The questions that philosophers consider seem to me to be some of themost important questions there are, and so any answers that we get tothese questions are themselves extremely valuable. Some of the answersand arguments that philosophers have offered in response to thesequestions have themselves been extraordinarily insightful andwonderful, and so for this reason, too, of significant value tous. Besides, it’s just fun to think about philosophical questions. Itdoesn’t, however, follow from these observations that nothing else isof value or even of comparable, if not more significant, value. I thinkthat one of the most important questions that philosophers ask is:“What has value?” However, it seems to me (and to many otherphilosophers) that the best answer to this philosophical question isthat there are many things of very significant value– e.g., otherpeople, their welfare, friendship, nature, understanding ofnon-philosophical matters, beauty–none of which philosophy by itselfprovides. I would bet...

You might consider my answers to related questions 57 and 141 .

I agree with you that the distinction, on which the law must rely insuch cases, between genuine consent and non-consent is tricky. If youagreed to do a sexual act that you regard as repulsive in order to saveyour life, did you or did you not “consent” to the action? If I give a kidnapper$100,000 in order to obtain the safe return of my child, have I actedwillingly? You might worry that Nicholas Smith suggested a positive answer to these questions whenhe suggests that a loving spouse can find sex distasteful but nonetheless “consent” to sex with herhusband “out of love.” She doesn’t want to do it, he suggests, butnonetheless, since she consented, the sex wasn’t rape. I don’t, however,think that Smith’s suggestion has the implication that victims ofcoercion, such as you experienced, count as having “consented” to theiractions. So what is the difference between you and the dutifuland loving wife? In both of these cases, a person agrees to dosomething that she would not otherwise have desired to do had it...

I think that there are two explanations for why we fear death: (1)animals who fear death are more likely to survive and reproduce thananimals who do not, and so, it’s likely that our fear of death is basicand innate, and (2) many of us value our lives: we enjoy and value theactivities and experiences that constitute our lives, we enjoy our relationships, wewant to be around to share the joys and lessen the pain of our lovedones, and we simply want to know how things turn out. Of course, if ourlife is painful, empty, and worthless, if we care about nothing that depends on our efforts, and if we don’t anticipate thatthings will improve soon, or soon enough, then life can be a burden andwe can fear its continuation more than its end. Fortunately, I think,life is rarely like that.

Under Federal Law (COBRA), companies with 20 or more employees arerequired to offer health care coverage at the group rate to formerspouses of employees for three years after a divorce. In somestates, companies with fewer employees are required to do the same. So,while it would be less expensive for your former wife to have been covered as a spouseunder your family plan, it’s probably just a mistake to believe thatyour former wife will not have health insurance coverage unless shedelays the divorce. Butsuch an observation doesn’t really touch the deep and complex issuesthat your and your former wife’s arguments raise about the nature andvalue of marriage. Let’s imagine that there were no such federallaw guaranteeing a three-year continuation of health insurance coveragefor former spouses. If you stayed married for the sake of providingyour wife health insurance coverage, wouldn’t you be doing somethingdishonest? Wouldn’t you be pretending, for the purpose of defrauding ahealth insurance company,...

If your mother had had an abortion, then yes, alas, there would havebeen no you who has had such a good life. But it’s also true that, ifyour mother had done anything different on that fateful nightin the early sixties– had she decided to stay home, had she decided shewasn’t really in the mood that night, had her amusing story gone on just a little bit longer– then, chances are, there would have been no you:that particular egg and that particular sperm just wouldn’t have gottentogether. In fact, had a multiplicity of other events in the past–e.g., the weather on a night millions of year ago when your ancientancestors got together-- been different from what they in fact were,then there would have been no you because there also wouldhave been none of your more recent ancestors. When you think of all ofthe events that had to conspire from the beginning of time to produceyou, then it becomes clear how very lucky each of us is even to havelived for just one minute. The odds against each of us...

Proponents of the Doctrine of Double Effect draw a distinction betweentwo sorts of cases: (1) you intend to achieve a particular result Rthrough your action (i.e., this result is the purpose of your action)and(2) you intend to achieve a different result T through your action butforesee that your action will have an additional (though non-intended)result R. What’s crucial, according to this doctrine, is the object ofone’s intentions. In the case of abortion, the intended purpose of theprocedure is to terminate a pregnancy. In most cases of ectopicpregnancy, the purpose of the surgery is to save the life of thepregnant woman, and a foreseeable, though not intended, result of theprocedure is the termination of a pregnancy. (How can you tell whetherthe result is intended, rather than merely foreseen? See whether youwould still perform the action if you were to learn that the resultwould not occur.) Iam not a fan of the Doctrine of Double Effect. It seems to me to dependon a distinction that makes no...

I’d approach the problem in a completely different way. I suspect thatthe problem that you are facing is that none of the philosophical worksthat you are now attempting to read has obvious relevance to your lifeas you now live it– to your career, to your personal relationships, toyour choices about what and where to eat, to your investmentstrategies, to your vacation plans, to your commute, to your life inyour community, etc. Ifso, it's not surprising that it’s hard to maintain interest. Iwould begin, not with philosophy, but with some interesting non-fictionthat is more obviously related to what your life is all about. Ipredict that you will find--such is the nature of philosophy-- that itwill raise interesting philosophical questions that you will feelcompelled to explore. Let me offer just one example. I just finished reading Barry Schwartz’s recent The Paradox of Choice: Why Less is More .Schwartz is a psychology professor at Swarthmore, not a philosopher.But this book raises all sorts...

Initially, the case that you are considering strikes me as an instanceof a moral principle to which I am generally committed, which might beput crudely, as “no harm, no foul.” If no one is harmed by, say,dancing, then moral prohibitions against it are unjustifiable. If noone would be harmed by your buying your friend flowers with her ownmoney, then it follows from this principle that there are no groundsfor moral complaint against your doing so. However, I am not yet convinced that your actions would cause no harm in this situation. I wouldn’t say that it is “obviouslycruel” for you to dupe her. I would reserve the word “cruel” for peoplewho are completely indifferent to, or even take pleasure in, thesuffering of others, and your stealing her money in order to buy herflowers doesn’t reveal such a character trait. Nonetheless, it is notso clear to me that you do not harm your friend by buying her flowerswith money that you steal from her and by pretending that the moneythat you spent was yours. The...

I agree with Richard that, to the extent that there is anything to thisidea, it is based on a particular view about the importance of thefamily to human civilization. Traditionally, the family is the social unit inwhich human children are raised, acquire values, and develop moralcharacter (i.e., are civilized). Proponents of the view that you aredescribing make the further assumption that the family is the best social institution for raising children. The idea here is that, inorder to be psychologically healthy, children need to feel confidentthat the adults in their lives will do their best to take care of themand won’t take off whenever they see greener pastures elsewhere. Thenorms of family relationships, unlike the norms that govern other sortsof social relationships, demand such care and count against such“trading up.” And finally, proponents of the view that you describe maintain that, associal institutions for raising children, families are more likely tobe stable and successful when they are...