Philosophy Now Forum

Defining "world-view" might prove difficult, if not impossible. It's such an inclusive sort of word. Suppose I settle for saying that my own view of the world does exclude the supernatural. Then I would need to define what I mean by natural, unnatural, preternatural and supernatural. That ...

Crack-users should get medals? Naw; it'd piss off the wounded veterans. Not at all sure we should hand out medals for influence peddling, misallocation of funds, conflict of interest, DIY, destruction of property, falling over councillors, reporters, chairs and cameras... and being a bloody embarras...

By the way, Skip is just trying to force you into a false trichotomy...as in "chose one of three options, but I'll frame two as morally reprehensible so you feel like a jerk if you take one." What's morally reprehensible about change? It happens, whether we like it or not; we can only cho...

No, they can't. What the people of that time believed is what they wrote down. Later, other people came along who thought and organized their societies differently; they gradually (by slow, hard-fought and painful increments) replaced those rules, those injunctions, those ideas, those beliefs. Now, ...

Quite neatly. We humans have many ways to express social solidarity; every culture has its formal and informal conventions - hand-holding is one that has been part of the conventions of many cultures for a very long time - probably because it's a convenient and versatile means of non-verbal communic...

Who is neglecting the microcosm? Science isn't neglecting it: immense quantities of knowledge are being organized in all branches of biology, chemistry and subatomic physics, every day. Persons aren't neglecting what they can control: immense quantities of anxiety, money and energy are spent on food...

Ethics - morality, the sense of right and wrong, law, manners, good behaviour, etc. - all come down through the evolution of social species, from long before there was recognizable intellect. The judgment of what is good and bad behaviour is based on what benefits or harms the social unit (family, c...

Probably. Because we have a cultural association of hand-holding with affection between two separate intelligent entities. Seeing this behaviour in any other creature, we would automatically assume that they have empathy; thus we might expect gentleness and kindness. Of course, they might have a com...

I think we need to be concerned about much bigger threats than having our aesthetic sense offended. Some people are physically appealing, no matter what they wear. Some people are not, and we have to get used to them because so many of the fugly are in public office, constantly shown on podiums, tel...

I'll make this short. Hitler was vegetarian. But what is this statement supposed to mean ? What´s the underlying argument ? The usual underlying argument is: "I have nothing useful to contribute, but disapprove of the topic - or, more probably, feel threatened by it. Whatever I disapprove of, ...

The taxation problem has been raised many times, in many forms. it usually generates discussion, but it's a sort of free-floating receptacle of drive-by opinions, with no anchor in reality; therefore, pointless. If you wanted meaningful discussion, you'd have to start with an actual philosophy of go...

People in nudist colonies don't freak out, even though some of them are beautiful and some are ugly and most are ordinary. Some people look terrible dressed - and some have terrible taste in clothing. What's the difference between a string bikini and nudity? What's the difference between a topless b...

It's not just that one word, it's all the weird words and how they're put together. You may have wonderful points, but if nobody understands them, nobody's going to give useful - or intelligible - replies. Too bad: he subjects often look promising.

Not to most Christians, I bet! And to non-xtians, it means nothing at all.

What government? Where would government come from? How would it be instituted? Constituted? What, besides printing money, would be its responsibilities? What would its support structure be? How could it enforce its decisions? Why should anybody obey it? How would it relate to/ interact with other n...