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Children
Ethics
Sex

I recently read an article in the New Yorker about a sex offender who had a preference for 13-14 year old girls. One of the things that struck me was when one of the psychologists noted that he was under the delusion that 13-14 were capable of consenting to sex. While I don't personally find 13-14 year old girls desirable it seems strange to say that they are unable to consent to sex. What makes them unable to consent to sex? Is it because they don't understand what sex is? What understanding of sex does a 13-14 year old not know that an adult doesn't? It seems like an interesting claim to say that 13-14 has a fundamentally different understanding of sex than am adult. Of course most have not had experience with sex but nobody thinks that it's wrong to have sex with a virgin. Most 13-14 Year old girls do fantasize about sex though. Aren't there some feminists who believe that the idea of an age of consent is oppressive to women because it treats young girls as incapable of consent? Afterall, we often see...

So there are a few issues to clarify here, but first, a disclaimer: I am not an expert on the law, and will not be speaking from the point of view of interpreting the law. That said, however, it does seem to me that an "age of consent" is an appropriate legal construct. The idea is that 13-14 year old children have simply not developed far enough, not just morally, but most importantly neurologically , to be very good yet at forecasting consequences of their actions. With respect to issues like sex, it is not unreasonable to think that if young teenagers are not yet capable of forecasting consequences of their actions--by which I mean not just being able to think or say, "I might get pregnant," or "I could catch some STD," but actually appreciate what such an outcome would mean for them--then they are reasonably thought not to have what it takes to give genuine (i.e. morally significant) consent. Of course, many girls that age know about sex, and some even have sexual fantasies. Some,...
Emotion
Knowledge

What part does emotion play in the acquisition of knowledge? Does the role of emotion vary across the different areas of knowledge (Natural Science, Human Science, History, The arts, Ethics and Maths) ? Thanks a lot for responses

I think your question presupposes that "emotion" is a fairly simple phenomenon, whereas I suspect that it is extremely complex. But let's sidestep that concern and just try a simple case out. Scientist A believes that he will very much impress his lover if he unlocks the secret to some phenomenon. Scientist B has no such motivation (and, let us suppose, no other motivator that makes him as eager as A's desire to impress his lover), but works on the same problem. In this case, it looks to me as if scientist A's success (if he achieves it) will be partly explicable in terms of his emotional motivation, whereas that would not be the case for B. Indeed, it seems reasonable to think that A's emotional motivation might provide stronger motivation than we would find in B. On the other hand, we might worry that A's emotional motivation might also cloud his judgment somewhat, and make him more likely to make mistakes. But this much seems obvious, such an "extrinsic" motivator can certainly function...
Logic

Is there a way to prove that logic works? It seems that the only two methods for doing this would be to use a logical proof –which would be incorporating an assumed answer into the question– or to use some system other than logic –thus proving that sometimes logic does not work.

It looks to me as if your question is a version of what epistemologists have come to know as "the problem of the criterion"--in this case, with respect to logic. There have come to be three different ways of responding to this problem (which one could also apply to any other sources of information or reasoning, such as sense perception, memory, or induction): reductionism, which provides evidence for the reliability of the source by getting confirmation for that source from some other source (this is more or less the second option you provide in your question, though I am not sure why that seems to you to show that "sometimes logic does not work"); dogmatism, which essentially says that we can be justified in accepting individual samples from a given source without having any (prior) justification for thinking that the source is reliable (this is more or less the first option you present in your question; and holistic coherence theory, which claims that our justification for thinking that the...
Physics

What is the philosopher's response to the anthropic principle? (which, if I recall correctly, states that the universe "had to" evolve in a certain manner, otherwise we would not be here to ask these questions about it!) Is it dismissed as basically a tautology? or is there something more substantive behind it?

It strikes me as neither a tautology nor as something that has anything "more substantive behind it." The tautological version is that the universe did come to be in such a way as we came to be a part of it. But given the number of other animals that have managed to go extinct, I see no natural necessity that the universe simply had to have us in it, or has to have us in it in the future. I reckon the universe would go on pretty much the way it goes now if we managed to go extinct, which also seems to me not just to be possible, but actually likely, long-term. Even where we happen to live, it looks to me like natural reality can get pretty rough on us at times--ask the people living on the coast of New Jersey! Not friendly at all!
Ethics

Is it wrong to continue to pursuit someone romantically (like ask them out regularly) if they never agree to go out (i.e. make different excuses why they cant), but they never out right say they are not interested and they always return (but never initiate) text messages in a very friendly way.

