now, I don't agree with some aspects and agree with others. I don't agree that Socrates does not obey the laws of Athens. He is expressing his views and not forcing anyone to follow him (as to corrupting the youth). I do however believe that the laws are not very well defined and Socrates understands that and believes in taking responsibility for his actions (that is what he states in the Crito).

I would appreciate help to better understand the position of Socrates.

In the Apology, Socrates is defiant as anyone would be, who was convinced of their innocence. In his own eyes, he has done nothing wrong. If, according to the laws of Athens, he has committed any crime, then the laws are wrong — or at least, as you say, badly formulated. In fact, the charges raised against him by his accusers are lies. In pursuing his vocation as a philosopher, he has created enemies, who have sought to destroy him by bringing this false charge. Finally, after the Guilty verdict has been pronounced, Socrates turns on his accusers, asserting that they, and the Athenian Court, in convicting him, have committed a great wrong.

In the Crito Socrates, in prison awaiting his execution, is offered the chance to escape, but turns it down, arguing that such an action would 'harm the Laws of Athens'. Why should he care? The verdict of the court was unjust, he does not deserve to die. His answer is very simple. The fact that a wrong has been done to him does not make the action of escaping justice right. This is readily understandable, in the light of the principle which Socrates lived by: 'It is worse to do wrong than to suffer it.'

Geoffrey Klempner

Holly asked:

Hi my name is Holly. Usually when I have written to various people with this question none of them ever reply so I am hoping that you might. I am doing a project for school that is due very soon and I am desperate to find an answer! Can people survive without eating meat? If they can, what do they eat instead of meat to get all of their protein?

People can certainly survive without eating meat. Meat eating was only connected to survival in the early days of mankind before he had developed skills for growing things like wheat and vegetables. Now it is not necessary and doesn't have much nutritional value since protein is found in other foods such as eggs, cheese and nuts. In any case, carbohydrates (bread/potatoes/rice) and vegetables are sufficient for survival. The reason people eat meat now is that they like it, or it is easily available.

For your project, you could look at religions which forbid the eating of meat, as well as national foods which don't involve meat such as rice and pulses in India and fish in Japan.

Rachel Browne

Sam asked:

I would like to know how relevant is the Stoic approach to life, in the world today?

The Stoic approach to life is as relevant as it ever was. Early Stoics took virtues such as endurance, self-reliance and simple habits as duties by which man can overcome pain. This is difficult to live by because it doesn't take account of man's emotional nature and his frailty.

The later Stoic, Seneca, accepted human frailty and if you read his letters you will find them dense with words of wisdom on death, pain and sickness, friendship and pleasure. He didn't preach fortitude but saw philosophy as a way of consolation and his letters are full of advice. An example is that you will suffer personal pain if you live only for yourself, but if you live for others and their friendship you will not have personal setbacks. On death and the loss of friends he says "Thinking of departed friends is to me something sweet and mellow. For when I had them with me it was with the feeling that I was going to lose them and now that I have lost them I keep the feeling that I have them with me still".

Philosophy as wisdom and consolation doesn't have a place in philosophy today, and Seneca wouldn't like analytical philosophy. He thought logic was "childish fatuity" and wrote scornfully that "one is led to believe that unless one has constructed syllogisms of the craftiest kind and reduced fallacies to a compact form in which a false conclusion is derived from a true premise one will not be in a position to distinguish what one should aim for and what one should avoid."

Rachel Browne

A.V. Ravishankar asked:

Why are philosophers interested in problems related to counterfactual conditionals? How can we formalize counterfactual reasoning?

A counterfactual is formalised as a conditional. The main issue raised by counterfactuals are connected to the problem that a counterfactual conditional is contrary to fact.

Counterfactuals pose a difficulty for referential theories of meaning which hold that to understand a statement is to grasp conditions under which a statement is true by virtue of a determinate state of affairs.

Take the common example "If Oswald hadn't killed Kennedy, someone else would have". For the counterfactual to be true some supporting assumption needs to be made, such as Oswald's being party to a conspiracy so he was not acting alone. It is also possible that some other state of affairs might make the counterfactual true, such as Kennedy being such a lousy person that anyone would want to kill him.

The theory of possible worlds offers an answer to this problem even though the nature of possible worlds is controversial. One possible world approach, that of David Lewis in his book Counterfactuals, has it that because truth is determinate and we suppose a counterfactual refers to ways in which the actual world could be different, then the truth of a counterfactual depends on how things stand in possible worlds 'closest' or most 'similar' to the actual world. The problem is that this has the immediate consequence that if in this world Kennedy was killed, then the most similar possible world in which Oswald didn't kill him is the world where someone else did.

Rachel Browne

Lindsay asked:

It seems to me that philosophy is just a bunch of bull. I don't see why someone would want to study questions when you know you will never get any answers. It doesn't make sense to me, so my question is:

What is the point of philosophy?

I can't speak for all of my colleagues, but I am in it for the answers. Obviously, that means I dispute your claim that I know I will never get the answers. Most philosophical questions are very hard, and I don't expect 100 per cent agreement among all philosophers, but I see no reason to think that the questions are not answerable.

I'll add that even if I don't get to the right answers, I think that there is considerable value in the effort itself. However, if, like you, I was sure that I would never get answers, I would quit.

Scott R. Sehon
Dept of Philosophy
Bowdoin College
Brunswick, Minnesota

I suppose Lindsay means something like "definitive, clear, obviously true answers," because in philosophy (as in most other fields) you get plenty of answers to the questions. The problem (as in most other fields) is finding which answers are the best ones. What distinguishes philosophy from many other areas of inquiry is that in philosophy it quickly becomes obvious that there are conflicting answers and there is no easy way to ascertain which ones are the best ones. That's also true of most other fields but in those other fields you usually don't realize it until you get into advanced studies, which most people never do.

The (well, at least a main) point of philosophy is to find (not to "get," as if some authority is going to provide them for you) the best answers to the questions. And (as in any other field) if you're not interested in the questions, you probably won't be very interested in seeking the best answers.

Frank Williams
Philosophy and Religion Department
Eastern Kentucky University

Nick asked:

I have and essay to write for my theory of knowledge lesson and I am having some difficulties, so I would like to ask your help for some ideas, or an example. The topic is: Do we have to think scientifically in order to find the truth?

This is an excellent question.

When are we thinking scientifically? You don't have to put on a white coat. We are thinking scientifically whenever we break down a problem into its components; whenever we do a systematic survey of, or search for evidence; whenever we put forward possible solutions or explanations and test them.

In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig gives an account — totally convincing to someone like me who has never brought a screwdriver near a car or motorcycle or TV set — that the only reliable way of solving problems with your bike is the scientific way, using reason and logical analysis. Sure, sometimes the problem sorts itself out with a good thump (it works for my TV, anyway). But it's not a reliable way. You can do more harm than good. And even if you do good, you'll never know the truth about that bad connection or loose wire or whatever it was that caused the problem. The second time around, thumping might not work so well.

The way of science increases your chances of finding the truth. It also gives you a more reliable way of checking whether or not the thing you have found really is the truth it purports to be.

