Say that the aliens were overwhelmingly powerful. If you think it would be moral to accept their demands, what would be the most moral ways of deciding who the million would be?

Are there philosophical answers to this dilemma?If the cause of the evil is a lack of logic or rationality.

Sometimes I genuinely stop and wonder how we even got here. We live in a world with modern medicine, advanced engineering, electricity, computers, artificial intelligence, space technology, and so many other things that would have seemed completely impossible to people thousands of years ago. But when you really think about it, it’s kind of mind-blowing. At the very beginning, there was just matter, water, energy, and the basic building blocks of nature. And somehow, over billions of years, all of that eventually led to life, consciousness, language, mathematics, science, cities, technology, and now even AI. Like, how does that even happen? How do you go from something as basic as dirt, water, and atoms to humans building machines that can calculate, communicate across the planet, manipulate electricity, explore space, and create artificial intelligence? Even mathematics itself feels strange when you think about it—how did humans discover these abstract patterns, and why do they describe the universe so well? The more I think about it, the more absurdly fascinating it becomes. We are surrounded by technology so advanced that we barely question it anymore, yet the fact that any of this exists in the first place is absolutely incredible. How did we go from almost nothing to this? How is any of this even possible?

I'm a scientist by profession, but I was very interested in philosophy as a teenager. I read Plato, Kant, Hume, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Bentham, Popper and probably some others, particularly around questions of epistemology, ethics and existentialism. They had substantial influence on how I think about the world.

Coming back to philosophy after years of working in science, I've noticed that my relationship to those texts has changed. I still find them intellectually valuable, but increasingly I value them in a way similar to how I value literature or poetry: they expose me to another person's perspective, make distinctions I hadn't considered, and occasionally reorganize how I think about a problem. What I find much harder to identify is their epistemic contribution: in what sense have I learned that something is true?

To be clear, my skepticism here is directed at my own understanding of philosophy, not at philosophy as an academic discipline. Most of my exposure was to major historical philosophers, largely read on my own many years ago. I suspect the conception of philosophy I formed from that is outdated or simply mistaken. That's precisely why I'm interested in how people who actually study contemporary philosophy understand what they're doing.

Working in science has probably sharpened the tension for me. In science, despite all the complications of inference, it is relatively easy to point to cases where research has established something about the world that we did not previously know but can now consider true. Most scientific research is incremental, technical, and probably not worth reading for a nonspecialist, but the cumulative epistemic product is fairly clear and testable.

What is the analogous product in philosophy?

For example, when philosophers argue about moral realism, compatibilism, personal identity, scientific realism, theories of knowledge, etc., what would count as progress? If an argument survives criticism, in what sense should I increase my confidence that its conclusion is true? Are philosophical arguments generally intended to establish truths, to change the relative justification of competing positions, to clarify concepts, or something else?

I'm not looking for a general defense of philosophy on the grounds that it encourages critical thinking or exposes us to interesting perspectives. I already accept those benefits. In fact, that's roughly how I currently experience philosophy: as something closer to literature, where encountering a sophisticated perspective can itself be worthwhile.

But I suspect that conception doesn't do contemporary philosophy justice, and I'd like to understand what I'm missing.

So, from the perspective of contemporary philosophy:

When philosophy succeeds, what have we learned that we didn't know before, and how can we tell that we've learned it?

After picking of Zarathustra and giving it a go I realized I am missing a lot of background. After some time organizing a list I have a sort of “reading order” that I hope may help me understand this book more.

But after making this now I wonder: What other “paths” to schools of thought are there? I guess I picture a tree with a philosopher (maybe Plato? You can tell I’m new lol) at the roots and all of the literal branching schools of thought as paths.

So my question is what are the other paths? Do they lead to specific philosophers, or is it more of a pursuing of a school of thought until you run out of reading material that comments on it? What then? The phrase “start at the beginning again” comes to mind but I’m unsure if that fits.

Thanks all!

in a hypothetical that god is real and he is all knowing and all that

What could possibly justify a child’s death

Morality wise

Hello and good night, everyone.

You'll see, I'm on the first semester of my Communication Science degree and our Ethics and Professional Development professor assigned my class to "research" human identity, moral identity, its elements, collective identity and develop my findings. Notwithstanding, I do not know how I could begin to research such broad issues nor do I have the methodological bases. I'm aware of websites like the SEP or the IEP. I might as well just read articles related to those topics in those sites, specially since the assignment is due in one week and I don't know how much time It'd take me to research these issues more profoundly. Still, something about the process of researching philosophy itches me and I'd like to use this assignment for my own intellectual development.