Not sure that it is wrong , but it does begin to sound like it is a case of not getting the message. "Very friendly" should generally be assumed to mean just that. If you have repeatedly asked someone out and they have repeatedly declined, then it seems that the message has been provided to you very gently, but also very clearly. This person would like to be friends...and nothing more. You have obviously given the person enough evidence of your own interest. If he/she wants to pursue something more, then he/she will let you know that--especially if you back off. So that's my advice: back off...
Race

Is it racist to assert that violence within African-American communities is driven more by cultural factors than economic factors?

I think the natural question to ask here is: why do you think that? I am not aware of any evidence that would license such a claim, and in the absence of any such evidence, I would have to conclude that such a judgment could only be based on racism.
Logic

Why do we attempt to avoid fallacies?

Fallacies are forms of reasoning that fail to provide support for the conclusions reached via that reasoning. In other words, the premises could all be true, but the conclusion still false. Just because something is a fallacy does not make the conclusion of such reasoning false, however. For example, here is a (deductive, logical) fallacy with a true conclusion: If my name is Nicholas D. Smith, then I have a very common last name. I do have a very common last name. Hence, my name is Nicholas D. Smith. All the premises are true, and so is the conclusion, but the reasoning is fallacious (called "affirming the consequent"), because the truth of the premises does not in any way support or ensure the truth of the conclusion. To see this, consider another example of the same sort of inference (affirming the consequent): If I am swimming, then I am wet. I am wet. Hence, I am swimming. Nah! I live in Portland, Oregon--folks here are wet most of the year from the rain. ...
Knowledge

Last week, I read a book called "Sophie's World" about a young woman who receives philosophy lessons in the mail from a secret source. Toward the end of the book, Sophie (the young woman) realizes that she is a character in a book, and her philosophy teacher proposes that her author might be a character in a book as well. Sophie's reality begins to change in preposterous ways, inviting characters from other books, sea monsters, etc., and we are introduced to a second girl who is reading about her, as we are reading about that girl. I "realized" with building panic that I, too, could be a character in a book, and felt sapped of free will. The fear evolved into a fear that nothing around me really existed, including (with intense regret) the minds and hearts of friends and family-- that it could all change or disappear against the "laws" of physics at any moment. How do we know that just because an experiment works once, it won't suddenly stop working? How do we know, for example, that a clock won't turn...

Not sure you are going to feel much happier after you read my answer to your question, but let me try at least to tell you what philosophers generally do in response to this sort of question these days. Your question raises the specter of what is called global skepticism--the idea that we can't or at least don't know anything at all. There are different sorts of responses one might have to this claim, but also different sorts of responses to the kinds of existential questions that you are associating with the skeptical threat. So let's try first to do what most contemporary epistemologists actually don't do, and that is to grant the threat of skepticism and concede that we cannot remove it. OK, so you don't know anything! Well, the main reason you would think that is because you have in mind extremely high standards for what can count as knowledge. Alright, so maybe we can't meet such high standards. Does that mean it would be reasonable to worry that "a clock might...
Language

What does "fuc*ing" mean and why is it a bad word? Does fuc*ing mean sex where there is a desire to express physical control or dominance over a woman? Is that a bad thing? Is it a normal aspect of what is sometimes thought as its opposite, "lovemaking"? If it is normal does that mean that it is not a bad thing? (I use an asterisk because I do not know if this site has a word filter.)

OK, there are a few things going on here. Let's begin with a little bit about obscenity. Some words are regarded as obscenities, but then other descriptions of the very same things are not. If I use the term "sexual intercourse," no one is going to accuse me of using an obscenity. So why, then, do people object to the f-word, since it seems to refer to the same thing? Well, the very notion of an obscenity is a bit unclear, and may simply be contextual. I can certainly imagine circumstances in which a use of the f-word would not seem to me to qualify as an obscenity. It might, for example, be a part of a rather intriguing invitation (or promise), under the right circumstances. The problem you seem to be attending to might perhaps be in the fact that the f-word is usually associated with doing something to someone , as in "f*** you!" So part of what make it an obscenity is that it conceives of sexual intercourse in an offensive (and possibly threatening) way. So the element that makes...
Punishment

In making such decisions as whether to grant parole, should we care whether convicts are "remorseful" for their crimes?

I think so. After all, even if remorse is not an absolute guarantee that the remorseful person won't repeat his/her wrongdoing, it is at least a positive indicator. There are several theories of punishment and so the very idea of parole will vary under different theories. For example, in a retributive theory, the main question will be whether the criminal has "paid his/her debt to society," and it would seem that, strictly speaking, this could simply be a matter of doing the time in prison or whatever. On the other hand, I don't see why a retributivist couldn't think that part of the appropriate "price" includes feelings of remorse. In a social protection theory, the goal is simply to make sure the criminal is no longer a threat. It would seem that his or her feelings of remorse would be at least one useful indicator of whether he or she continued to pose a threat of the relevant sort. The same goes for a rehabilitative theory, where remorse might reasonably be taken as an indication off...

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