As readers of his book will know, Pirsig argues that the scientific approach is not enough if you have the wrong attitudes, if you are not on the Quality track. You will never be a good mechanic if you ears are deaf to subtle differences in the sound that the engine makes, or if you have no feel for the right force to apply when screwing a nut. However, our question was not about whether thinking scientifically is sufficient on its own, but whether it is necessary. Are there any cases where the best way to get to the truth is to abandon the scientific approach?

You are a teacher who has begun to suspect that a child is being bullied at school. You want to get to 'the truth' of the matter. You can adopt the scientific methods of the detective: Interview all the children concerned, cross check their stories, speak to the parents, look at past school reports. Then you can put forward your 'hypothesis'. But you could still be wrong. In a court of law, the evidence would not be sufficient to secure a conviction. The only reliable method is to secure the confidence of those involved, and get them to talk. In other words, the route to truth is through personal relationship, the meeting of I and thou.

For those who believe that there are truths revealed in religion, it will of course be no surprise that not all truths are revealed by science. What is interesting is the close similarity between the kinds of thing theologians say when they are talking about faith and what I have just said about the I-thou relationship.

The best thing to read on this is Martin Buber I and Thou, which along with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance should be on every introduction to epistemology reading list.

Geoffrey Klempner

Pam asked:

I am a student at Gateway Community Tech. in New Haven Connecticut. I am taking a course in Methods and Theories. A question I have is stumping me, it is "What is the Pragmatic Approach to Counseling?" I have found some information but am unable to find very much. I am studying William James and C.S. Peirce. Could you help?

At first it would seem there are two answers to this question depending on whether the term is used being used in the lay sense or philosophically/ psychologically. However, they are really one and the same. Philosophically you are in the right area with William James, C.S. Peirce and I would certainly add John Dewey. If one takes Peirce's view of truth as one of experimental knowledge i.e. when one knows how a thing responds to experimental manipulation then one knows the object, then one answer to what is the pragmatic approach to counselling begins to emerge. Namely that if the counsellor has a clear idea of the intervention they are applying and is clear of the effect on the person being counseled, than a pragmatic approach to counselling could be said to be in operation.

I suspect when counsellors talk about a pragmatic approach to counselling this is what they mean, although they would in all probability put it in simpler terms and talk about using interventions that are known to work irrespective of their own theoretical orientation or biases. In this way pragmatic counselling belongs to a broad spectrum of interventions that used to be labeled 'eclectic' and are now termed 'integrative.'

However, it should be noted that Peirce had in mind invariable natural laws in mind when he talked of a pragmatic theory of truth and it is debatable whether this can be strictly applied to counselling the individual.

James was of course more interested in the individual and talked about the distinctively concrete, the individual, the particular and effective as opposed to the abstract, general and inert. Thus, James talks of 'pragmatic meaning' and was subsequently criticized by Russell and Moore for suggesting a thoroughly relativistic approach to truth. This raises a profound question in relation to counselling about where meaning is to be located. Does it belong to the privileged consciousness of the counselee or does it assume at a minimum some level of shared meaning between counsellor and counselee? Such debates tend nowadays to be couched in terms of debates about the relative merits of the hypothetico-deductive position, (Peirce's view) and social constructionism (James' view), with a recognition by philosophers, psychologists and sociologists on the way in which meaning is socially constructed. Social construction is viewed as occurring through the panoply of social and cultural forces and the discourses that are used both to support and challenge this. Moreover, within some conceptualizations, discourses are seen as constituting this socially constructed self.

The hypothetico-deductive method and social constructionism offer two very different and opposing views of the world. There is a middle ground however, provided by those who adopt a 'critical realist' position. Taking their cue from Kant, 'critical realists' acknowledge the material reality of the world (the realist view) but argue that our knowledge of it is always mediated by individual and social processes, e,g, the counseling process itself.

It may also be helpful to consider the difference between pragmatism and the pragmatist. The former is suggestive of a theoretical/philosophical model, the latter of the activity, without necessarily a well worked out theory behind it. A. O. Lovejoy examines this distinction in an essay entitled 'Pragmatism Versus the Pragmatist' in the Thirteen Pragmatisms and Other Essays.

Dr Robert Hill
South London and Maudsley
National Health Service Trust

Aaron asked:

I have a question concerning the role of religion in modern thought. I am having trouble understanding the stance of Jacques Derrida on religion but more importantly, how his stance compared to the treatment 'religion' got in modern academic thought during and just prior to the publication of his work.

All the lefty academics of universities in America and Britain right up to the time of Gorbychev and the Fall of the Berlin Wall, thought of religion as basically a lack of 'consciousness'. With the collapse of Communism and Socialism as intellectual fashions the brown leather jacketed brigade were left looking pretty silly. About this time Derrida started getting explicit about religion. Read Gayatri Spivak's influential and paradigmatic Introduction to her translation of Of Grammatology. There she claims how, thanks to Derrida and Deconstruction, any thought which in any way may be regarded as even faintly 'religious' is to be spurned as in need of deconstruction, and once deconstructed is revealed as meaningless anyway.

Derrida rose to prominence in deeply Catholic France. He was a Jew from underprivileged French North Africa. His early thought is influenced by Husserl (another philosophical Jew) and Heidegger (a thinker in the tradition of Hegel who saw philosophy addressing the same Sache as religion, specifically, theology). Derrida's voice in those early works, Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference, The Margins of Philosophy is already distinctively his own; and the whole timbre of his thought is already marked by his mentor Levinas and another Jew from North Africa, Edmond Jabes. Given his background and intellectual context it was natural that Derrida would teach and write about ethics, death and the relation of philosophy to theology sooner or later. Spivak and all that she represents (secularized 'academic discourse' masquerading as philosophy according to the fashion of the day) misinterpreted Derrida and misrepresented him. Derrida did not disturb them in their fools paradise. Wise of him.

Steve asked:

Is Atheism logically untenable?

Given that it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God then is it not untenable and illogical to take an atheistic stance?

Must we keep an open mind about God, even those of us who are sceptical about the grounds for theism?

Let me first give some examples of things I personally do not feel I need to keep an open mind about. You may or may not agree:

I do not need to keep an open mind about whether it is possible for someone to predict events that will happen in my life by observing the movements of the planets and stars, or reading the lines on my palm.

I do not need to keep an open mind about the claims of Scientology.

I do not need to keep an open mind about Hitler's responsibility for the Holocaust.

Isn't it irrational of me to be dogmatic, when there are people who believe in astrology and palmistry, or in Scientology, or in Hitler's innocence? — Just because people believe something — perhaps lots of people — just because the available evidence does not logically rule out the possibility that their belief is true, is not in itself sufficient reason for suspending judgement. My argument is if you allowed that such considerations were sufficient for suspending judgement, "just think what the consequences would be".

As someone who in his youth proudly professed Atheism, I would argue that theistic belief does not (as I once thought) fall into this category. Beliefs about Astrology, Palmistry, Scientology or Hitler are mundane beliefs, concerning things or events in the world. Theism is an attitude, a stance to the world as a totality.

