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April’s Philosophical Conundrum

“Is it in your true interests to act morally?” Brief background: Rational Choice Theory states that it is rational to maximise one’s own interests. Morality is usually thought to involve putting aside...

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On whether it is rational to be moral

The ‘kneejerk’ answer to this question would be ‘no’. If, with the economists, we define ‘being rational’ as ‘maximising our own interests’ then assuming that acting morally often requires us to act...

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May’s Conundrum

Could there be time without change? Imagine a period in which nothing changes…your thoughts stand still, the clock doesn’t tick, the bird-song stops, nothing at all happens. Could time still be...

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July’s Conundrum

Could we falsely believe we are happy? Lots of people think that if we believe we are happy we must actually be happy. But is this true? Nozick imagines an ‘experience machine’ such that when we are...

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September Conundrum

Can non-events be causes? It certainly seems so given that we might say that the flowers died because the gardener didn’t water them. But the Queen didn’t water them either, why should we say that it...

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April Conundrum

How should we distinguish the notions of ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’? It is a knotty problem because it is clear that there are, for example, objective facts about subjective states. Either you are...

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April 2013 Conundrum

Ask yourself ‘might I have been a hippopotamus?’ What is your answer? You’ll find a short explanation in the blog, and if you’d like to read something about this in order to think about it try the...

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May 2013 Conundrum

Could your ‘red’ be my ‘green’. Given that I cannot ever experience what you are actually experiencing when we both look at a dress (for example) and call it ‘red’, could it be that you are...

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August 2013 Conundrum: Freedom and Rationality

Is it possible to be rational (able to choose to act for reasons) without being free (without having freewill)? If so doesn’t this mean that if hard determinism is true (i.e. if we lack freewill) we...

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The Nature of Physical Objects (July 2014)

René Descartes (1596-1650) René Descartes (1596-1650) argued that we cannot be certain of the truth of any of our beliefs about the external world. Our only reason for believing in the existence of the...

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Utilitarianism – the Final Word on Morality?

John Stuart Mill: One of the ‘Fathers’ of Utilitarianism Consequentialism of some kind, usually Utilitarianism, is the ‘kneejerk’ moral theory of our time. It seems obvious to many people that the...

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The Principle of Charity

This piece is based on the section on The Principle of Charity in chapter one of my e-book Critical Reasoning: A Romp Through the Foothills of Logic Donald Davidson Here is the philosopher Donald...

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The Meaning of ‘Red’ (and Wittgenstein’s Private Language Argument)

I recently posted a question on my Facebook page (Marianne Talbot Philosophy – come and join us!) which triggered a lot of discussion. This was the question: Pillar box Pillar boxes in the UK are red....

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The Mind-Body Problem

This problem would be better named ‘the mind-brain problem’. It is the problem of whether the mind IS the brain, or to be more precise, the problem of whether mental states ARE neural states. The brain...

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Possible Worlds Theory

We all think there are ways things might have been. I might now be sunning myself on a beach in Italy instead of slaving over a hot laptop. Or I might now be asleep in bed. In fact there are a...

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Causation – a Philosophical Question

The cat died What do we mean when we say something like ‘the death of my cat caused me great sorrow’? How should we understand such a statement? And what sort of truth-maker makes such a statement...

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Do YOU eat genetically modified foods?

Arpad Pusztai In August 1998 the popular science programme World in Action featured a scientist who had been feeding genetically modified potatoes to rats. A researcher at the prestigious Rowett...

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Drones, Robots and the Ethics of Armed Conflict in the 21st Century

Wow! Robo Wars (The Oxford Martin School) Did you know there are machines out there capable, once programmed, of searching out their target, and delivering their lethal ‘payloads’ without further human...

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The Inconsistency of Science

Karl Popper Can a good scientific theory be logically inconsistent with itself? If you think not you’d be in good company: Karl Popper, the famous philosopher of science, believed that consistency was...

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What is Existence?

  You can’t get a question more basic than: what is existence? Presumably existence isn’t a thing (an individual), so it must be a property of things. Surely indeed it must be a property of everything!...

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