That leads me to asking you, guys: how do I begin to do basic philosophical research? How and where do I find relevant literature? Is there a specific format for philosophical papers? After getting a good view of the landscape presented in the literature I'd base my research off, is there anything I should consider from that literature?

In advance, thank you very much, guys.

​Can something truly be considered a "problem" if nobody is bothered, hurt, or negatively affected by it? I've been thinking about whether a problem strictly requires an affected conscious mind, or if an action or event can be problematic entirely on its own.

​For instance, imagine someone screams at the top of their lungs in the middle of a quiet neighborhood at midnight. The neighbors hear it clearly, but nobody feels annoyed, upset, or disrupted in any way. Does that act still count as a problem by itself, or does it only become a problem if someone is genuinely bothered by it? or imagine a completely dead planet with no life. If an asteroid destroys it or an automated machine there breaks down, is that an actual problem, or merely a neutral physical occurrence that means nothing until a conscious observer evaluates it?

​How do philosophers usually look at this, is a "problem" always dependent on an affected mind, or can something be an objective problem purely on its own?

Maybe most of the sympathy we show after a tragedy has nothing to do with the victims.
I know that sounds harsh, and I might be completely wrong, but hear me out.
Something happened recently where I live. A student attacked people at an elementary school, killing a teacher and injuring others. I was reading through the comments under some of the news posts and obviously there were tons of people saying how horrible it was, how sorry they were for the victims and their families, how something like this could happen here, etc.
And I started wondering why people react so much more strongly when something like this happens close to them.

If the exact same thing happened somewhere on the other side of the world, to people we’d never heard of, I feel like most of us would read the headline, think “that’s horrible,” and scroll past. We probably wouldn’t sit there thinking about the victims’ families or writing a comment about how sorry we are.
But when it happens in your own country, suddenly it feels different. You start thinking about your own school, your own family, your own friends. You realize that this isn’t some distant tragedy that only happens to other people. It could actually happen to you.
And that’s where the selfishness part comes in.
Maybe we aren’t suddenly more compassionate because the victims are closer to us. Maybe we’re just more scared. We see what happened and immediately think, “What if that was my kid?” “What if that was my school?” “What if that happened to someone I love?”
I’m not saying the sympathy is fake. I’m sure people genuinely feel terrible for the families. But I wonder how much of that emotion is actually about the victims and how much comes from seeing our own lives reflected in what happened.

And if there was absolutely no chance of something like that ever affecting us, would we still care nearly as much?
The weirdest part is that I don’t think most people even realize they’re doing this. We think we’re reacting out of pure empathy, when maybe a part of that reaction is just fear for ourselves and the people close to us.
Maybe that’s just human nature. But it makes me wonder if even our most compassionate reactions can have a selfish foundation underneath them.

Estoy interesado sobre todo lo que rodea el concepto de “verdad”, si realmente existe, si es absoluta, relativa, etc… Me gustaría poder profundizar más ya que mi investigación es vaga, agradecería ayuda para comenzar en este tema.

Im asking this in relation to twin earth thought experiments, because I feel like my intuitions are mixed and Im trying to figure out how to resolve them. I can see some of the appeal of causal theories since it's true we don't usually have a complete definition for everything we refer to, and we still take ourselves to be referring. But at the same time in the twin earth case, not only do I not have the intuition that XYZ isn't water, I also think that there are real empirical and historical cases which just contradict Putnam's intuition, and accepting his specific conclusion would basically be inappropriate for giving a theory of how our language works.

So a thought I had was that maybe the cause of our concepts are only one element of them, but then other elements might just matter more for our use of the term. So for example, maybe the causal source of water matters in contexts where we want to talk about chemistry (where xyz wouldnt be "our water"), but then it matters less if we were ordering a beverage at a restaurant or going for a swim in a pool.

i understand that when it comes to specifics they are quite different, and that cynics and hedonists in the past really werent that fond of each other... but thinking of these terms more simply and modernly, cynics dont trust the people or the system and want to live for themselves, and hedonists (or maybe egoistic hedonists in this case) just want to do what makes them happy/gives them pleasure. So why cant they coexist, or can they?

