Philosophy Now Forum

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Nov 22, 2025 6:25 pm So... who's really the Best Philosopher Ever?

Obviously Donald Trump. By his own admission, he’s the best there’s ever been at everything. In fact I think we are all probably just ideas in his mind.

Any more than a theist has a rational reason for believing that God exists. Actually, he does: have you never met anybody who knew such reasons? I find that difficult to imagine, unless you've deliberately been avoiding the entire fields of apologetics, the theodicy problem, natural philosophy, man...

Impenitent wrote: ↑Fri Feb 27, 2026 9:07 pm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJktf4aTNvk

...I can walk down the street, there's no one there
Though the pavements are one huge crowd
I can drive down the road, my eyes don't see
Though my mind wants to cry out loud
I feel free...

-Imp

Exactly (and BTW, excellent taste in music).

Usually bad could mean occasionally good , yes? Yes. You could have a society in which the rich keep slaves and look after them well, while the free people who are poor are starving. Also, what's the measure of bad ? Just physical discomfort or deprivation? Some folks choose spare, harsh, living bu...

*Is slavery (the treatment and use of one's fellows as property) wrong? *If so: why? I have a problem with ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, which divide actions into two rigidly separate categories. I think life is generally too complex for that. So I’ll answer a slightly different question: is slavery bad? (‘...

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 04, 2025 8:09 am Put it in the novel!

Now there's an idea....

That's a thoroughly unhelpful "definition." If fails to specify what those "reasons" would be, what the "anti-response" would entail, and what would justify calling "reasons" "sufficient." In other words, it says absolutely nothing specific. Then it...

I define 'bad' as 'providing sufficient reason for an anti-response', That's a thoroughly unhelpful "definition." If fails to specify what those "reasons" would be, what the "anti-response" would entail, and what would justify calling "reasons" "sufficie...

1. 'X is bad' means 'X provides sufficient reason to give an anti-response to X'. (In saying 'X is bad', we are both giving an anti-response to X, and at the same time claiming that X merits the anti-response, i.e. provides sufficient reason for us to give the anti-response. For this to be true, it...

IC: First I must apologise for misstating my argument in the first place. I should always have said ‘unpleasantness’. not ‘pain’. I was working on the incorrect assumption that the discussion would be easier if I used the commonly employed philosophical term ‘pain’, but this has turned out not to be...

Why do you say, 'someone with congenital analgesia may still be able to feel emotional pain'? one can always feel emotional pain, except by choice alone. I'm sure most people can, but I don't see how you can be sure that all conscious beings can. If you 'mind' having your hand or leg cut off, presu...

So, people who work out, or run marathons, or create pregancies, would be "immoral"? And what about your surgeon, who will cause you pain in order to excise a tumour? That was why I was careful to say 'other things being equal'. Yes, I saw...but I can't see anything "unequal" in...

I would say that that belief is simply mistaken. That belief requires support in the form of evidence and/or argument. Without that support, there is no reason to think the belief is true. There's no person, any-where or -when, who would willingly allow a limb to be lopped off. Even the one with co...

I think so, yes. So if I had congenital analgesia I ought not mind if my hand were cut off or my leg crushed? I believe I would. My hand, my leg, these are parts of me. I value me. Moreover, as a person, I believe I have a value, a worth, independent of what I might think of myself. My moral status...

I think so, yes.