© Roger M Tagg 2010-2011
Welcome to FROLIO – a new attempt to merge philosophy and the "semantic web" . This website is under continuing development.
This is a collection of "readers' questions" of a philosophical nature, with short (2-4 pages each) answers to those questions from philosophers at a number of US and UK universities (the biggest concentration coming from the editor's home area of Amherst, Massachusetts).
Topics include knowledge, religion, science, morality, mind etc.
I have named the philosopher who gave the reply in each of the highlights listed below.
| Chapter | Page | Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| Not used | 45 | Sharon Street (in answer to a question about Laws of Morality versus Laws of Religion): "If altruistic individuals can find each other and work together, and if they can identify selfish individuals and punish and exclude them, then the altruists will be able to reap tremendous benefits of co-operation that are unavailable to the purely selfish. In this way, natural selection can strongly favour altruistic behaviour." But (she admits) an even better strategy is just to appear to be altruistic. |
| 58 | Richard Heck (in answer to a suggestion that philosophizing is just a waste of time and effort): He admits overall progress is very slow, but it benefits the individual's personal development. Against the criticism that there has been little or no advance, he gave the example that "behaviorism was dethroned and replaced by cognitive psychology." | |
| 71 | Joseph G Moore: "Cultural relativism is not good or bad, but wildly implausible." I think he means saying that whatever crackpot ideas another culture has, we should respect them. Pope Benedict 16th has railed against "the dictatorship of relativism" - although I would call it a fashion. Cultural relativism is not the same as humility or tolerance, which can be safely seen as good. | |
| 76 | Louise Antony: Why don't we admit to children that "Father Christmas" is just a nice "pretend" game? (RT - on this argument, why not "God the Father" too?) | |
| 78-9 | Nicholas D Smith: There are 3 theories of morality, 1) consequentialism - actions are good if they lead to good results; 2) deontology - e.g. act as if what you do should become a rule for everyone (Kant's categorical imperative); 3) virtue theory - act according to what the truly excellent human would do. Each has some value, but some problems as well. | |
| 143 | Nicholas D Smith: 'Self-interest' is not quite the same as the vice of selfishness. Presumably it doesn't make sense to totally disregard self-interest. | |
| 145 | Nalini Bhushan: There are 3 good things about becoming and behaving more like children, 1) spontaneity; 2) orientation to the here and now; 3) ease of verbal and bodily expression. That's why adults need karaoke and laugh bars. | |
| 161 | Louise Antony: Just because something can't be proven, it doesn't mean that "it's true" and "it's false are equally likely. There are things like probability, credibility, reasonable arguments etc. She says "I'm the kind of atheist who thinks God most respects the people who apportion their beliefs to the evidence". | |
| 171 | Nicholas D Smith: Life has intrinsic value rather than instrumental value. The value of money is just whatever it enables you to do - it's instrumental. | |
| 180 | Peter Lipton: The value of life comes from what you do in your life - your activities and achievements | |
| 184 | Richard Heck: "What is the meaning of life?" is a dumb question. A better question is "how ought I to live?" or "what should I do with my life?". | |
| 205 | Jyl Gentzler: Just because I get pleasure from doing a kind act doesn't degrade it as selfish. | |
| 210 | Thomas Pogge: Kant said that it is never certain that a person's conduct is selfishly motivated. (See more about Thomas Pogge) | |
| 211 | Peter Lipton: Espousing determinism does not mean that one can escape responsibility. "The judge" may also claim to be determinist and punish the wrongdoer anyhow. | |
| 214 | Louise Antony (in answer to "does thought require language?"): "The emergence of language involves the emergence of conventions." Maybe only 'self-conscious' thought requires language. We could also say that animals and pre-verbal children have their own language. (RT - not all our thoughts may have time to go through our spoken language, even if not articulated) | |
| 233 | Richard Heck: There are two views of sanity, statistical (i.e. how most people behave) and normative (i.e. how much in line with some accepted norm of behaviour the person is). | |
| 240 | Joseph G Moore: Tastes are not physical (i.e., they only mean something to us internally - we can't reliably report them on a scale). We should distinguish intrinsic and extrinsic properties (e.g. a round tower has an intrinsically circular plan, but may look square from a distance). | |
Index to more highlights of interesting books
Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.
This version updated on 21st January 2011
If you have constructive suggestions or comments, please contact the author rogertag@tpg.com.au .