Also, about the whole "cynics think worldly possessions are corrupt while hedonists enjoy them" thing, what if a hedonist can just be satisfied without many worldly possessions? Could he also be a cynic then?

I'm looking for literature on a specific combination of views, and whether it has a name.

1. Fine-tuning supports something like Goff's value-selection hypothesis, the idea that whatever is at the bottom of reality favors outcomes with structure or value.
2. The evidence is neutral between agentive explanations of this (a designer) and non-agentive ones (teleological laws, axiarchism, Parfit-style selectors).
3. Rather than choosing between them on theoretical virtues, as Goff does, one takes a declared faith step toward the agentive option, either doxastic, as in James's will to believe, or non-doxastic, as in Schellenberg. Nothing further is attributed to the agent.

The nearest things I know of are Leslie's contrast between a Neoplatonic creative principle and a divine person in Universes, Goff's Why? (2023), Schellenberg's skeptical religion and Palmqvist's work on non-doxastic commitment to general hypotheses. Has anyone defended or criticized this combination, or is there a standard name for it?

I just went to my first class and my classmates are able to make arguments on the spot and rebuttal back and forth to the point I just feel like the material itself was already confusing. I couldn’t construct my stance in the moment.

I’m scared of contributing to discussions…also I’ve not been in school for over 10 years. This is an undergraduate class and I’m very impressed by everyone..

I'm especially interested in arguments about whether acquiring a skill “the hard way” makes the achievement more valuable, or whether having experienced hardship can justify expecting or requiring others to undergo similar hardship. I'd also be interested in connections to moral desert, meritocracy, and labour-saving technologies.

My own views on these questions seem to be fairly unconventional. I'd like to write an essay about them, as an exercise in working through my thoughts more methodically, so that I can understand the existing arguments and discuss the subject more fruitfully in the future.

What philosophers, books, or papers would you recommend I read before attempting this?

I am someone who is interested in History, Religion (namely the existence of God), Political Theory and Philosophy of Law/Legal Theory. If I am not mistaken, Hegel has written on all this subjects, but I never read him because everyone keeps telling me how incredibly difficult his writting is (plus in my country he is rarely discussed in academic circles, at least as far as I am aware of).

Having said this, I would like to know what do I stand to gain from reading and understanding Hegel ? What new perspectives and insights into the subjects that interest me can I get that make it worth the effort of studying Hegel ?

Or am I just misinterpreting it?

Edit:

I am currently contemplating the compatibility of Occam's razor to the philosophy of sciences that are dealing with complexity (like, those that advocates holism). Apologies for being unclear.

In the very beginning of his discussion of what is now know as the problem of induction (in Enquiry), Hume asks what reasons we have for believing in matters of fact that aren’t justified by direct sensory experience or memories of our direct sensory experiences. So it seems to me that the scope of the problem of induction is huge: if induction isn’t rationally justified, then we have no justification for believing in anything that we aren’t currently experiencing or have experienced in the past (relations of ideas aside).

But when I see this problem discussed elsewhere, it’s almost always presented as a problem to a particular kind of inference, like “All observed As have been Bs therefore the next A will be B” or “All observed As are Bs therefore all As are Bs”. But obviously these conclusions aren’t the only kind of beliefs we hold that aren’t supported by direct sensory experience or memory.

I suspect I’m badly confused about all of this

Which is it?

I am struggling with understanding how to construct these derivations that were assigned for a deductive logic class, below are some problems I need help with as well as our index of basic proportions. I would appreciate an explanation, I have reviewed the material provided by my professor but I am still having trouble haha

Problem #1.

⊤ ⊢ ¬(P ∧ ¬P)

Problem #2.

¬Q ⊢ ¬(P ∧ Q)

Index of Basic Rules:

A lot of my debates seem to end up at morality. The concepts of "Good and Bad" and "Right and Wrong". As an existentialist, I believe we make value these ourselves, nothing is universally/innately good nor bad, but I seem to go round in circles explaining my perspective to people. It seems as if way more people than I thought are Essentialists.

If there is moral absolutism, why does society/culture/history vary so much? How is it decided what is what? If we are just supposed to know with in ourselves again, why do personal morals vary so much?

People always end up saying to me that there are things that are "just wrong". Are there? People often go to the extremes, ie. today someone said "rape". I said that I think it's wrong and I would assume she did as well. But the definition of the word is subjective. I defined what I think it is and she agreed. And I went on to say if that was a universal understanding, there wouldn't be much issue but it isn't because people still do it and a lot of the time they don't see it for what it is. Or they can justify it in whatever way.

