Unanswered Questions
230 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
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How has Foucault's philosophy of surveillance been critiqued?
One of the horrors of the communist police-states of Eastern Europe was the incredible amount of information that the police force kept on the general population. This was often not gathered just by ...
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5
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55
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Trying to understand 4P26 of Spinoza's Ethics: Why is reason the foundation of virtue?
The text of the proposition is:
All efforts which we make through reason are nothing but efforts to understand, and the mind, in so far as it uses reason, adjudges nothing as profitable to itself ...
- 139
5
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What is the history of the idea of conscience as a homunculus?
What is the historical origin of the mental categorization or anthropomorphization of conscience as a kind of semi-person distinct from, subordinate to, and constitutive of the self?
To clarify: as ...
- 833
5
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2
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What role can guilt play in Bentham's utilitarianism?
If Bentham posited a sense of guilt as pain that most would feel when doing wrong by others, then surely Utilitarianism would be unnecessary due to Bentham's own work on the motivation of human beings....
CommunityBot
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4
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1
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Kant acknowledges physical needs as well as moral law, but has he adequately explained why one should win out over the other?
Theorem II, Book 1, of the Critique of Practical Reason acknowledges finite beings, as part of physical nature, and that they have desires and needs, specifically a need to be happy. But the Critique ...
CommunityBot
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4
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0
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50
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Is Levinas only interested in kind of universal Otherness?
Do I "encounter" the Other if I do not know what my "responsibilities" to them are?
rather than formulating an ethical theory, Levinas developed his philosophy in opposition to ...
CommunityBot
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4
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0
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226
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How do the Officer's Oath and the Enlisted Oath interact
I've come across a military question which is so subtle that I think it has to be answered from a philosophical perspective, dealing with the meaning of "duty" and nuanced things like that.
In many ...
CommunityBot
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4
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Is there any normative theory within pragmatic ethics?
I've read wikipedia's article on pragmatic ethics and it does not produce any norms. Rather, it is only a template for normative ethical theories, like how deontology is a template and CI is a real ...
- 2,794
3
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60
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Camus and the pillar of virtue
I have been reading "The Myth of Sisyphus", and after reading the first 3 chapters cannot help but wonder how Camus' entire philosophy relies heavily on morality and virtuousness.
I agree ...
- 10.6k
3
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The “what” determines the “how”, although in the long run the “how” determines the “what”
I recently stumbled upon a quote from Heinrich Neuhaus' book 'Art of Piano Playing' that got me thinking:
'The "what" determines the "how", although in the long run the "how&...
3
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116
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Harm Principle and Duty to Rescue - Which "baseline" should an action be compared against when assessing harm?
Preface
("What isn't my question")
As prominently articulated by Mill, liberalism (and the harm principle) asserts that it is always bad for aggregate utility to coercively interfere in ...
- 31
3
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How to argue that some inequality is justifiable in order to maximize the well-being of the worst off in Rawls's theory of justice?
In context, I have to describe what we think is a just society by Rawls theory of justice. I want to try and use Scandinavia, for example, the Nordic Model as a representation as a just society. ...
- 7,009
3
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1
answer
114
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Quantifying moral obligation
A follow-up, of sorts, on this question, in which I'd like to refine the notion of moral obligation. Consider some instances in which the notion might arise:
Most people agree that a trolley operator ...
CommunityBot
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3
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2
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How Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative interacts with consent
Kant's second formulation (or the "ends in themselves" formulation) says:
use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a ...
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2
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0
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The Euthyphro and Natural Law
I'm interested in the Euthyphro dilemma and its treatment by various Christian thinkers. I'm familiar with Divine Command Theory and I was wondering: Is there a distinctive response from the tradition ...
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