The Philosophy Discussion Forum

I don't see why resolution needs to be irrational. People make decisions using a combination of reason, emotion and reflex. If one theorist can't come up with an answer for ever possible moral dilemma (and he can't! Life is not that predictable.) that doesn't mean a hundred ordinary people can't or...

prof, I asked the question I did because the answer did not appear in previous posts, or perhaps I missed it. It is, as simply as I can put it, the following: a universal field of enquiry requires a universal basis , which is to say some foundational claims which are immune to disagreement. Consider...

I want to ask something and maybe this thread is the right place for it: What must be in place conceptually before universal ethics is possible? Rational discussion requires A) a belief in reason and B) a common basis. Universal ethics therefore assumes that reason is universally uniform and univers...

No-brainer - for a brainer. It's what i've always believed. And it doesn't even depend on a particular level of technology or information-gathering: the state of science at any given moment is perfectly adequate for determining policy - given that policy is subject to change with fresh scientific d...

In fact, knowledge in some ways is a kind of freedom (knowledge is power etc etc), and is a precondition to a moral situation. I would say, in the case of moral action, knowledge constrains freedom; ignorance expands freedom. You judge the morality of a present action in the present circumstances. ...

This topic reminded me of why I left philosophy for science...philosophers seem to be under the impression that science has done anything but left them far behind in the dust-trail. Philosophy doesn't need to incorporate more science into their thinking, philosophy that isn't already directly in dia...

Aristotle discussed this, you're 2500 years late.

i inherits the moral worth difference in overall moral worth of predicted actions. I don't see why the moral worth of action i, already determined (completely?) under the complete moral theory, must partake of and be adjusted by the net moral worth of future actions Xi. If I risk my life to save th...

In this post I'm going to make use of the notion of a complete moral theory, which I define as follows: -a complete moral theory admits no two actions that it cannot rank in order of moral worth. My argument will be that we need to be more careful about what we're looking for, in any attempt to syst...

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but there something important to know about honesty/lying. Without moral import, there is just accurate reporting of observation and deception, which is not always moral/immoral. For example, in a game of sports if you fake a shot to one side, and then...

Some of you may be familiar with Sam Harris, in particular his membership in the ranks of the "new atheist" movement, but I'm not going to talk about that. Instead, I want to bring up a moral theory he proposed: Its a kind of utilitarianism and it works like this: In order to agree with it...