66 ideas
2956 | There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood] |
2963 | There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood] |
2958 | No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood] |
2959 | If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood] |
2969 | How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood] |
2970 | Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood] |
2961 | Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood] |
2960 | Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood] |
2952 | A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood] |
2964 | How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood] |
2951 | Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood] |
2953 | Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood] |
4669 | Persons are conscious, they relate, they think, they feel, and they are self-aware [Glover] |
2967 | We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood] |
2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
2955 | If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood] |
2950 | Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood] |
2954 | Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood] |
16362 | An identity statement aims at getting the hearer to merge two mental files [Lockwood] |
2971 | Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood] |
4656 | A problem arises in any moral system that allows more than one absolute right [Glover] |
4657 | Double Effect: no bad acts with good consequences, but possibly good acts despite bad consequences [Glover] |
4658 | Acts and Omissions: bad consequences are morally better if they result from an omission rather than an act [Glover] |
4659 | It doesn't seem worse to switch off a life-support machine than to forget to switch it on [Glover] |
4660 | Harmful omissions are unavoidable, while most harmful acts can be avoided [Glover] |
4661 | What matters is not intrinsic value of life or rights, but worthwhile and desired life, and avoidance of pain [Glover] |
4648 | 'Death' is best seen as irreversible loss of consciousness, since this is why we care about brain function [Glover] |
3785 | You can't separate acts from the people performing them [Glover] |
3786 | Aggression in defence may be beneficial but morally corrupting [Glover] |
4650 | The quality of a life is not altogether independent of its length [Glover] |
3784 | Duty prohibits some acts, whatever their consequences [Glover] |
3782 | Satisfaction of desires is not at all the same as achieving happiness [Glover, by PG] |
3787 | Rule-utilitarianism is either act-utilitarianism, or not really utilitarian [Glover] |
3783 | How can utilitarianism decide the ideal population size? [Glover] |
4675 | The sanctity of life doctrine implies a serious increase of abnormality among the population [Glover] |
4654 | Autonomy favours present opinions over future ones, and says nothing about the interests of potential people [Glover] |
4655 | If a whole community did not mind death, respect for autonomy suggests that you could kill them all [Glover] |
4680 | Autonomy seems to acquire greater weight when the decision is more important to a person [Glover] |
4670 | Being alive is not intrinsically good, and there is no 'right to life' [Glover] |
4668 | You can't have a right to something you can't desire, so a foetus has no 'right' to life [Glover] |
4649 | If someone's life is 'worth living', that gives one direct reason not to kill him [Glover] |
4651 | Utilitarians object to killing directly (pain, and lost happiness), and to side-effects (loss to others, and precedents) [Glover] |
4671 | What is wrong with killing someone, if another equally worthwhile life is substituted? [Glover] |
4676 | The 'no trade-off' position: killing is only justified if it prevents other deaths [Glover] |
4685 | Societies spend a lot to save known persons, but very little to reduce fatal accidents [Glover] |
4681 | The Nazi mass murders seem to have originated in their euthanasia programme [Glover] |
4682 | Euthanasia is voluntary (patient's wish), or involuntary (ignore wish), or non-voluntary (no wish possible) [Glover] |
4683 | Involuntary euthanasia is wrong because it violates autonomy, and it has appalling side-effects [Glover] |
4684 | Maybe extreme treatment is not saving life, but prolonging the act of dying [Glover] |
4673 | Abortion differs morally from deliberate non-conception only in its side-effects [Glover] |
4652 | If killing is wrong because it destroys future happiness, not conceiving a happy child is also wrong [Glover] |
4665 | Conception isn't the fixed boundary for a person's beginning, because twins are possible within two weeks [Glover] |
4662 | Defenders of abortion focus on early pregnancy, while opponents focus on later stages [Glover] |
4663 | If abortion is wrong, it is because a foetus is a human being or a person (or potentially so) [Glover] |
4664 | If abortion is wrong because of the 'potential' person, that makes contraception wrong too [Glover] |
4666 | If viability is a test or boundary at the beginning of life, it should also be so for frail old people [Glover] |
4672 | Apart from side effects, it seems best to replace an inadequate foetus with one which has a better chance [Glover] |
4674 | It is always right for a qualified person to perform an abortion when requested by the mother [Glover] |
4055 | It isn't obviously wicked to destroy a potential human being (e.g. an ununited egg and sperm) [Lockwood] |
4056 | If the soul is held to leave the body at brain-death, it should arrive at the time of brain-creation [Lockwood] |
4667 | How would we judge abortion if mothers had transparent wombs? [Glover] |
4054 | I may exist before I become a person, just as I exist before I become an adult [Lockwood] |
4679 | One test for a worthwhile life is to assess the amount of life for which you would rather be unconscious [Glover] |
6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
2962 | Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood] |
2949 | We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood] |