Category
Ethics
How should we live and act? Moral theories, character, and hard cases.
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Teaching the Euthyphro to sixteen-year-olds: what works and what doesn’t?
The central question (10a) is whether the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious, or pious because it is loved by the gods. My students grasp the dilemma in about four minutes. What they struggle with is the Greek…
Started by Giulia Ferrante4 replies135 views -
What were Mencius and Xunzi arguing about when they disagreed about human nature?
I'm writing an essay comparing moral development theories, and my tutor suggested the debate between Mencius and Xunzi as a classical example. I understand Mencius said human nature is good and Xunzi said it is bad, but I've read that this is…
Started by Elif Yıldız2 replies97 views -
What’s the difference between “deep ecology” and environmental ethics in general?
In my field, "deep ecology" is used both as a compliment and an insult. I know it comes from the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, but I'm not sure how it differs from other kinds of environmental ethics. Can someone explain?
Started by Anand Pillai2 replies161 views -
Is “who are you to judge?” a moral position, or just a way of ending the conversation?
At a family dinner last week my older cousin said that a mutual friend had behaved badly by lying to his parents about failing a course. My other cousin said, “Who are you to judge? Morality is subjective anyway.” Everyone went quiet…
Started by Fajar Nugroho4 replies204 views -
Do animals have conscious experiences, and how could we ever tell?
In 2012 a group of neuroscientists signed the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, stating that non-human animals, including all mammals and birds and some others such as octopuses, have the neurological substrates of conscious experience. In 2024 the New York Declaration on Animal…
Started by Priya Raghavan4 replies122 views -
What is the difference between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, and why keep them apart?
I am on a gap year and reading a lot of history, and I keep meeting two Latin phrases: jus ad bellum and jus in bello. I understand roughly that the first is about whether going to war is just, and the…
Started by Fajar Nugroho4 replies254 views -
What is the principle of double effect, and when does it apply in medicine?
In palliative care we often say that giving high doses of morphine is permitted even if it might shorten life, because of the "principle of double effect". But I've realised I don't know exactly what the principle says or where it comes…
Started by Omar Farouk4 replies140 views -
How is Scanlon’s ‘reasonable rejection’ test different from asking what most people would agree to?
We read a chapter of Scanlon's What We Owe to Each Other (1998) in my ethics tutorial this week and I came out more confused than I went in. The idea, roughly, is that an act is wrong if it would be…
Started by Ethan Mercer4 replies201 views -
What is the doctrine of double effect, and did Aquinas really come up with it?
I drive a city bus in Ankara and listen to philosophy lectures between stops. Yesterday's lecture mentioned the "doctrine of double effect" and said it goes back to Thomas Aquinas. The lecturer moved on quickly and I didn't fully follow. Here's what…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu4 replies152 views -
My son says our choices can’t harm people who don’t exist yet. What is the non-identity problem?
I farm cocoa near Kumasi. My son studies at university and sends me articles. The latest one says there is a famous puzzle, the "non-identity problem", which shows that we cannot make future people worse off by damaging the environment, because different…
Started by Akosua Mensah3 replies138 views -
“The ends justify the means”: obviously true or obviously false? I can’t decide which
I do stand-up in the evenings and work in a call centre in the day, and both jobs involve a lot of people saying “the ends justify the means”. My team leader says it when he wants us to hit targets by…
Started by Gemma Pritchard4 replies230 views -
What does Hume mean when he says reason is the slave of the passions?
I drive a city bus in Ankara and listen to philosophy lectures between stops. Yesterday the lecturer quoted Hume saying that reason is the slave of the passions, and then the traffic got bad and I missed the explanation. It worries me.…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu4 replies142 views -
I butcher pigs at work and my dog sleeps on my bed. Is that inconsistent?
I'm a chef from Goa, which means pork is close to the centre of the food I grew up with: sorpotel, vindaloo, chouriço. In my kitchen in Dubai I break down whole pigs when we can get them. At home I have…
Started by Joel D'Souza5 replies197 views -
Can Kant’s rule against treating others merely as means be stretched to cover animals?
I work on wetlands, and in a project meeting last month we argued about whether the birds of a lake have any claim against being drained out of their habitat, or whether only the people who enjoy them do. A colleague, a…
Started by Anand Pillai5 replies195 views -
Are Kant’s formulations of the categorical imperative really equivalent?
I am working through the Groundwork, slowly. Kant gives several formulations of the categorical imperative: act only on a maxim you could will as a universal law treat humanity, in yourself and others, always as an end and never merely as a…
Started by Henrike Vogel3 replies182 views -
What did Bernard Williams mean by ‘one thought too many’?