When it comes to the question of the ultimate ground of our existence, we are all profoundly ignorant. All that is left is the practical decision — the existential choice — whether to live in fear of God. However, existential choice still leaves us with three possibilities: we can choose to embrace theism; we can postpone the choice and profess agnosticism; or we can choose to embrace atheism.

In these terms, I would argue, the atheist option is neither untenable nor illogical. What the atheist has and the agnostic lacks, is something akin to religious faith. For those who find such faith supporting and life enhancing, that is sufficient ground for belief.

Geoffrey Klempner

Brian asked:

I am presently studying a sociology degree at Portsmouth university! I am having several problems with finding relevant material in order to answer a question related to V.N. Voloshinov. I need to analyse his extract on 'What is Language'.

Can you help? Any ideas would be greatly received!

Many thanks for your message. Although we cannot respond directly to individual research queries, we do run a discussion list to which you may want to send your query once you have subscribed, free of charge.

John asked:

A certain philosopher used a device to determine the sex of an unborn child. Who was this person and what device did they use? Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

and Jeff asked:

A philosopher had a theory that determined the best time to conceive a child of a certain sex. Who was the philosopher and what was the device used to determine the proper time to conceive?

Girls are more likely to be conceived than boys when the moon is on the wane according to Aristotle, or at least the Aristotle of 'Aristotle's Masterpiece'.

'Aristotle's Masterpiece' is a sort of handbook to midwifery composed in the late seventeenth century; there is a good discussion of it in Ch. 2 of Roy Porter & Lesley Hall's The Facts of Life (Yale, 1995). It was a popular work for many years, but it has confused and obscure origins: it is unclear when it was written, by whom it was written and even in what language it was written. But we do know that it had little or nothing to do with Aristotle. He might have actually said something along these lines, perhaps in his De Generatione Animalium, but I wouldn't attribute the view to him without further checking.

Andrew Aberdein
Dept of Logic and Metaphysics
University of St Andrews
Fife, Scotland.

St. Augustine, in the City of God, has a discussion of the Roman practice of timing conception to determine the attributes of offspring. He considers the practice, which was linked to astrological beliefs, to be without any factual foundation. However, since the differential motility of male and female sperm means that the timing of intercourse relative to ovulation does have at least a statistical influence on the sex of offspring, such a belief may not be entirely without foundation.

Martha Sherwood
Ecology and Evolution Program
University of Oregon

Jhenifer asked:

Why is it that when people are asked whether they believe that one's response is either determined or a product of one's own free will the majority will lean on the side of determinism, but when those same people are asked if they believe that one should be held totally responsible for everything one does, the majority leans on the side of agreement? Isn't that contradictory, and what might account for this?

One easy fix to the free will problem, which enjoys continued popularity amongst the more hard headed (and generally clean shaven) analytic philosophers is the view that the attribution of responsibility is fully consistent with the belief that our actions are the product of our physical state at the moment of our birth, and all the things we have experienced and that have happened to us since that time. I chose to respond to your letter today, but my choice was already on the cards — barring an inexplicable lapse in the laws of physics — 49 years ago as I lay bawling in my hospital cot, alongside the couple of dozen or so other infants that had been produced by the baby factory that week. What kind of choice is that? And how can I be praised, or blamed, for making it?

Here's how the answer goes:

Rewarding people for actions which we approve of, or punishing people for actions which we disapprove of has a useful function. But reward and punishment do not always work. The promise of a reward is not going to deter the bank clerk from handing over the money when there is a gun pointed at her head. The threat of punishment sadly does not deter the kleptomaniac. Every human action is the effect of prior causes, but not all causes are the same. Only if the cause of an action is an agent's own choice, unconstrained by factors impeding their ability to make a rational choice, are we justified in calling them 'responsible' for that action, and treating them accordingly.

The best refutation of this picture is F.H. Bradley's example (in Ethical Studies 1876, Essay 1) of the master of hounds who gives his dogs a good thrashing before they go out on a hunt, just to show who's boss. If punishment is something that either works or doesn't work, if it is simply a matter of pressing levers to encourage good behaviour, then there would be nothing wrong in 'punishing' an innocent person if we thought it would cause them to behave in the future in the way we wanted them to behave. — What's missing from this picture is the idea that punishment should only be given to those who deserve it. The problem is that if every action we do is the result of causes going back to our birth, then it seems that no punishment (and no reward either) is ever deserved.

You can look for more subtle ways of sorting out suitable cases for praise or punishment. So long as the talk is about selecting from different varieties of 'cause and effect', such moves seem pointless and futile.

The obvious alternative is not much better. If my decision to answer this question today was not determined by my prior states, then it is hard to see why that should deserve praise. To adapt another example from Bradley, say a friend offers to let you use an A-graded essay she wrote two years ago at another College to hand in as your own work. You refuse. She expresses surprise. You respond angrily, 'You should have known me better than that!' Knowing your upright character, she ought to have predicted that you would act in the way that you did.

My response would be to escape this dichotomy altogether by refusing to see the relationship of person to person in cause and effect terms. The human world, the world of persons in relation, is not the world of physics, even though what you and I are ultimately made of is nothing but physical stuff. When we engage with one another as persons we are interacting on an altogether different level, where one talks of reason and justification, right and wrong, freedom and responsibility. To see the world in these terms is part of what it means to be human, to inhabit the human world.

Geoffrey Klempner

Matthew asked:

What are the main differences between what Heidegger and Sartre believe is the most fundamental aspect of human existence? Which is more plausible?

Sartre starts from the experience of man — from the cogito. "Outside the Cartesian cogito all views are only probable." he writes in Existentialism is a Humanism. Sartre's subjectivism means, in his own words, on the one hand "that an individual chooses and makes himself" and on the other hand "that it is impossible for man to transcend human subjectivity." Heidegger starts from the Hegelian and neo-Kantian position that "nothing can be more harmful and unworthy of a philosopher than the vulgar appeal to an experience." (Intro to section 3 of The Science of Logic). Instead, like Hegel, Heidegger starts from logic, or more properly the philosophical logos. (Taking logos philosophically, not literalistically, we find in these two thinkers no reduction of logic to semantics, mechanics and algebra, which reduces philosophy, as Wittgenstein rightly saw, to a game.)

The most fundamental aspect of human existence for Sartre is the cogito, and for Heidegger, Being. Heidegger criticizes the cogito of Descartes. Descartes said "I think therefore I am" as if the one follows from the other, but my 'am-ness' (Being) comes first. I always already "am" to begin with, but the question of what this that I am is, has never been properly raised. Being and Time (1927) attempts a preliminary investigation of the question of Being.

In old fashioned onto-theological terms, Heidegger starts 'from above' and Sartre 'from below'. Sartre says existentialism is a humanism. Heidegger thinks humanism is an ontology which 'forgets' the question of Being (Seinsvergessenheit). As usual in this kind of philosophy, these are not questions or stances which one can look at as 'mere ideas', or from the outside as 'the philosophy of Sartre or Heidegger'. The point, as Heidegger says somewhere else, is not 'is what I am saying plausible?' The point is to follow the movement of the showing.

