Philosophy Now Forum

Minimalist Society This has nothing to do with anthropology and political history. A good starting point is the Ten Commandments, if the decalogue is taken purely as it stands in Exodus, and expressed in its essentials. That it has an image of ‘god’ as something above and outside humanity provides a...

7.7 Billion People A problem Chris Packham and David Attenborough have is an ethical conundrum of human rights. And this is the result of not first deciding what ethical-political form of society they are basing that ethic on. Marriage only has the rights relevant to the society in which it is an in...

Equality and Schooling I believe in altruistic equality, and not anarchistic equality or imposed pseudo-equality. But this country is beginning to impose an egalitarian regime on schooling that many people may have fair reason to oppose. This applies particularly to present rules on marital and fami...

Values and Things We live at the macro-level and perceive accordingly. It has long been odd to me that anything in the physical-ethical world or worlds should be seen as made up fundamentally of things. Let alone anything we can perceive. The fundamentals of ethics are inchoate values and also the f...

Cities and Conurbations A Sunday programme on the radio has a sort of philosophical viewpoint, and is good at showing how random facts can justify almost anything. A discussion about Cities brought the usual confusion, and those who appeared to see virtue in natural growth at the last had to propose...

Anarchism Through all its rambling ambiguities ‘Anarchist’ theory appears to have only one consistent theme. Its opposition to tyranny and the centralised state. Its theories are so broad as to hide the fact that it must have opposing poles. The one pole is a utopian idea of pure individualism, whil...

The Drone, and AI. It is impossible to discuss ethical values and codes of ethics or law without first defining the alternative forms of society that are involved. Appealing to ‘god’ is an appeal to arbitrary rule, unless it asked on what value basis the ‘rules’ or codes of conduct are based – indee...

Veganism It is almost certain that the judgement on veganism as a ‘religion’ is going to be misconstrued and misused by popular and tendentious opinion. Veganism is not justified and protected because it is a religion, but because it is seen as an acceptable philosophy to democracy, as defined by a ...

Ethical and Legal Shorthand, a populist slide into anarchism Discrimination It is absurd to accuse a law of being discriminatory. That is what ethics and the law does and is about. It has to be shown what the ethical basis of that discrimination is before it can be criticised or acclaimed. Discrimin...

Legitimacy There is a bemusing radio programme that asks religious-philosophical questions that start out by being confused. Legitimacy in democracy or otherwise is an example. We are mortals in a naturally imperfect world and no answer to the question can be other than of approximation. And legitim...

Cultural Genocide There are two ways in which cultural genocide may be and is being perpetrated. Firstly, by tyrannical racism, in which a minority culture is suppressed and the culture in power imposed through forced re-education. As is reportedly happening in China. The second is by misused human ...

Criminal Responsibility A peculiarity across the world is that the law provides an age, 10, 12, etc. below which a child is not criminally responsible and above which he is. There is some small laxity allowed in Britain about how a child at this age is treated in court. But it cannot be doubted that...

Exclusive Inclusion As may have been mentioned before, there is a tendency to adopt or coin words, as values with fashionable meanings, and then parade them as a list which people are asked to agree to one at a time. There is an intrinsic binary ethic implied by this, of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Inclusio...

Sub-ethics: Capitalism This term is employed with a definition that is present day tendentious sub-ethics - politics. The essence of capitalism must be the minimalist, ‘employment of capital’ ie material goods. Add to that, private ownership or control. Add to that, for monetary profit. The sum of t...

Discrimination Every country in the world has, peradventure, law that discriminates ethically, in any form of ethics that affects society. Otherwise there is social chaos and no society. The law may treat everyone as ‘equal’ but they are so in the face of ethical duty or responsibility. Therefore, e...