Do Llamas Fall in Love?: 33 Perplexing Philosophy Puzzles
Peter Cave
Language: English
Pages: 280
ISBN: 185168767X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
indeed be victims; but Blackmail plc provides a valuable choice – between publicity and no publicity. True, there are monetary costs involved with the non-publicity route; but individuals are free to take the public exposure route, making no donations. Many, though, would prefer making donations, with no exposure. Let us concentrate on the morality. The two elements to the blackmailer’s offer are individually permissible. There is nothing wrong about exposing the truth. There is nothing wrong in
exaggeration, that we can make mistakes about routes and destinations – about what is worthy of desire and which values a society should prize. This may point to the ideal, very much an ideal, of a very small direct democracy in which well-informed people debate and discuss, reaching an unanimous view about the best way to run their society. There is, though, no reason to think that, even with maximum good will – with all voters intelligently seeking the best for society – there would be
Recidivism Conference, 2009, at the University of Stockholm. Useful comments have been provided by Laurence Goldstein, Michael Clark, Adrian Moore, Nick Everitt, Gerard Livingstone, Piers Benn, Sophie Bolat, Carolyn Price, Espée Liff, Richard Norman, Jerry Valberg, Andrew Harvey, Martin Holt and John Shand – and members of the Humanist Philosophers. I appreciate them all – both the individuals and the comments. For valuable aiding ways over the years, practical and intellectual, many thanks to
forgiveness 17, 36, 129 form v content 29, 31–2 Forster, E. M. 59, 242 fox-hunting 62, 146 fractions 206 frailty 64 fraud 28 freedom of expression 154–161 frog and scorpion puzzle 22 frogs are green puzzle 18 fruit or nut xiv fundamentalism 88 future concerns 43–5 gazelle, sloth and chicken puzzle 27 generalizations 117–19 generations, future 44–5 generosity 35, 104 genie puzzle 7 genocide 25, 32 Gershwin, George 108 Gilbert and George 26 Gill, Eric 26 gluttony 22, 44 goat
violinist has a right to life. He requires use of your body, but he does not have a right to that use. Millions of people suffer from malnutrition and disease that will kill them; they have a right to life. Do they therefore have a right to assistance from you – for example, by your giving to relevant charities? Someone needs a kidney transplant. Does he have a right to your kidney? After all, you only need one. We spend considerable money on luxuries: we assume a right to spend our money as we