I left accountancy to raise two children and I'm reading ethics on my own, mostly in the evenings. A book on care ethics I borrowed keeps quoting Bernard Williams's phrase "one thought too many", and I think I understand it but I…
Started by Thamarai Selvi Raman4 replies182 views -
I know I shouldn’t shout at drivers who cut me off, and I still do. How is that possible?
I drive a city bus in Ankara, the 413, ten hours a day. When someone cuts in front of me at a stop, I shout. I know it does nothing. I know it is bad for my heart, bad for the passengers,…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu4 replies237 views -
What exactly is Wang Yangming’s liangzhi, and is it just the Chinese word for conscience?
I grew up in Tainan and met Wang Yangming in high school, where he was something to memorise: “unity of knowledge and action”, “extend liangzhi”, three marks on the exam. Now I design puzzle games and suddenly find him interesting, because liangzhi…
Started by Huang Wei-ting5 replies282 views -
Why does Cora Diamond say we don’t eat our dead, and what does that have to do with animals?
My son, who is eight, asked me last week whether the cat knows it is a cat, and then whether it is wrong to eat chicken if the chicken does not know it is a chicken. I did not have a good…
Started by Thamarai Selvi Raman4 replies204 views -
Teaching ethics to fifteen-year-olds: do I water sprouts or straighten warped wood?
I teach ethics at a secondary school in Seoul. Our school is arguing about a new behaviour policy, and I realised the argument is the old one between Mencius and Xunzi. Mencius says anyone who sees a child about to fall into…
Started by Ji-woo Park5 replies257 views -
How did Cynicism turn into Stoicism? What did Zeno keep from Crates, and what did he drop?
I'm a startup founder in Mumbai, recently burnt out, and reading my way back via the Stoics. Everywhere I read that Stoicism "grew out of" Cynicism, and that Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, studied with the Cynic Crates. But the two seem…
Started by Rohan Desai4 replies164 views -
Is the ban on riba about bad outcomes, or about the form a transaction may take?
I do tax returns for small businesses in Surrey, British Columbia, and many of my clients are Muslim. Several of them won't take a conventional loan. One explained that it's not because the interest rate is too high; it's that a guaranteed…
Started by Harpreet Kaur Grewal4 replies146 views -
What is quasi-realism, and is it a form of realism or a clever way of avoiding it?
One of my debaters ran a case last weekend built on what she called “quasi-realism”, and the judge, a philosophy undergraduate, nodded along as if it were obvious. I did not understand it and I do not like coaching things I do…
Started by Sam Ellery4 replies184 views -
Where do Ubuntu and Confucian role ethics fit, if they are neither utilitarian, Kantian nor virtue ethics?
I teach capoeira Angola in Salvador, and I am new to academic ethics. In a free course online, the lecturer said there are three main moral theories: consequences, duties and virtues. Then, in a footnote, she said Ubuntu and Confucian ethics “don't…
Started by Jorge Nascimento4 replies181 views -
Can someone walk me through the Frege–Geach problem without the jargon?
I am an accountant who reads philosophy in the evenings, mostly medieval. A friend recommended an introduction to ethics and I got stuck on one page for most of a week. The book explained emotivism, the view that “stealing is wrong” is…
Started by Siobhán Keane4 replies122 views -
How much of just war theory is really in Augustine?
Every introduction I read says that Augustine founded the Christian theory of just war. So I went looking for the treatise. I have read a fair amount of The City of God for other reasons and could not find one. What I…
Started by Siobhán Keane4 replies199 views -
What are the ‘four principles’ of medical ethics, and what do you do when they conflict?
I run my family's pharmacy in Ahmedabad. A drug rep who also teaches a short course mentioned "the four principles" as if everyone knew them, and I nodded and then looked them up: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. I understand each one…
Started by Hetal Shah3 replies189 views -
Why did Philippa Foot invent the trolley case, and what did Judith Jarvis Thomson change?
I coach high school debate, and the trolley problem comes up at every tournament, usually as a gotcha: "so you'd push the fat man?" My students treat it as a puzzle with a trick answer. I'd like to teach it properly, which…
Started by Sam Ellery4 replies210 views -
What were Mozi’s three tests for judging whether a doctrine is right?
I teach mathematics at a school in Delhi and I've been reading about early Chinese philosophy for fun. Several books mention that Mozi proposed "three tests" or "three standards" for judging a doctrine, and one claims this was the first explicit methodology…
Started by Vikram Sethi3 replies116 views -
When the ventilators run out: lottery, first come first served, or most life-years saved?
I build credit-scoring models, so I spend my days ranking people by predicted outcomes. During the pandemic a doctor friend in Nairobi described a night when her hospital had two ventilators and five patients who needed them. Since then I've been reading…
Started by Wanjiru Kamau5 replies214 views