Author: Abiral Chitrakar Phnuyal Category: Philosophy of Race, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Science, Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy Word Count: 998 Various racial concepts have been employed at different times in human history – most prominently since the 17th century[1] – to classify humans into groups, often to great social, political, ethical, medical, and scientific significance. … Continue reading The Ontology of Race: What are Races?
Category: Metaphysics
Time Travel
Author: Taylor W. Cyr Category: Metaphysics Word Count: 1000 Time travel is familiar from science fiction and is interesting to philosophers because of the metaphysical issues it raises: the nature of time, causation, personal identity, and freedom, among others.[1] It’s widely accepted that time travel to the future is possible, but the possibility of backward … Continue reading Time Travel
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason
Author: Marc Bobro Category: Historical Philosophy, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion Word count: 999 Imagine that your bicycle keeps dropping its chain. Annoyed, you take it to a bike shop to determine the cause in order to fix the problem. The mechanic informs you that the problem cannot be fixed because there is no reason why … Continue reading Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason
Modal Epistemology: Knowledge of Possibility & Necessity
Author: Bob Fischer Categories: Epistemology, Metaphysics Word Count: 998 Alice hits Betty, and Betty gets mad. Is her anger justified? Betty thinks so. After all, Alice didn’t need to hit her; Alice could have controlled her temper. This justification for Betty’s anger seems reasonable. However, it isn’t reasonable unless we know that Alice could have behaved differently, and we don’t know that … Continue reading Modal Epistemology: Knowledge of Possibility & Necessity
The Ethics of Abortion
Abortion involves the intentional killing of a being that is biologically human. Killing "human beings" is often deeply wrong, so is abortion wrong? If so, when? And why?
Quantum Mechanics & Philosophy III: Implications
We’ve already discussed some of the experimental phenomena that inspire competing interpretations or theories of what’s going on in the real world during quantum-mechanical experiments. In this final installment of a three-article series, we’ll look in very broad strokes at some of the philosophical implications of these views of quantum mechanics.
Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility
Author: Rachel Bourbaki Category: Ethics, Metaphysics Word Count: 1000 Intuitively, a person is morally responsible for what she has done only if she could have done otherwise. This is the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP): for any person and any action, that person is morally responsible for performing or failing to perform that action only … Continue reading Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility
Free Will and Moral Responsibility
Author: Chelsea Haramia Category: Ethics, Metaphysics Word Count: 1000 You probably shouldn’t steal. Common sense tells us that stealing is wrong. But sometimes stealing seems less wrong, or not wrong at all, after we discover the cause of the stealing behavior. For example, if the fact that your family is starving causes you to steal … Continue reading Free Will and Moral Responsibility
Origin Essentialism: What Could Have Been Different about You?
Author: Chad Vance Category: Metaphysics Word Count: 1000 Could you have been an alligator? Or a roller skate? Is there a possible scenario where you were never born as a human being, but where someone builds a roller skate, and you are that roller skate? Probably not. Most people think that you could not have … Continue reading Origin Essentialism: What Could Have Been Different about You?
Moral Error Theory: Are there Moral Facts?
According to the meta-ethical theory known as “error theory,” it is false that abusing children for fun is morally wrong (and false that it’s morally right, too!). This is because, according to error theory, all moral judgments are false. This essay explores this counterintuitive view.