May 2023

Steve Torrance asks if robots need minds to be moral producers or moral consumers. Robots present an interesting double picture. We can see them simply as our tools, as things we use. Alternatively we can see them as agents, as embryonic persons. The ethical implications of robotics look very different depending on which of these

Matei Tanasă asks if we should love the unlovable. Do all people deserve to be loved? To be able to answer such a question, we must first understand its meaning. So first, what is love? The common view regarding love meets Plato’s view on it quite nicely. His view as elaborated in his dialogues Phaedo

Peter Keeble says philosophy, like love, is a many-splendoured thing. Philosophy is normally not shy in dealing with highly emotive issues: Philosophers often tell us what we should not do and that certain cherished beliefs are nonsense. However, not many modern philosophers have written about individual emotions, such as the feeling of romantic love. Yet

A quick and friendly introduction to symbolic logic by Stephen Szanto. Most non-professional philosophers are deterred from attending lectures and reading books by academics who use symbolic logic. Some even claim it is an elitist attempt to make presentations deliberately inaccessible to the uninitiated. In any case, I believe it is worth studying and needn’t

Richard Oxenberg tells us why democracy needs philosopher-citizens. I would like to begin with a bit of a riddle: How do you turn a democracy into a tyranny? The answer, as those familiar with Plato’s Republic (380 BCE) will know, is: Do nothing. It will become a tyranny all by itself. Plato spends a good

Francisco Mejia Uribe explains why the rise of fundamentalism poses a problem for liberals, and suggests what they can do about it. Fundamentalism is creating a paradoxical situation for us Westerners. Pluralism and moral autonomy, the very concepts that once helped us overcome the bitter fundamentalism of the wars of religion, now seem to prevent

Simon Clarke argues that deciding when to die is a matter of individuality. People in liberal democracies have various restrictions on their freedom – there are laws against defamation and breaking contracts, for example. But we also have a large degree of freedom compared with people in other societies. Some restrictions of freedom – such

James P. Sterba thinks libertarianism implies a right to welfare. What is a just society? In seeking a defensible conception of justice, it behooves us to start with the assumptions of the libertarian perspective, the view that appears to endorse the least enforcement of morality. I propose to show that this libertarian view, contrary to