The study of good and bad conduct, right and wrong values, and good and evil.
Thank you, Arjun Sambhi, for this important and profound question. This is an important and profound question. Hitler did horrible acts, but did he think his actions were bad? To answer that question, we need to be honest about how we think about moral issues. Popular culture has instilled in us a simplistic vision of […]
Did Hitler know he was a bad person? Read More
Thank you, Agar Mayor Gai-Makoon, for this fascinating question. To begin with, the question is somewhat ambiguous. If by “right” we mean a legal right – a right created by some law-giving authority, backed by its coercive power – then it seems clear that we can have a right to do a bad thing. For
Can we ever have the right to do a bad thing? Read More
I love this question – thank you, Kate Messenger, for asking it. There are a couple of ways we might look at it, which I will go through before saying my piece. Let’s focus on the fact that you bought the toy. Robert Nozick famously argued that private property is something we get rights to
Thank you, TG Dee, for this perennial question. To understand why this seems to be the case, we have to understand what it is to be good or to be evil. It seems to me that to be good involves acting, desiring, feeling, in accordance with certain standards. For multiple reasons it is not easy
Why is evil consistent and the good is faltering? Read More
Thank you, Mahesh Sonawane, for this very important question! It is one I often struggle with myself (hence my taking far too long to come up with this answer – sorry!), and I will not pretend to have a definitive recipe for optimism for you. However, I hope this can at least help. Something I
When there is so much suffering in the world, how can we stay positive? Read More
Thank you, Dávid Mező, for this immortal question. Unsurprisingly, we are living beings that are born, develop, reproduce, and die. This seems almost a necessity. However, we sometimes hear in the media about astonishing advances in the genetics of senescence and the medical treatment of ageing. The subject, if not yet topical today, will most
Should we accept death and ageing, or try to beat them with science? Read More
Thank you, Ayli Inrovdop, for such a topical question. A single vote hardly ever breaks a tie, so what’s the point in voting? To begin, you could vote in the hope of having your own interests represented by the candidate or party that advocates for the policies most advantageous to you. After all, even though
Thank you, Aditya Pandey, for an important and enduring question. We have here two distinct but intimately related questions. The first question really concerns whether we know when life begins, while the second pits life against body autonomy. Both require a substantial answer to the question of what constitutes life. I will therefore briefly explore
Thank you for this intriguing question, Sagar Samant! Let me start by clarifying the question. There are different ways in which you can do a bad thing and ‘don’t let it show’. In some cases, it is obvious that someone has done wrong, but nobody suspects you. For example, you rob a bank and never
Is it wrong to be selfish if you don’t let it show? Read More
Thank you, Daniele Grosso, for such a heavy question. The answer to this question partly depends on what we mean by “meaning” and whether the pursuit of meaning is a morally permissible motivation to have a child. Perhaps we mean something like “life satisfaction”, which is (roughly) an overall evaluation of the quality of our
Is it moral to have a child to give meaning to your life? Read More