James asked:

Kant, as I understand him, claims that time does not necessarily exist as a thing independent of the mind, but rather as a property of the mind itself and its way of apprehending the world.

It seems quite obvious to me that for mind to exist, a state of change must first exist. Whether mind is material or spiritual, it must have form of some kind (only the metaphysical nature of the substance of mind seems to be in question as far as the idealism versus materialism, monism versus dualism debate is concerned). Thinking, as a process, requires a continual change in form. If time stopped, the form of the mind would necessarily cease changing, which suggests that mind would cease to exist, or at least all thinking as we know it would cease. Since time seems to be a necessarily pre-existing condition for the existence of mind, it must be more metaphysically fundamental than mind, and also independent of it. Mind exists in time, not the reverse.

For form of any kind to exist, space must exist. For change to occur, time must exist. Mind has form and is continually changing, therefore the existence of mind requires the existence of space and time, and mind is metaphysically less fundamental than space and time.

Does this refute the Kantian view of time? Or am I misunderstanding Kant?

Kant would accept that if time ceased to exist the mind would cease to exist not because time is metaphysically prior, simply because time is a way of apprehending the world. The end of time means the end of mind.

Any changes prior to the existence of mind would occur in the noumenal world of which we have no knowledge. Presumably, in the noumenal world there are conditions for change which we could not understand.

The form of the mind is not spatial. The mind is directed at the world, and space is a way in which we apprehend the world but is possible for the mind to exist without a body that occupies space: A non-spatial being like a ghost could have a mind.

To refute Kant you simply hold that time and space are not ways in which we understand the world but are actually out there, and this is proven by physicists. However, consciousness is outside the realm of physical space and time. There is space and time that physicists know, and how it appears to us.

Rachel Browne

Hana asked:

Why does Marx think communism will ultimately supplant capitalism?

It is my question. Please answer me, Philosopher.

Marx thought that capitalism bore the seeds of its own destruction within it. This was the inequality within it that would lead the oppressed to rise up and revolutionize it and replace it for an economic system in which each would receive their due according to a system of equity and justice for all. Marx's communism was the vision of an anti-class society in which people would be valued for who they were not how much they earned or consumed or inherited.

Marx had a dialectical theory of history, as it is called. That means an economic interpretation of history which saw economics in political terms of relationships between people, commodities, labour and exchange. What marks a period of history is its economy. When the economy changes, Marx thought, (e.g. the change from feudal society to mercantile or bourgeois society), culture, religion, philosophy and everything else necessarily follows suit.

Economy for Marx had to do with power. New economies come in when new powers rise up. The Feudal society of Medieval Europe was overthrown and the power of the Church with it, by the new merchants from the new worlds (the Americas, Australia, the colonies) based on the new technology. History is not conservative, Marx thought, it advances. But he was less of a determinist than an idealist or utopian, because he thought the injustices of the Europe of his day could not be borne for long. Working men, women and children, whose labour was commodified, who had been turned into 'things' by their economic relationships, would (given the encouragement and education by intellectuals) rise up and take charge of the means of production and change things for the good of the many, not the preservation and gratification of the few.

Clara asked:

My family is pushing me to get married arguing that I'm old and I should find someone. Is there any philosophical solution to this problem?

I once wrote:

Delacour asked:

Que pensez vous de la façon de vivre le prèsent?

What do you think about living the real present? (Blaise Pascal)

Living the real present is what other Brother Lawrence famously described as the practice of the presence of God. (1699). It was what St Paul meant by saying, "Not I, but Christ in me". Basically every great Christian writer has expressed it in one way or another. What it means is living in such a way that the Kingdom of God comes to us. The Lord's prayer says, "Thy Kingdom come". The Kingdom is not somewhere we go (after life or whenever), but something which comes to us in certain circumstances. Christian "forgiveness" means that we are reconciled to ourselves and others. In short there is peace and goodwill within us. Living the real present is much the same as really living in the present. That is, being mindful of it and centred by it, rather than by our self, our ego. Deep mindfulness is the practice of the presence of God. But this mindfulness is not achieved overnight. Hence most of those who know most about it and can teach it were monks, and perhaps, still are.

Sandra asked:

How may I be know if something that is logical for me is true?

and Carolina asked:

Is logic the same in all people, I mean; is it an established point of view? Does it develop through time? Is it an authentic feeling?

and Pablo asked:

How can we distinguish between good and bad logic?

Deductive logic lays out the principles of reasoning and provides laws for thought. It is true for you if you are not irrational.

Take the Aristotelian syllogism:

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
So Socrates is mortal

If you agree with the first two premises, it is inconsistent to disagree with the conclusion. This is a paradigm of reasoning. The fact that men are mortal is known empirically because we know about death. If we believed in afterlife, we could substitute "immortal" for "mortal" and the argument would remain logically valid. This is because legitimate inferences are independent of subject matter. To deny the argument's validity on the basis of subject matter you need to prove the falsity of a premises, e.g. to say that it is not true that all men are immortal.

An argument which claims to be logical, but where it is not inconsistent to disagree with the conclusion if you agree with the premisses, would be an example of 'bad' logic.

One principle of reasoning is that you cannot believe a contradiction. We cannot believe that an object is both round and square, so it is logically necessary that something cannot be both round and square. This must be true for you.

Logical principles or the principles of logical argument don't change over time, but the content which is the facts or premises we use and infer from do (e.g. beliefs about mortality).

The above principles are stated in formal logic which shows the structure underlying sentences. Formal logic is a mechanical calculus which has enabled us to simulate thought processes in computers. The most basic logic, propositional calculus, consists in the rules of inference governing connectives which we use in language such as 'and', 'or', 'not', 'if...then...'. Predicate calculus is more complex since it has introduced more symbols, such as one for existence, as well as variables. This enables sentences such as those in the Aristotelian syllogism to be translated into formal language.

The extension of propositional calculus was a development rather than a change. However there can be change. Susan Haack in Deviant Logic distinguishes between systems that extend classical logic and those which deviate from it. Classical logic holds that all our propositions are either true or false. To take one example, there is a system of logic which introduces a third, indeterminate truth value taken to be necessary to accommodate quantum theory.

Logic is not a feeling.

Rachel Browne

Joanne asked:

I am doing a paper in school and the focus is on metaphysical and epistemological issues inherent in the problem of change as it was formulated by Ancient Greek natural philosophical schools. I also need to relate this to a modern scientific explanation of change. Any help would be appreciated.

This is too big an issue to attempt a comprehensive answer here. What I shall do is focus on one question that is of particular relevance to contemporary physics, the stand-off between the atomist theory of the Presocratic philosophers Leucippus and Democritus and Aristotle's theory of matter and form.

What happens when water freezes? The atomists proposed a theory brilliant in its simplicity, which in its essentials is still accepted today. Water, and ice each have a microscopic structure. The change from water to ice, or from ice to water does not involve any change in the elements of which the structure is composed, the 'atoms' of water, or what we now identify as molecules of H20. Rather, what changes is the structure, the arrangement of the atoms.

