Philosophy Now Forum

Property and Theft We have social norms and law that protect property – material property. Theft is taking property from its owner, which signifies those accorded control. Which requires a prior decision about what the basis of ownership is. Property may be owned by an elite or government for its ow...

Wealth as a Value A fundamental problem of today that needs to be dealt with for the future ‘good’ of society. At present ‘wealth’ is treated as a thing, goods and property represented by money. Therefore, ethics treats it from the outside as a whole, and we have confused ideas about how it should b...

Equality versus Freedom Logically these two values stand together such that they are interdependent. But the present day custom of defining values independently, and amalgamating that into a fractured whole, distorts reality. The, belief in freedom may be affirmed but not in equality. This is a plai...

Gender Neutral Education There is a vast difference between bringing-up children to respect themselves and each other, as of the same overall ability, as against making them believe they are the same. For the most part there are distinct boys and girls. They should respect themselves and each other ...

UK Today Our present convention of dividing politics-ethics in linear way is clearly simplistic. This country today, in ethical-political terms, is at least a fairly stable and law-abiding society. Setting lawless-chaos aside that leaves what is bound to be a compromise between three end-values or f...

Apathetic Freedom There is a spate of media discussions on the way out of our Covid Crisis and to a Green Future. The crisis is exacerbated by those taking part being from quite opposing ethical/political poles. Democratic agreement and compromise is between those who are going in the same general d...

Individual, Society, State Politicians tend to be so pragmatic as to warp ethical reality. We, as individuals, live our own semi-autonomous lives as part of community and the state. But it is necessary to recognise priority, and unavoidable compromise should be clearly understood. Autonomous individ...

Individual, Society, State Politicians tend to be so pragmatic as to warp ethical reality. We, as individuals, live our own semi-autonomous lives as part of community and the state. But it is necessary to recognise priority, and unavoidable compromise should be clearly understood. Autonomous individ...

Holistic or Reductionist A term that is coined as a virtue, such as a ‘Green future,’ is ripe for populist usage so as to mean the contrary of what was intended. That term, green, has indeed been taken over so as to relate almost entirely to the production of sustainable green energy, and little els...

Anarchistic Relativism Morality is relative so far as it relates to the class of society it promotes. But there is tendency today to describe various forms of societies and civilizations as if they are all moral. That would be a description of an extreme form of Anarchism. In which any local cult ma...

Profiling Racial profiling is in the news as a current controversy. But, profiling is an act and not an ethical value. It is therefore not in itself ‘good or bad’ which relates to values and therefore the kind of society or anti-society promoted. Since the various forms of society derive from their ...

Society, Slavery and Employment As may have been expected the general public debate about ‘slavery’ and employment in general is facile. Quite apart from the fact that slavery was a global phenomenon in the entire past and was not invented by Europe or England, which indeed tried to ban slavery. The...

Political – Social diagrams abound. Their common failing is in employing political theories direct. Relating them to each other in ways that may be convincing, but miss the essential point. That they are based on values and are not values in themselves. It is the values that need to related together...

Society It is worth mentioning again. That Society includes the whole natural world and environment. Logically there are three classes of Society. Law, order and duty, allied to ego and self-interest, and opposed to freedom and equality, equates to Tyranny or a Servile Society. Ego and self-interest...

Emergency Economy If commerce is closed down then we do not have the same economy. We must have a minimalist survival economy. Everyone on basic income, Rational distribution of basic goods. Selected businesses put into hibernation, not paying wages, not paying dividends, not paying rent, not paying...