It may be helpful for them to add their social security number and their current address in the comment section.

I'd prefer options from age 0 to 150 with monthly increments.

yeah I think it should have been done in increments of 5 years from 15-120 years old. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Don't you think that's going a bit too far?

Not true.

Why is the poll so broad?

I'm 23. How old are you?

In my opinion good and bad are human constructs, we use those words to label things that we find desirable or undesirable. Evil, on the other hand, has religious connotations.

I believe in good and bad as social constructs, bot not evil.

It's not whether they are proficient at it, its whether they are interested in it — Mr Phil O'Sophy

An excellent point. Some of the gender gap may be explained by different career preferences between men and women.

I'm listening to conservative talk radio and they're saying that Trump is not racist because he was only referring to the country not the people.

Because it will prevent you from doing it again.

I think asking why something is right or wrong can be essentially the same thing as asking why you should(n't) do this act. — darthbarracuda

You're sure this is true? I can think of examples where you should do acts that aren't wrong if you don't. For example, you should brush your teeth twice a day, but there isn't anything wrong if you don't. Or, there's a really delicious donut at this bakery you should try it, but it's not because it's the right thing to do.

For someone coming from an intuitionist angle, asking why we ought to be moral is an incoherent question. Morality is binding and universal; you ought to do what morality asks of you because that's what you ought to do. — darthbarracuda

Then we don't necessarily disagree. For you the whole purpose of morality is to tell us what we ought to do. (not merely because of how society functions.) Doing what's right is acting in accordance to that purpose.

Ultimately, "justifying" morality by appealing to its function in social stability only pushes the question back, since social stability must thus be seen as good, desirable, in a moral sense. — darthbarracuda

Only if you conflate good and desirable with right and wrong, which I already gave reasons to doubt.

For every purpose I give you can always ask:"Whats the purpose of that?" But here goes.

What's the purpose of a healthy and functioning society? — Noble Dust

It's the only way we can survive and thrive in.

What's the purpose of building a house the right way? — Noble Dust

So you won't be held responsible when it collapses.

What's the purpose of teaching math the right way to kids, and what's the purpose of wanting kids to learn? — Noble Dust

So they can grow up to be educated people and hold decent jobs.

What's the purpose of all these questions?

I don't see why statements can't be right or wrong. And furthermore, it's beside the point.

I believe that the past definitely predicts the future. — Shane

And you were right. So far, the past has definitely predicted the future. Whether or not the past will continue to predict the future, it remains to to be seen. Supposedly there is no way of knowing.

But a few years ago, I came across the Wiki article on Hume's Problem of Induction, and it basically says Hume disbelieved in this probability idea. He believes that even if something happens literally over and over again, every day, it's not "more probable" that this thing will happen again tomorrow. My mind is absolutely and utterly blown. I can't comprehend it. It completely goes against everything I know and always took pride in. — Shane

You're not alone. The belief that the same regularities that happened to a great extant in the past don't imply that it would probably continue in the future is mind blowing. It means that preparing for the future is a totally irrational endeavor.

How would any of us live if we believed that the past doesn't predict the future? We'd commit the same mistakes over and over. How would you learn anything? How would science progress? — Shane

Your absolutely right. Without the belief that the past will probably predict the future we'd be totally lost. Everything you learned about the past falls out the window, including science. They say those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Hume says that's rubbish.

After all, the proof seems to be that if nothing has changed, why would something new happen? — Shane

That's no proof. It's just a prejudice of yours. And it comes from your believe in the uniformity of nature. The other side of the question is equally valid: Why shouldn't something new happen?

I just want someone to explain to me how I am wrong. Maybe I don't understand the problem or his stance well enough. — Shane

I've been told that I haven't grasped the problem of induction many, so I'm the wrong person to ask.

You can think of the tracks as contingent in that the trolley is headed towards both groups of people. Would that solve the moral dilemma?

whether or not you saved three lives in the process — David Solman

What if it's a hundred workers?

Sometimes an answer to a question just pop into our conscious mind when you are thinking of something else — bahman

But your still conscious of the answer when it pops into your head.

Moreover, thought as I argued required the collective knowledge of all thing we gathered during our life. It is not possible to collectively be aware of everything. — bahman

I'm not denying all the unconscious activity that goes on in order to produce a a thought. However, the result of all the unconscious activity is the conscious thought.

Each sentence you write is one thought. So i guess you are conscious of your thoughts.

How do the solutions where you actually change tracks deal with the scenario of the fat man? The scenario where you can throw a fat man off the bridge to stop the trolley hitting five workers.

See modern variations (7 of them) of the trolley problem.

Good point.

There's no murder involved - it's simply minimizing the damage that will occur in the circumstances. It's kill three, or kill one. Not kill three, or murder one. — CasKev

You're not simply minimizing the damage from three to one. You're choosing to kill different people than the ones destined to be killed by the trolley. It's let the trolley kill three, or choose to kill one. And if choosing to kill a innocent bystander is not murder, I don't know what is. (I'm just playing devil's advocate, I don't necessarily believe this.)

