ask a question

recent responses

all topics

info

⚲

Religion

In the context of "The Problem of Evil" can you help point me to the literature on this sub-category? Lacking this I have dubbed this sub-problem the "God for a day paradox": “If I had only some of the powers of God, I would cure cancer” Am I therefore more merciful than God? Supposedly the most merciful possible Being… Therefore is God’s omni-benevolence (not even that much is needed) itself a contradiction? How can a lesser being even think of a more merciful action (take curing cancer down to a single child; even to just answering a prayer for such a child) than God Himself? It is almost certainly possible to write a computer simulation that would, discover the “cancer mercy” action / rule on its own given an appropriate set of rules guiding “advance being behavior” This outcome would probably be another notch in favor of the Bostrom's “The Universe is a Simulation” argument. Thanks in advance, --JCN

Since you asked for literature on the topic of the problem of evil, let me offer you some sources: God, Freedom and Evil by Alvin Plantinga (focuses on a 'free-will answer' to why evil exists) Evil and the God of Love by John Hick (focuses on a 'moral development' answer to why evil exists) Wandering in Darkness by Eleonore Stump (focuses on a 'superior relationship with God' answer to why evil exists) The Problem of Evil (Marilyn and Robert Adams eds.) an edited collection with many influential essays from many viewpoints on the issue.
Religion

The reason that Pascal's Wager doesn't seem convincing to me is that to me it seems that you can't assign a probability to something that doesn't have any empirical evidence. So all gods seems equally improbable. And so I would be equally likely to suffer eternal torture if I chose Islam, Mormonism or nothing. Although on further thought, I don't feel so sure any more, largely because of the same reasoning that lead me to the question I'm about to ask. But, after I read the thought experiment "Roko's Basilisk," it seems to me that you could also make a Pascal's Wager-style proposition without metaphysical claims, one that would involve probabilities. Something along the lines of this: Biologists know a lot about the human body. Those that know a lot about the human body are more likely to have the capabilities to torture me for eternity. Those that are more likely to have the capabilities to torture me for eternity are more likely to torture me for eternity. If I go spend time near biologists it is...

Three quick observations: 1) Even if you can't determine which of the religious options is more likely (or less unlikely) than the others Pascal's Wager would still demonstrate that ANY of the religious options is superior to atheism/agnosticism. If you are on a mountaintop and a deadly storm is coming that will certainly kill you and there are ten paths - only one of which leads to safety, but you don't know which one- it is still more practically rational to take any of the paths instead of staying on the mountain awaiting certain death. 2) Pascal's Wager only works for relatively exclusivist religions. You can safely eliminate something like Hinduism because it doesn't threaten eternal torment, just a less favorable reincarnation. You can also eliminate any sort of universalistic religion, since everyone goes to heaven regardless of belief. 3) I don't know of any major historical religion for which there is absolutely no evidence. Surely, ancient scriptures of any sort serve as at...
Religion

Hello philosophers , recently in a debate with Christians , I made a point that if one claims a relationship with a God or being that can't be seen , heard or touched that they are suffering from a delusion; is this an unfair statement and if so why ?

The technical problem with your argument is that it is question begging. You didn't provide any evidence against the religious claim, but instead you simply asserted it was wrong/insane without further argument. In the same way, I have heard some Christians simply assert that unbelief is a result of sin. In both cases no/little evidence is provided for the key premise to the argument. Roughly your argument would run: Immaterial things do not exist Anyone who interacts with something that doesn't exist is deluded Therefore, anyone who claims to interact with God is deluded But, obviously no Christian is going to accept your first critical premise. Nor would the overwhelming number of cross cultural or historic thinkers. Those who would reject the premise assuming immaterial things don't exist not only include religious thinkers, but anyone who believes in an immaterial soul. So to have a remotely convincing argument you need to prove that immaterial things don't exist.
Existence

I think for many people the experience of consciousness leads to an unshakable sense that there is something that exists which can be called consciousness and which is different from matter. Many philosophers deny this. For me the experience of existence leads to an unshakable sense that at least something exists but I can't say exactly what exists. I could say that my experiences must be caused by something but its conceivable that someone would deny that intuition. It wouldn't surprise me if some philosophers completely denied that anything at all exists. What is the name of that way of thinking? What philosophers have advocated that belief?

I am not aware of any philosophers that claim that absolutely nothing exists. The most skeptical position I am aware of is called solipsism, which is the view that only the self exists or that one is only justified in believing the self exists. However, it is a rather rare position. Descartes famous argument: "I think, therefore I am" has been pretty influential in establishing the existence of the self. However, even this rather intuitive argument has been appropriately criticized by Bertrand Russell insisted that all the argument really proved was that 'thoughts are being thunk.
Ethics

I'm currently struggling to convince many people that murdering a child can be justified in some very extreme situations. There's this character in a novel who attempts to murder an innocent child because, if he hadn't, his entire family would have gotten executed with certainty (his 3 children, his lover and himself). Was the character justified in attempting to murder this child? I believe that he was. After all, to do otherwise would have resulted in the deaths of 5 other people. Aren't 5 lives generally worth more than one?

