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Questions related from Bill Johnson
I had a student in my ethics class pose a question to which I do not know the answer. In searching my memory I cannot recall anyplace where Aristotle engages the issue he raised. Whereas Kant...
10 October 2017 10,104 2 View
Some say life begins at conception. Some think it is at the time when the morula is formed and there exists a cellular state of totipotency. Some argue for the heart beat as proof of life. Some...
07 July 2016 3,452 23 View
About half of my students write fairly well. The other half, even after having been told that they are to adhere to standards of formal writing, and after having repeatedly experienced my...
03 March 2014 5,028 6 View
How and why did the electric eel evolve its unique capabilities?
02 February 2014 5,623 5 View
What do you think of the possibility that the trend toward eliminating the teaching of the history of ethics, and toward giving university students instruction in ethical matters specifically...
02 February 2014 8,987 18 View
Is even the good that we do ultimately motivated by selfish reasons? Is there anything that really resembles altruism in human behaviors? The musician Madonna has made the rather skeptical...
11 November 2013 3,155 1 View
There are numerous theories regarding how to ground the moral worth of human beings. What of other living things? Do some have greater value than others? Is a domestic turkey bred and raised to be...
11 November 2013 6,831 10 View
John Stuart Mill stated regarding the death penalty that, "I defend this penalty, when confined to atrocious cases, on the very ground on which it is commonly attacked—on that of humanity to the...
10 October 2013 1,013 28 View
In the Summa, Thomas Aquinas advanced the notion that an action which is well-intentioned may have more than one effect. E.g. trying to preserve one's life may entail a physical defense which...
10 October 2013 9,168 30 View
In his book Ethics Without God, atheist philosopher Kai Nielsen states the following: "God or no God, the torturing of innocents is evil; God or no God, wife beating or child molesting is vile....
10 October 2013 852 31 View
Michael Frayn asks "Are the qualities (physical, moral, aesthetic) that distinguish one thing from another objective realities, or are they subjective imposition on things? Can we have real...
09 September 2013 1,507 22 View
How does wisdom relate to intelligence?
09 September 2013 454 18 View
At base are morals more like the facts of science (discovered) or more like art (created)?
08 August 2013 9,771 23 View
Although Consequentialism and Deontology differ greatly, they both focus on conduct. The former on identifying the conduct which maximizes happiness and the latter on identifying the conduct which...
08 August 2013 1,226 20 View
Mary Midgley wrote of the Ethical Primate and recently, Christian Smith has written a book entitled Moral, Believing Animals. Why is it that human beings alone seem to experience the phenomenon of...
08 August 2013 4,676 11 View
Do conclusions arrived at by way of modal and counterfactual reasoning, including supervenience arguments, speculations regarding possible worlds, and twin earth discussions, yield any ontological...
08 August 2013 7,196 11 View
In his "A Common Humanity", Raimond Gaita has written: “The secular philosophical tradition speaks of inalienable rights, inalienable dignity, and of persons as ends in themselves. These are, I...
07 July 2013 7,649 92 View
Hume wrote in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: "In all determinations of morality, this circumstance of public utility is ever principally in view; and wherever disputes arise, either...
07 July 2013 5,354 4 View
J.L. Mackie has famously stated “There are no objective values.” (Mackie, 1977, p. 15) Is he right or wrong?
04 April 2013 9,080 63 View
Andrew Altmann has written in his article “Breathing life into a dead argument: G.E. Moore and the open question” that “the received view is that the OQA is a failure", and (a bit further on) that...
04 April 2013 425 6 View
To this day, David Hume’s famous statement regarding the impossibility of deducing values from facts by means of reason alone (Treatise, 3.1.1.27) is perceived by some as being a barrier against...
04 April 2013 6,331 41 View
What exactly is the objection to non-reductive ideas of supervenience? Why must everything be reduced down to the physical? What drives that project? Is there a discomfort with things that refuse...
04 April 2013 8,252 24 View
