>What will the world look like in 30 years?
>Can we even tell? Is futurology a bogus subject? What do you think?
Category Archives: Philosophy
>To what extent was Hitler ‘evil’?
>To what extent should places like China have the freedom to handle human rights issues as they want?
>Western democracies are liberal democracies. We believe in upholding basic human rights, and ensuring the freedom of the individual insofar as they doesn’t enfringe upon the freedoms of others. But would freeing people like Liu Xiaobo enfringe upon the liberties of others? Do we have a right to say our way is undeniably better, and that there are no disadvantages with ordering his release? Or is China right to suspect that violence and unrest might walk hand in hand with greater freedom to protest? After all China learnt a lesson from Gorbachev; and much of the reason why they keep such a tight reign on the country is because of the perceived lessons from that period of Soviet history.
>"Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule."
>This is a quote from Nietzche. It’s perhaps quite odd to come from someone that many people would have labelled mad himself. Indeed the very next thing he wrote was “the thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets succesfully through many a bad night”, which at the very least suggests mental illness, and also a different way of thinking.
But was Nietzche right? Is this why we frequently get so angry with decisions taken at the group level, but can accept the freedom of individuals to act as they will? Is there anything to what Nietzche said at all?
>Are you for or against legalising Euthanasia?
>A few sites to help you get your head round the debates as they stand thus far:
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/against/against_1.shtml
- http://www.world-faiths.com/GCSE%20Short%20course/reasons_for_and_against.htm
- http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/legal-euthanasia-does-not-increase-rate-says-belgian-expert-20101028-175u8.html
- http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Doctor+warns+against+legalizing+euthanasia/3642395/story.html
>What’s the future for liberalism in speech?
>Etienne de Durand of the French Institute of International Relations said in this last week that cooperation between the UK and France in defence was about “being sex buddies rather than marriage.” I just picked this example because it was to hand, yet there’s a vast amount of modern literature that uses words like “fuck buddies” (the more common term).
My question to you is do you see this kind of liberalisation of speech continuing, and perhaps as something that people are more likely to read in even academic works in the future? Or does seeing such vocabulary on an academic site make you squirm? Is there a right and wrong to discuss here or not? Is it simply a product of the times?
>Can we place a price on life?
>Think about the situation where keeping a terminal patient alive costs more with each day. The last month some patients are alive costs millions and millions, which some people would argue would be better spent on people we know are going to live. Yet think from the other perspective; imagine that terminal patient was your spouse. Now I imagine the price you’d be willing to pay to keep them alive that little bit longer just went up a hell of a lot.
A book was recently published on the subject, in which a husband had to spend his life savings on keeping his wife alive as a terminal patient. In the end he went into masses of debt and had to stop paying.
What does this make you think? Can we put a price on life? Does a point come when you say you’d rather keep the money rather than keeping someone alive an extra day?
>To what extent do we own our bodies?
>Hillel Steiner, a political philosopher, wrote about how he spotted several teenagers in his local supermarket with t-shirts saying “Sell your body”. As it turns out they were selling advertising space, but Steiner used the point to note approvingly that the right of self-ownership, which he saw as implied in the slogan, is one of the key human rights. Under this logic we should have the right to sell our bodies, as well as the right to refuse to do so.
Steiner hits upon a subject that often comes up in everyday language. Ever heard the phrase “it’s my body and I’ll do what I want with it”? This is not necessarily what people who say this mean, but it implies a division between mind and body. It implies that the real us is our mind, and that our body is our property, to do with as we wish.
The two most obvious views to the contrary come from religion, and from Marxism. In one of St Paul’s letters to the Corinthians he tells them that their body is “a temple of the holy spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own.” Opinions within other major religions like Islam and Judaism are similar. Yet there are many other objections to the idea of treating the body as a marketable commodity. Marxism implies that to think of your body thus is the ultimate in capitulation to Capitalism. Indeed Marxist thinker George Lukács took it as the final stage in self alienation.
What do you think? Should we have the right to sell bits of our bodies as we please? Should our bodies be treated as property? Should they even be treated as ours?
>Is everybody selfish?
>Do selfless deeds exist? Can we pursue them? If so why would we?
>What is the value of humility?
>Is humility always good, or not? We’ve heard of the ‘greats’ of history, humbly refusing awards and/or praise. Take the following example of Einstein speaking to the Chicago Decalogue Society in 1954:
“Ladies and gentlemen: You are assembled today to devote your attention to the problem of human rights. You have decided to offer me an award on this occasion. When I learned about it, I was somewhat depressed by your decision. For in how unfortunate a state must a community find itself if it cannot produce a more suitable candidate upon whom to confer such a distinction?”
Now you may argue that this wasn’t humility, for he really didn’t do that much related to human rights. But nevertheless he was humbly refusing an award he could easily have embraced.
What would you have done? Is it the case that there is a time and a place for humility? Are these people just trying to call more attention to themselves? Does humility serve the humble, or just the rest of us?
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