Relying purely on philosophical argument for the atomic hypothesis, without any empirical basis for their claims, the atomists drew the pessimistic conclusion that we can know nothing at all about the real world, the world of atoms moving in the void. Such knowledge as we have of our world is based on sense perception. Yet the qualities that appear to sense perception, according to the atomic hypothesis, are illusory. In reality, nothing is hot or cold, wet or dry, there are no colours, tastes, sounds or smells.

Aristotle could not be persuaded to give up the fundamental epistemological principle that human perception and reason are adequate for knowledge of the real world. Explanations that posit imperceptible microstructures are nothing more than unverifiable guesses. We have no way of telling whether or not they are true. Moreover, he saw an alternative way of explaining change that remained fully within the bounds of human knowledge.

Before I tell you what the Aristotle's theory is, I will just say that to appreciate the theory, one has to suppress one's natural reaction — informed largely by our knowledge of contemporary science — that the explanations it offers are empty and trivial.

Here is the theory, applied to the case of water. Water is a substance, a natural kind, which possesses a characteristic form. The unique form of water determines its perceptible properties, its powers and potentialities. Water freezes, because freezing is one of the things that water has the potential to do. When your finger touches the ice, your finger gets cold because making things cold is what ice has the power to do. That is the ultimate explanation, there is nothing more to say.

As Frijof Capra notes in the Tao of Physics contemporary particle physics has become a search for the Holy Grail of a fundamental atom-like particle which is the indestructible ingredient of every physical structure. But why should there be any such particle? As the presocratic philosopher Heraclitus argued, if you posit the Logos, physical law as the fundamental thing, there is no need to posit fundamental stuff. Or as Capra argues, an alternative explanation of the photographs of particles smashing into ever smaller bits is that all that is constant is the repeated and repeatable pattern: in Aristotle's terms, the form.

Geoffrey Klempner

Stephanie asked:

Is Peter Singer's extension of moral rights to animals compatible with A view like Kant's deontological position? How could Singer's position be defended against a Kantian position?

To argue that animals have rights because they have moral interests as individuals and have a basic right to freedom from pain does not mean we have a Kantian duty to recognise such rights. Kant held that we have a duty to humanity as rational beings. Rational beings act on will rather than instinct and have the capacity to act in conformity with duty. If we can't extend these capacities to animals then we can't have an unconditional moral duty towards them.

It would not be sufficient to claim that animals are actually rational and do act on instinct. Animals do display behavioural characteristics indicative of practical reason, but this is not Kantian "pure reason". He says "When reason is able to determine the will only by means of some further object of desire . . . then it takes only a mediate interest in the action". While such empirical reason may be ascribed to animals, we cannot claim they have an interest in the moral law. Animals cannot act on duty so cannot be moral.

If animals are not part of our moral community, Kant would allow that we can treat them as means and inflict pain upon them. If we don't do this it is because we don't have the desire to do so and Kant would not regard it as moral if we are simply motivated to treat animals well because they suffer pain, or because we can see them as individuals.

Singer's position is based upon moral feelings which are subjective. He argues from facts about cruelty and this appeals to our conscience which is one way to morally ground the otherwise social or political notions of justice and rights. The Kantian notion of duty doesn't have much hold these days in competition with the idea of moral feeling. Also in defence of Singer you can argue for moral relativity based upon cultural difference. Kant wanted an objective non-metaphysical basis for morality which is not of concern to us today. Animals rights are important to us today, but weren't an issue in Kant's time.

Rachel Browne

Craig asked:

Is the meaning of life simply to have a purpose, and to try to reach your own personal goals, or is it to interact with other human lives, and experience things? These are two good reasons for living, but I can't decide which is more important. Thoreau said that the former was more important. I am not so sure.

Having a purpose and trying to reach your own personal goals need not exclude interaction with other human lives and experiencing things unless your goal involves seclusion from the world.

Rachel Browne

Diedra asked:

Can you help me dislodge the dustbin of my mind? I remember from school reading a short paragraph in which the writer laments the old days when youth were respectful of their elders. He decried the youths' unkept appearance and shameful hedonistic ways, on and on he went. The surprising source I believe was one of our more famous ancient philosophers. Can you help me locate this passage?

You're thinking of a statement often attributed to Socrates, perhaps in the following form:

Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.

However, this supposed quotation is completely bogus. There is no record of Socrates ever having said anything of the kind. For a discussion of how this mythical quote arose, see:

Jack asked:

What is a logical relationship between Nietzsche's "Will to Power" and altruistic inclinations?

It follows from the nature of the will to power that altruism can only be understood as self-interested. The will to power is egoistic and there is no such thing as the disinterested act, i.e. an act simply for others. Nietzsche allows there are acts we describe as altruistic, but on his view they are not done for the other but for the self. Such acts only seem altruistic because we deceive ourselves.

Logically, altruism as self-interested or prudent altruism, is inferred from the nature of the will as seeking power and freedom. If we act badly towards others, they will not allow us to dominate them so easily. They may turn against us. This will interfere with our will to dominate as well as our freedom because the way others treat us will not be with the respect and subjugation that we want.

Rachel Browne

Chris asked:

When is there enough evidence to believe something is true? Why is further evidence not required? Where do we draw the line on something of which we have no idea? That is, how can we limit the method of approaching or arriving at the truth without begging the question at issue?

Consider object A, we have evidence that it has properties Xy does this mean we know object A? Yet given temporal, technological and other advancements it turns out that object A actually has properties Xyz. What connotations do the concepts 'the real' and 'actually' imply? Continue this process ad infinitum and the object changes with ever increasing rapidity. What is the object? Do we know it apart from our multifarious observations of it? ....in other words, where can the thing-in-itself be found?

Evidence is sufficient for the belief that something is true when it is convincing and this does not beg any questions as long as we understand what we take to be true to be what we are sure of.

Physicists continue to investigate the world and come up with findings which dispute evidence we have and we adjust our knowledge of the world accordingly. If it was thought that objects changed with ever increasing rapidity this would be pointless. So it is supposed that there is a way things are in themselves which is stable and that we can further our knowledge. This is not to say that there is hope that we gain an absolute, non-perspectival knowledge of the way things are because this is impossible. It may be that things change constantly and there is no stability in the way things are beyond our perceptual abilities but what we take to be true has to be what we can know and this must be within human capacities and perspective. Human beings cannot transcend their conceptual scheme and the truth and knowledge belong within this.

Rachel Browne

Mauricio asked:

To live a Beautiful lie, is that better than to live an awful truth?

If to live a "beautiful lie" is to pretend to be what you are not, then it is actually an awful truth unless you deceive yourself as well. To know that you are pretending is to be constantly in fear of being caught out. If you can deceive yourself as well as others, this might be better in terms of ease.

In trivial everyday ways, everyone pretends to be what they are not (e.g. happy, confident, responsible) without deceiving themselves and in recognition of reality. In this normal state, which is not to be totally self-deceived there are possibilities for knowing oneself and others. You can only get real satisfaction from what genuinely makes you happy and you can only take real pleasure in what you are really good at. Love and friendship are reciprocal and pretence or self-deception are restraints upon genuine interaction.