There are two options: you do nothing, and your not responsible for the death of the three workers because it's not your fault that the break malfunctioned. Or you choose to save the lives of three workers and commit murder by killing one worker. Do most people think it's okay to commit murder to save three innocent lives?

On second thought, I'm not a hundred percent sure that the statement "it is not unlikely that this statement is unlikely" is a contradiction. Someone help me... .

What's your first language (if you don't mind me asking)?

Good point. I agree.

According to this article the idea is complete nonsense. It fails experimentally.

Hi
I'm Purple Pond. I am usually a very reserved person with nothing to say. I have changed my name a lot since the last forum. I'm also known as Wisebbq, Character Assassin, brain in a vat, Professional Thinker, and Professional Knower. I want to change my name again, but I will resist the temptation! I like writing about philosophy (even though some people think what I write is silly), and I love when people respond to them. I'm never satisfied with my writing and I hope to improve. I'm always worried about people judging me that's why I'm quiet about my personal life (sorry guys).

All the best, Meir.

That's a nice way to look at it but the punchline of the May be story is that it's impossible to know both the effects and their magnitude of our actions. Isn't this a fatal blow to consequentialist moral theory? — TheMadFool

That may be a problem with consequentialist epistemology but not consequentialist ontology.

I think that thinking is an unconscious activity. We just become aware of thoughts when they completely formed. — bahman

We think in a language. When you are conscious of your thoughts you are aware of the voices inside your head. Let's forget about thinking since you believe it is an unconscious activity.. When we say we are are not doing things consciously what we really mean is that we aren't focused on what we do.

I am not sure what is the use of consciousness when all the process for formation of a thought is done unconsciously. — bahman

So you can vocalize and write precise the thoughts that you are focused on.

I can derive for miles thinking of other things. — bahman

I bet you can't do that in your sleep when you are not conscious.

Let me ask you the question another way: Have you ever done anything unconsciously? Of course yes, deriving for example. We however sometimes do things consciously too. What is the difference between these two cases? — bahman

People say they do things unconsciously when they really mean is they do it without thinking. Were always conscious of our surroundings though we might not be thinking about it.

If you were totally unconscious when your driving you'd crash the car.

Interestingly enough, my question in the OP has been asked before, and there are some good answers. .

Here are sources for both sides of the argument from the Guardian, and from Forbes.

The 1% of wealth in this country does not move the economy when it's up OR down. The middle class does. — Austin Owens

Then why do conservatives want tax breaks for the rich? We're always hearing how giving the rich more money to spend and invest will boost the economy. Here's a whole article arguing for just that. https://www.forbes.com/2010/10/27/taxes-wealthy-economy-opinions-contributors-alex-brill-chad-hill.html#45b823f862a0

Side note: some people begin life's journey as poor, and end up becoming some of the greatest success stories (Oprah Winfrey) — Austin Owens

These stories are often publicized and are rare. The reality is that social mobility doesn't usually happen. The rich stay rich, and poor stay poor.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this assertion you make follows this line of logic; equality among society is good, therefore inequality among a society must be bad. I would COMPLETELY disagree with this. Everyone is different.. — Austin Owens

I may have badly worded my OP but that's not what I believe at all. I don't think we should live in an equal society, nor am I saying that some inequality is necessarily bad.

If Bill Gates earns more money today, how do I become poorer tomorrow? There is only less money in the world if I don't work hard, and choose not to take advantage of opportunities. There's no finite amount of dollar bills circulating around. I mean, it's not infinite, but it might as well be. — Austin Owens

i disagree. What happens when the economy is bad? People start saving and they don't spend it. This is where you feel the effects money not in circulation. If every rich person kept a lot of their money in banks and never spend it, believe me, it would hurt you financially. So yes, if bill gates gets richer the rest of society get's that much poorer.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. Oprah, Bill gates and Tome Cruise are all successful (privileged) people. What got them their success? Is their time more magical than my own? Of course not. What separates these people is HOW they spend their time. — Austin Owens

No we don't. Most of us have to spend a good chunk of the day working just to makes ends meet. And who do we work for? Richer people. We're essentially giving them our time. All the while the super-rich practically don't have to spend a minute working. They could just live off their investments. Not to mention all the people spending their time working for them. They have surplus time.

Scientist use observation and experiments to test theories and hypotheses. Philosophers, on the other hand, rely solely on argumentation, reasoning, and intuition.

Can you tell us why awareness is needed? — bahman

Because you can react to being aware of the way the world is rather than stimulus and response (knee jerk reactions).

Maybe the inanimate object can be some sort of symbolism. Why did people used to worship idols? Why do Americans worship the American flag? Because it stands for something.