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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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