An intermediate state of "indifference" might be ideal, since this is to ignore suffering which is all around us.

Rachel Browne

Peter asked:

Dr Faustus sold his soul to Lucifer for all the scientific knowledge of the time — for the secrets of the universe and for 25 years of power to do as he wished.

His initial dilemma was to choose between good or evil, God or Lucifer. Can this be equated with a modern dilemma of helping society/people or helping yourself and rising above society? If Dr Faustus were alive today what would be his dilemma?

Why did Dr. Faustus sell his soul, after all? In order to perpetrate evil on the world? To further Lucifer's evil project? Not really. He wanted knowledge and power to further his own interests, which were not in themselves necessarily evil. In other words, he was choosing, as your dichotomy offers, to help himself as opposed to helping society.

Traditionally, most philosophers have agreed that morality, or choosing good over evil, is not simply doing what furthers one's own interests, but balancing one's interests against other important considerations like the interests of others, say, or of society as a whole, for example.

Dr. Faustus is as relevant to day as ever. Consider the American film of a few years ago, It Could Happen to You. Upon winning a lottery a man had to decide whether to keep all the money himself or live up to a promise he made to a stranger that he would split the winnings with her should he win, someone who was not in a position to know whether he had indeed won. The choice here is between self-interest and living up to one's promise.

What about modern physicians who receive medical training, to one degree or another, at public expense who, upon graduation, choose to specialize in lucrative cosmetic surgery as opposed to offering their services to those more in need of medical help?

Reflecting on the choices of Dr. Faustus is as relevant today as it ever was.

Bob asked:

Why is it that everything associated with "up" is good and everything associated with "down" is bad?

But is it? It is better to be 'down to earth' than 'up in the air'. It is better to get 'down to work' than 'up to no good'. And one shouldn't be too 'uppity'.

Javier asked:

What is materialism?

and Artemio asked:

I know that in materalism people believe only in things made of matter, but I would like to have a more complex definition.

The only things that exist for a materialist are described by physics. Entities which fall under the science of physics are atomic structures, time, space and forces. At our level of perception we take objects such as tables and chairs as uncontroversial existents. These are macroscopic objects to the physicist, since what he sees are bundles of atomic structures. The materialist can admit that tables do really exist as matter, since the atomic particles are responsible for the nature of the table. Otherwise put, the table is determined by physical particles and exists because these fall under the laws of physics.

So there is something which is a table, but the problem is that what determines our concept is not the microscopic properties of physics, but the way the table looks to us, as a large, brown, wooden thing. As long as the table appears like this, its microscopic structure could be quite lawless. Further, although micro-physical structures might determine the fact that the table is large and wooden, the descriptions "large" and "wooden" do not belong to the language of the laws of physics. For these reasons, the materialist has to hold that it is not the appearance which determines our concept of a table, but properties which fall under the laws of physics. What causes us to perceive the table is its micro-structural properties.

This has consequences for mental states and concepts. The way in which the object looks to us is phenomenological. Seeing is a subjective sensational state, and this cannot exist because it does not fall under the laws of physics. What can exist is a physical brain state. This means that what enables us to perceive the table, and hence form the concept of the table, is a relational state between the brain and an external physicist's description of the object. This means that we should be able to perceive objects by sight without any phenomenology.

It is uncontroversial that a perception is a relation between the brain and the world of matter, but if appearances don't exist then we don't learn about physical objects from the way they look to us as everyday perceivers. Furthermore, lots of our concepts are not of physical things: God, the soul, ghosts, fictional characters, beauty, good and evil. Given that these are unreal, values or based upon faith it might seem reasonable for the materialist to say that there is obviously no relational state between the brain and the world in these cases because these things don't actually exist as material. However, a person needs to acquire the capacity to be in a brain state in which he thinks about God or beauty, and if it is from the world it is from the world of other people, of sound, words and meanings. This is to return to the initial problem — words and meanings do not fall under the science of physics.

Rachel Browne

Antonio asked:

What do you think happiness means? Does it really exist? How can we get to it? Why does it last such a short time?

Because happiness is a psychological state of a person, I take a psychological view of what it is. However, I shall summarize two philosophical viewpoints. These views see happiness as states rather than as short-term emotions, so this may not be what you are asking about since you are concerned that happiness does not last.

Firstly, Aristotle. Aristotle claimed that happiness was the end towards which all other things were means. Happiness is not a means to anything further, but it is what makes life desirable. Aristotle thought that because happiness is "living and faring well" then it is a form of excellence. Excellence is a state rather than a passion (passions are emotions, which include joy), and it is a state that is essentially temperate. This means that a happy person aims for moderate rather than excessive pleasures. To pursue this sort of happiness is to have no desire for intense pleasure, and involves the avoidance of pain. To me, this is not so much happiness as a sort of pleasurable calm, and is similar to the Stoical view of Seneca. I believe that from happiness stems not just the ability to be joyful, but a propensity for joy. For Aristotle, joy was a passion, and not a part! of a state of excellence, since it is not moderate.

Seneca thought that true happiness was to be found in tranquility of mind. Joys, he thought, were "uneasy" because not properly grounded. Short-term happiness, i.e. enjoyment, is to move from one means of pleasure or excitement to another. Underneath this lies discontent. We constantly pursue different types of enjoyment in order to turn our minds from our real state of misery. Even a more stable form of happiness, like the feeling of great fortune goes with anxiety because such blessings can be lost. So Seneca thought true happiness was tranquility of mind and this should include diversity of pleasure: Solitude and society, a moderate amount of play, wine, dance, relaxation and outdoor activity, together with an intellectual life. The essential part of tranquility of mind is to take pleasure in oneself rather to rely on external trappings of wealth, and to be aware of the! likelihood of ill health and death which will enable you to appreciate the moment.

Psychologically, we are happy when we feel lucky, fortunate, blessed, enthusiastic about our lives and are for the most part in good spirits. Such feelings can be quite immoderate in terms of intensity, though not necessarily exaggerated. Seneca's view is that this goes with anxiety because of possible loss by change and Aristotle would think it irrational. I don't think happiness is irrational if based on self-knowledge, and the happy person would think that even if things were to change, it is good to have experienced being this way for at least some time.

The opposite of happiness is sadness or depression. I see this as a sliding scale, and it is possible to move from sadness to happiness and back again through changes in circumstances of life. The destructive force against happiness is bitterness. In this state you hold a grudge, and believe happiness to be impossible. This is not an emotional state you slide out of but an attitude to life. To "get at" happiness you must at least believe it is possible, and also know what makes you happy.

Rachel Browne

Wilton asked:

Has metaphysics been overcome?

No. In a play on words, the pas au-delà (step beyond) is the pas au-delà (not beyond). In other words, the idea of 'beyond metaphysics' is itself a metaphysical matter.

Alberto asked:

Buddha offered humanity an analysis for what he called the "sickness of living". The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is that, for all of us, life is suffering. The Second Noble Truth is that we suffer for something we desire, which can be finding a special person, or staying young. My question is: How do these Noble Truths relate to time and space? I mean, does the epoch change the way of looking at life? How are Buddhists so convinced that people suffer?