The answer to your question depends on which 'camp' within ethics you think is correct. One major theory within ethics is consequentialism. This school claims that the moral worth of an action is determined entirely by the action's consequences. Obviously, the consequentialist theory will agree with your intuition that it is better for one person to die than for five. In contrast, the deontological approach to ethics claims that there is something within the nature of actions in themselves that makes actions right or wrong. For example, Immanuel Kant taught that we ought to always act in such a way as to treat people as an end in themselves and never as a mere means. According to this way of thinking, some actions are against objective human dignity, so we should never 'use people'...even if we expect it to bring about a greater good. So we should never kill an innocent person, even if failing to do so would bring about multiple deaths. Kant would also deny that you can 'really know' the results of...
Ethics

I adhere to a position of moral relativism and utilitarianism. But recently I was confronted with the criticism that, then, there is no basis for the idea of "human rights" or for the ordering of law based on them. Is this true? Is there a utilitarian justification for human rights?

First, we need to clarify your terms. Moral relativism typically claims that: there is no objectively morally correct thing to do independent of the individual actor's values or the specific culture's values. In contrast, utilitarianism claims that: there is an objective morally correct thing to do, whatever action ultimately brings about the greatest happiness for all involved. Therefore, you cannot be both a relativist and a utilitarian. I suspect when you claim that you are a moral relativist, what you really mean is something like: there is no type of action that is inherently wrong in and of itself (which is a claim compatible with utilitarianism). The claim that there are universal, objective human rights would be incompatible with utilitarianism. However, you could claim something a little less sweeping: that given the current state of humanity, set of rights 'x' would likely bring about the greatest good for all involved on the most reliable basis that we can predict. Of course, the problem...
Law

Should the government regulate hateful Billboards? I once saw a billboard that said the pope is the anti-Christ. I shrugged it off as a matter of free speech. But then someone pointed out that someone could advertise a billboard that expressed hatred for blacks. For whatever reason this has never happened. Most billboard owners dont want to accused of racism. So arguably society polices itself well enough without government intervention. Yet I suspect that there is another factor which is that billboards are owned by a very small amount of people because the high expense involved and the limited number of billboards. These folks don't want any bad attention. The same observation could be made about all aspects of the media. It is very difficult to get controversial or even outright racist materials despite the fact that many people are racist. (I suppose The Bell Curve is a notable exception) It seems like one "benefit" of concentrated wealth is that it promulgates political correctness to protect its...

This is a good question to raise. Unfortunately, Ian Kidd has implicitly offered us a false dilemma on the matter by suggesting that 'free speech' means either "anything goes" OR "we can limit free speech to those views [we judge to be] worth hearing/worth taking seriously." There are many possible positions in between this false dichotomy. I myself am fairly comfortable with the USA Supreme Court's current view which is roughly that "speech that is not dangerous in an immediate physical way is broadly protected." Examples of unprotected speech include things like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater, incitement to immediate riotous violence, joking about 'bombs' at the airport, and things of this nature. Slander and libel are also unprotected under civil rather than criminal law (you can't say things that are damaging to people that you know to be untrue if you don't want them to sue you). The problem with the standard suggested by Kidd: that we censor views we don't think are 'worth hearing...
Religion

Are there any professional philosophers that find the traditional arguments for God convincing? In my intro class, we basically blitzed all of them (like Aquinas' cosmological one, and the Kalaam one, etc.), and the class consensus was that none of these arguments worked out to guarantee a personal creator god like the one many Christians, Muslims, and Jews believe in or really any deity/supernatural force. But I'm very interested to hear what the pros think about the matter!

I don't think there are many contemporary philosophers who find that traditional completely unrefined, unnuanced versions of the arguments for God's existence 'guarantee the existence of a personal creator God.' But, this should not be too discouraging since there are few historical, non-revised, philosophical arguments that are judged to be so thoroughly convincing that on their own they 'guarantee' their conclusions. Instead, contemporary philosophers usually judge arguments to be plausible or implausible; to provide a lot, some, little, or no evidence for their conclusions. I certainly hope your professor didn't rip the traditional arguments for God's existence out of their historic context and act as if they represented the pinnacle of contemporary religious thought. Take Aquinas's five arguments for example: unless your teacher took time to explain Aristotle's four types of causes and how Aquinas's arguments presuppose something like Aristotelian physics (the height of the science of his day)...
Art

why is it that an exact replica of art is valued less than the original even though the aesthetic aspects are still the same?

One obvious difference is that the original is 'scarcer' and thus the laws of supply and demand lead it to become 'more valued'. Also, the original has at least one potentially valuable attribute the replica does not have, the attribute of being 'made by the original artist.' Finally, it seems to me that most appreciators of art will deny your main premise... the claim that there is such a thing as an 'exact replica' of art.
Logic

I know a number of people who subscribe to a particular model of human development, who often use terms peculiar to this model in premises in arguments. For example, I've heard many variations on this theme: "You and/or your worldview, and thus your view on the issue we're arguing about, are at level or stage x, and because x is not as highly developed as y and me and/or my view is at y, it's obvious that your view is less than adequate [or wrong, etc.]." One could point out that the premises require support, but I've been reluctant to do that in large part because my sense is that the very use of these premises falls in the direction of being a fallacy of relevance. (I've suggested that interjecting such premises into an argument is a conversation stopper, but the term "conversation stopper" doesn't have the same weight as terms like "fallacy of relevance.") I seek clarification, suggestions, advice.

Actually, this sounds like a pretty good example of the 'question begging' fallacy. I can't just assert that 'your view is inferior/not as highly developed'. I have to provide some sort of reasonable evidence for you to think my claim that 'your view is inferior/ not as highly developed' is correct. Without such evidence I'm simply presupposing what I should be proving (this happens A LOT in our culture for some reason).

Pages