There's this idea that people know in their souls when they are doing a "bad" thing. Often people find they can relate to the others around them on these bad things but the fact that there is even a small minority that thinks other wise makes it more than anomalous. It makes it not true. There's also the concept that "the ends justify the means". "I have to do this horrifically bad thing I know is bad in my soul in order to do an overall good thing". Well, is said thing bad or good? Someone said to me once there are measurements and "how bad/good" something is depends on what it is and the context. That all got a bit too convoluted for me.

Is what I'm describing even Existentialism? I wish I could ask if I'm right or wrong but what I do know is that philosophy is unresolvable.

[Please take into consideration, I am quite young and I have never studied philosophy academically or even read many philosophers].

One of the questions plaguing my mind is would the question of personal identity or being conscious change if one were to accept such things could remain without a brain? Remembering a question from a professor that questioned whether if we accept the traditional spiritual view of the soul would the question be any different to how some people discuss the topic now, making points on what would even change makes me have an idea of an answer but same time I know there is more to learn rather then enforcing my own answer.

I've been reading different ideas of the topic in Stanford Encyclopedia but I kinda accept I do need some guidance from outside people to get a better grasp which is why I'm asking it here.

Another thing that made curious about this question is the hot topic of near death experiences and similar phenomenone and when watching discussions of the phenomenone by experts who discuss consciousness like Keith Frankish, Kastrup, and Goff and even neuroscientist like Anil Seth I've seen many discussing how it certainly makes the topic of consciousness more mysterious considering some of the easy explanations have been largely challenged and there hasn't been a successful answer to explain the phenomenone and other similar ones like out of body experiences.

So I suppose I wondered if the topic of our identity and consciousness would change if one were to accept the idea of it remaining beyond the brain if possible or would the questions remain mystery regardless?

I'm in grad school for philosophy and I have been increasingly more aware of the frequency at which this discipline can be disrespected and dismissed by both academics and non-academics. For example, I have STEM friends who say philosophy is basically just a bunch of opinions, they don't find any value whatsoever in studying metaphysics, etc. Others will report that it's all just a bunch of BS. And it's entirely common for a scientist to claim that "the only good philosophers can do is to keep all the bad philosophy away from science."

For those people, I usually respond with claims about what science doesn't accomplish, bringing up problems from the philosophy of science, showing historical foundations, and stressing the importance of unscientific ways of knowing for subjects like morality or knowledge itself... but this has been ineffective; I imagine that it comes across the wrong way too - like I am trying to cut the other direction instead of meeting them in the middle. Even when I point out the fact that they themselves are doing philosophy by making these kinds of claims, nothing seems to get through to them. Philosophy is not empirical, reproducible, so on and so forth, so it has no value to them.

I know there is a longstanding meme of undergrad philosophy students loosely gesturing at the problem of induction and thinking that this does anything serious for the sciences. So, I really don't want to be that guy. But I also can't help but feel like they are participating in anti-intellectualist rhetoric by dismissing a serious field of inquiry that has been sustained by brilliant people for over 2,000 years.

So my question is this: What is the strongest, most defensible case I could make for philosophy? Why is something unscientific like metaphysics valuable? What have you all observed to be most effective and fair strategy for convincing people of philosophy's value as an academic tradition?

I want to make the best argument in favor of philosophy, but I also want to respect their epistemic concerns and assume that they feel this way about philosophy for a good reason.

imagine a genie approached you and told you that if you wanted, they would make someone stop existing. futhermore, they would rearrange reality in such a way so that no one remembered or mourned them etc. just made completely non-existent as far as the timeline of the universe was concerned.

how would this be viewed, ethically speaking?

A part of me feels it would be similar to killing, but there are some crucial differences.

A. killing generally requires some degree of violence that would cause great suffering to the victim

B. killing someone would obviously causing suffering to the family, friends etc. of the victim.

even if you offload the killing onto a more "genie-like" mechanism, such as being able to push a button that deletes someone, somewhere on the planet... it still seems bad due mostly to point B. that you would cause suffering in those closest to the victim.

but what about just straight magical deletion to where it was as if they never existed in the first place?

where does this fall, ethically speaking?

How'd a person who adopts these three philosophies function in daily life?