Their 'nobility' lies in the fact that they are not relative to time and place. It doesn't matter what 'epoch' you live in: you get ill, you get old, and you die. This is what dukkha (badly translated as 'suffering') means. Old age, sickness and death and do not belong to the Pure Land, which is where the Buddhas and Bodhissatvas (potentially all beings) belong.

Katy asked:

Is anything absolute? and is man inherently evil? and does love have a biological component?

An absolute is a value. That which has absolute value is of value in itself and as itself. This differs from that which is simply intrinsically valuable.

We know what good is and, in virtue of this, particular things are thought good. We cannot say more about it. As Iris Murdoch says in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals "good is good". This differs from happiness, which appears to have absolute value since it is good in itself, but this is as an end in itself or as intrinsically valuable. Intrinsic value is to be contrasted with extrinsic value which is instrumental. Wealth can be said to have extrinsic value if it leads to happiness. Happiness is not instrumental and so has intrinsic value. It cannot be of absolute value because its value lies in the fact that it is good.

Evil is absolute. Evil is not evil for any reason other than it is evil in and of itself.

Evil is inherent in man as a capacity. Recognition of good as good, reason and sanity are needed to keep it at bay.

Love can have a biological component. The love between a parent and child is a paradigm of love. There is also a biological tie, genetically, between siblings. Not all love is grounded in a biological tie, but it is the cases of unconditional biological love which — if we are lucky — teach us what love is, and how to love properly.

Rachel Browne

Cindy asked:

What is the difference between existentialism and metaphysics?

Metaphysics is the inquiry into the nature of things — which has tended to mean their 'first principles'. The result of this inquiry has tended to be abstract and rationalistic. Existentialism is a movement with its origins in Christian philosophy, although it is best epitomised (and normally characterised) by twentieth century atheist philosophers like Sartre and Camus. Existentialism is not just a 'movement' of philosophy, but a timeless tendency to bring thinkers back to the conditions of existence. The inquiry into the nature of things — their whatness — traditionally led to talk of their essence. For example, humans have a 'nature' and humans partake of their nature, which is their essence, because it is common to all: a materiality and certain form, capacity for freedom, and good, language, immortality, mortality etc. Discussion of these 'essential' matters find their balance in the existential tendency which reminds philosophers that I cannot experience myself as an essence. In thinking about what I am, lets not forget that I am.

Timmijay asked:

What is the main aim of Hedonism besides pleasure? What kind of pleasure are they after and what exactly to the followers believe?

The aim of the early hedonists was simply pleasure as maximum enjoyment to be found through the senses and intellect. Epicurus rejected enjoyment for the more lasting pleasure of happiness as peace of mind. Peace of mind was to be found primarily through friendship and leading a simple life.

Epicurus founded a school which provided an exemplar of what he saw as the simple life. He sought to teach moral perfection through sympathy compassion and honesty. The moral life was part of the philosophical life of those times, in that it moulded the personality and regulated conduct. Presumably the sort of personality moulded by Epicurus was required for the sort of pleasure he had in mind which was peace, freedom from cares, desires, and fears. This is not pleasure as joy, but as calm and wise. Seneca quotes Epicurus as saying "to win true freedom you must be a slave to philosophy" which includes moral perfection as well as intellectual interest.

The importance Epicurus put upon friendship leads to the criticism that his philosophy was insular and selfish rather than public-spirited. The lack of social orientation also stems from his beliefs. Epicurus thought that belief in the Gods was superstitious and that the religion of the time instilled a fear of death with its threats of eternal torment. He thought that death should not be feared because when we are dead we no longer care since we are not here. Since men are, to an extent, spurred to social activity through religious and nationalistic spirit rather than friendship the criticism does have some ground. It did not bother Epicurus that not everyone was inclined towards happiness through friendship and a simple moral life so long as his follower were.

Rachel Browne

Malena asked

What do you think about religion in philosophy, should it be included?

It depends what kind of religion and what kind of philosophy. More scientific and logical philosophy has little truck with religion. More metaphysical philosophy, treating of essence and existence, can scarcely avoid philosophy in the Western tradition given that the Most High defined Himself to our basic Lawgiver, Moses, as "I am Who I am" (Exodus 3:14). Henceforth if we are thinking in the realm of ontology (and if we are not, are we really thinking, except in a weak sense?) then we are bound also to be thinking about God. This of course includes atheism. Thinking about the absence of God, or in the absence of God, is no less religious — as the greatest atheistic thinkers have (despite themselves) proven.

Gabriel asked:

I'm looking for the exact reference (Aristotle?) about Pythagoras being the first philosopher to use the term philosophia.

Try Aristotle's discussion of Pythagoras in Metaphysics I.5.

José asked:

How can I know if your theories are true, if in philosophy there is no way to practice it, like for example medicine? Where and when do you practice your philosophy?

For any theory, if there is no way (in principle) of finding out whether it is true, then it really isn't a theory. Theories make predictions, and there must be some criteria for deciding whether or not the prediction is correct. There is actually very little theory making in philosophy; theories belong more or less by definition to science. And philosophy is not a science. The little theory making that there is in philosophy is metaphysics. And as you seem to be hinting in the question, there are good reasons for doubting the validity of such speculation. Metaphysics has had a hard time of it this century, thanks mainly to the influence of Wittgenstein, and of the logical positivists. Many people have concluded that metaphysics is just nonsense, or at best the expression of a certain attitude to life.

Instead of making predictions about the ultimate nature of reality, philosophers have concentrated much more on language. Wittgenstein said that all philosophy is just 'a critique of language'. Philosophical problems are, from this perspective, problems not about things but about grammar, and there solution comes not from a greater knowledge of the world but from a greater understanding of how language can trick us into confusion.

The time and place philosophy is practiced is in a philosophy class. Because this is the only time when purely philosophical problems arise. In everyday life, there are no philosophical problems, in building a wall for example. Philosophical problems arise when 'language goes on holiday'.

Will Greenwood

Tony asked:

I am looking at the case of a pregnant Nigerian woman who had recently emigrated to the UK. She was advised that she would need a Caesarean operation. Unfortunately the woman concerned could not comply with this as this was against her religious beliefs and replied supposedly, "If it is the will of Allah that the child lives, so be it. If it is the will of Allah that the child dies, then alas, so be it."

Unfortunately the doctor did not see it this way, and applied under the British Mental Health Act to have the woman declared mentally ill, and so was able to carry out the Caesarean operation against her wishes.

Can you please explain to me how the Court of Appeal, when judging the merits of this woman's case, might have gone about reviewing who had the right to life, or the right to see their beliefs not questioned? But what of providing a voice of advocacy for the unborn child, who unless brought forth via a Caesarean operation would not have come into the world?

There is no denying that a foetus has a moral claim. If it didn't, then there would be nothing wrong with a woman changing her mind about her pregnancy at the last minute, and demanding that the foetus be removed and disposed of.

The foetus has a claim. But it is not a claim that is strong enough to prevent, for example, the emergency destruction a foetus in circumstances where the mother's life is in grave danger, where medical complications prevent the removal of the foetus while it is still alive (rare as such a case might be). Most would agree that the mother has a stronger claim to life than her unborn foetus.

