Does the "ethics of care" have a special relationship with Feminism? It seems that Feminism can be justified under lots of ethical theories. A Utilitarian could argue that since women experience pain and pleasure, their welfare should be factored into our felicific calculus. A Deontologist could argue that women have rights, and it is wrong to violate those rights. So what makes the ethics of care a more Feminist theory than other moral theories, like Utilitarianism and Deontology?

More and more, I find myself defaulting to "I need more information to draw a conclusion" or "I just think that the affected parties should decide" on various political and personal issues. I could easily form an opinion by combining by morals and values with the information that I am given, but I am always wary that I might not be forming a well-informed opinion (a sin I consider greater than not having an opinion). I would like to know, in terms of civic duty, is it better for the voter in a democratic society to form the most logical conclusion possible from whatever information he or she is given (still treating each bit of information with rational scrutiny), or to form no opinion until enough information becomes available?

Can a system of ethics exist that is universal and absolute to all societies and cultures if no supernatural power exists to enforce it? I mean, suppose that somehow God, karma or any possible force that could punish people for not following this system of ethics have been proven not to exist. What would prevent a specific society (or even the entire world) from simply saying "Since we will not be punished, we simply reject this system of ethics"?

What does it mean to "objectify" someone? What makes an act or process objectifying?

Why should one be moral? Regardless of what ethical system is correct (if there are any), I haven't come across an adequate explanation for why one should act in a morally virtuous manner. It seems to me that though almost all ethical theories implicitly claim that one should always act moral if possible, there is never an explanation why. If one were to claim that acting in a morally virtuous manner will likely improve the satisfaction/happiness/etc. in your life, then it seems that this pragmatic reasoning can allow for someone to act in a morally vicious manner (as long as they are happy). Ultimately, it appears that what I am asking is the following: what reason will I have to value moral obligations over my own desires and satisfactions? Is it even sensible to ask such a question? An analogy can be made with the value of reason: if you have no goal in knowing the truth, valuing reason in that regard will be pointless. So what goal would correspond to morality (if that makes sense)?

A friend told me about a philosophical paper he read. The author of this paper claimed that moral truths are necessary. "If pain is bad", he said, "it is necessarily bad". I assume that something being necessary means that we cannot imagine a possible situation where it does not happen. But can we not imagine situations where pain wouldn't be morally bad? Imagine a planet whose inhabitants can feel pain only in very special situations (they have other kinds of suffering). They feel pain only when they communicate with each other. And causing pain is the only way they have to communicate with each other. Different kinds of pain work as words that they combine to build (painful) sentences. Would you say that pain is bad in such a planet? I guess we should say that causing pain without having something relevant to "say" is bad, but not that pain is bad in general. What do you think?

I recently had a conversation with a friend who is convinced that morality is simply a human invention, no more than a system of social conventions developed to ensure social stability and ultimately the propagation of the human species. Do you agree? If not, can you outline any arguments for morality being something more than just social convention? For example, are there any arguments for morality as something independent of humans, something which exists objectively, "out there", and does not depend for its existence on our conceptions of it, or our development of its principles?

Religions are frequently criticised for the bad conduct of their members or office bearers. And some go so far as to say that this behaviour renders religious belief untenable. I have always believed that since their tenets do not support or encourage this bad conduct such bad behaviour is not a valid criticism of religion. That it is simply the normal outcome of behavioural variation in the human population which says nothing about the validity of religious beliefs. Is this a valid line of reasoning? Peter S.

Why can’t science tell us what morality ‘is’? In the trivial sense, science can certainly catalog the diversity, commonalities, and contradictions of cultural moral standards and moral behaviors. But science is very good at teasing out underlying principles. What forbids determining such principles (if any exist) using the normal methods of science? For instance, we might propose an observation like “Almost all moral behaviors are strategies for increasing, on average, the synergistic benefits of cooperation and are unselfish at least in the short term” as an hypothesis about what moral behaviors ‘are’. Then we could evaluate its provisional ‘truth’ as a matter of science by how well this hypothesis meets criteria for 1) explanatory power for the diversity, commonalities, and contradictions of moral standards, 2) explanatory power for puzzles about moral behavior, 3) predictive power for moral intuitions, 4) universality, 5) no contradictions with known facts, and so forth. Of course, provisional ...

I think that most of us have had the experience of making a promise to ourselves. A person might promise herself that she will study harder next semester, for instance, or quit smoking. Is it immoral to break promises to oneself? Is it just less bad than breaking promises to other people, or equally as bad?