But what about a case where we are balancing the right to life of the foetus, not with the mother's right to life, but with other very important rights, like the right not to be operated upon without her consent?

The first point to make is that, in the present case, there is no question but that the doctor was wrong to have the Nigerian woman 'Sectioned' under the Mental Health Act. He broke the law. The purpose of Section 3 of the Mental Health Act is to put under restraint people who because of mental illness are incapable of looking after their own affairs. To 'Section' a patient, two doctor's signatures are required. The doctors who signed the order to detain the Nigerian woman lied. They declared that the woman was mentally ill, when she wasn't.

The doctor knew he would be breaking the law if he simply had the woman anaesthatized and opened up, without telling her what he was intending to do. Instead, he not only broke the law but abused it.

Sometimes one can be morally justified in breaking the law. So let's put aside that question and consider simply whether it was morally right to operate on the Nigerian woman without her consent, whether the moral claim of the foetus was stronger than that of the mother.

I find that proposition simply incredible. Even if the woman did not have strong religious objections, but merely disliked the idea of being operated on and preferred to take the chance of a normal delivery, there could have been no justification for coercion. Even if the circumstances had been such — which they were not — that we could have said that she was morally wrong to refuse an operation, it was still her decision and no-one else's.

Geoffrey Klempner

Adam asked:

Do you think it correct, as Scruton suggests in his discussion of Kant (1982), that the "publicity of language guarantees the objectivity of its reference"? Scruton thinks that Wittgenstein's private language argument shares the premises and the conclusion of Kant's transcendental deduction (i.e. Wittgenstein's argument is transcendental in that there can be no knowledge of experience which does not presuppose reference to a public world). The thought seems to be that I know my experience immediately only because I apply to it concepts which gain their sense from public use.

My view is that this makes a great deal of sense, but my acquaintance with the primary texts is something I am ashamed of!

It was Roger Scruton who as a lecturer first introduced me to the Private Language Argument, while I was an undergraduate student at Birkbeck College, London in the early 70's. I thought at the time, and still think that it is a devastating argument.

To see why, consider the familiar idea (which I recall first thinking about when I was 9 or 10) 'How do I know that when we both look up at the sky, the blue in your mind is the same colour as the blue in my mind?' Nagel has a great take on this (in his short OUP book What Does It All Mean?). If I could lick your brain while you were eating chocolate, and it tasted of chocolate, that still wouldn't prove that the taste of chocolate is the same for you as it is for me.

'Blue', 'chocolate' have established uses in our shared language. When I talk about 'my incommunicable experience of the way blue is for me' or 'the incommunicable taste that chocolate has for me', on the other hand, what I mean is something that I don't have a name for, something essentially private, incapable of being communicated.

Wittgenstein says, Give your inner something a name. You can do that, can't you?

It turns out that you can't. The reason is that you are the only person who is in a position to say whether the name you have invented for your incommunicable experience is being used correctly or not:

One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. and that only means that here we can't talk about 'right'.

L. Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations Part I, para 258.

Here's how Wittgenstein proposes to 'get rid of the idea of the private object':

assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you.

ibid. Part II, p. 207.

I can't think of the number of times I've racked my brains trying to imagine the thing Wittgenstein asks us to 'assume', that the inexpressible quality blue has for me constantly changes etc. etc. It took me a long time to realize that it's all wasted effort.

Well, we can argue about that. We can argue about whether Wittgenstein is right in claiming that in order to have meaning, it is necessary that the meaning a term be capable of being communicated to others, that it should have a meaning in our 'public language'. Scruton's claim is that it is sufficient for a term to have what he terms 'objective reference' that it should have a recognized use in a public language. And I think he could be wrong about this.

The fact that people agree, or a capable of reaching agreement doesn't prove anything. We can all agree about something , and still be wrong. Or our seeming agreement can be the result of pure accident. For a term to have genuine, objective meaning, and not merely a name we pass around, thinking we all mean the same thing by it, something more is needed, something to do with the way we are connected with the world: the fact that we do not spend all our lives merely talking to one another but use language for a purpose. This is something the pragmatists clearly saw.

Geoffrey Klempner

Lee asked:

My lecturer asked the question "What does Sam do if he is told by Matthew that if Sam doesn't kill Sarah then Matthew will kill 20 people?"

I have an essay to write and I think that I shall argue along these lines: Sam has no responsibility for the actions of Matthew. Sam has a responsibility to Sarah because he has direct control over that situation. Sam does have a moral responsibility to the other 20 but as Matthew is the one who is making the decision over the 20 Matthew has ultimate liability for his own action. I do not believe that Sam should be held responsible for the choices of Matthew. Sam should carry out his choice over Sarah independently of Matthew's choice over the 20.

I would also argue that this is because: Sarah should not be treated as a means to Sam's end (i.e. as a way of saving the lives of the 20). Sam should not be treated as a means to Matthew's ends (as a way of Matthew getting his desired result). Sam can only be responsible for his own action and thus if he killed Sarah he would be immoral. If Sam refuses to act then he is being moral; he would have made his made his moral decision not to kill Sarah and should let Matthew take responsibility for his moral decision.

Is this okay? Does it make sense? I will describe utilitarianism as well but this problem still worries me. I cant help feeling that Sam's omission to act means that Sam is neglecting his responsibility to the 20. However I think that Sam's main priority is to Sarah and Matthew's decision must be made about the 20 on its own. AAarrgghhh!!!! However this still bugs me! Is this an acceptable position? Does Sam's oblique responsibility to the 20 over ride his responsibility to Sarah simply because there are more of them? I can't decide. I think I have a good solution but I don't know if that is really what I'd do. I know that is what I would like to do. Would I be merely making a false justification to myself if that was the case?

Firstly, we should be clearer on responsibility. Although Sam will not have caused the deaths of the 20, because it will ultimately come about by Matthew's decision, he is responsible in the sense that he could have stopped their deaths. Bernard Williams calls this 'negative responsibility', a notion implicit in utilitarian theory which holds that moral responsibility is for consequences.

However, to think in terms of "responsibility" and whether one duty "overrides" another can be seen as morally shallow. If you really cannot kill a human being, the thought that it is an overriding duty isn't going to make it easier. It seems even more shallow to say, "Sarah should not be treated as a means to Sam's end." You need to distinguish killing from murder. In certain circumstances, killing can be a means to an end, for example in wartime. Killing is not morally assessable in the same way as murder.

You should say that you know the solution, but don't know whether this is what you would do. It is a question of moral virtue. If Sam makes his own personal decision not to act, he is neglecting a social duty. This can be viewed as a lack of courage. Yet it could also be seen as moral fortitude, in that there are some things he will not do under any circumstances.

Rachel Browne

Xantor asked:

While I pondered weak and weary this question, this query just came calling to me... and I don't know if it's even answerable:

Is humble pie comfort food?

If to eat humble pie means to feel humiliated, then it is never a comfortable state to be in. If it is simply to feel apologetic, then some comfort can be found. To feel apologetic is to recognize that