Pseudonym

Of course it would, I'm pretty much self-sufficient in leaf and pod vegetables, but to grow enough legumes to meet my protein requirements would requi...

No, they don't. For many people living in pain is worse than death, a short but happy life may be considered by many to be preferable to a long but mi...

A number of philosophers have tackled this question. David Chalmers did a good lecture on it which I think is on YouTube, Peter Unger has written an e...

So what is the difference between opinion and truth when it comes to philosophical propositions? How are you distinguishing the two?

I'm not going to write it all out again, so please see my comment above. The use of wild or grass fed animals to supply protein kills just one animal,...

Here goes the second of your two regular vacillations.First you switch between death per se and pain/suffering to suit your argument, then you switch ...

You see this is where you keep changing the terms of your argument. On the one hand you talk about the pain/suffering of creatures who can feel pain (...

It's not about the morality of the lion or the psychopath, it's about the morality of the person with the ability to prevent either killing. In order ...

I'm reluctant to admit I hadn't even thought of that, I just used fashion designer as a convenient example of someone wishing to 'sell' a concept, but...

That's pretty much a definition of consequentialism. So to be consistent you'd have to take a consequntialist approach to the eating of meat too, so w...

So this is the difficulty with your ethical position. You're saying we have a moral obligation to prevent the death of every sentient being with no re...

Absolutely. If it's not stretching the fashion designer analogy too far, I'd say that what you're describing is the equivalent of something like fit. ...

This sounds insane to me, so I thought I'd better double check. You're actually saying that you see nothing morally wrong with humans completely alter...

You sidled from moral culpability to practicality. Are you saying that if a practical method arose by which we could prevent the lion from eating the ...

There is a major contradiction in your argument which is that you on the one hand claim that there is no significant trait which separates humans from...

You seem to be stuck on the distinction between what philosophy actually is and what it is sometimes presented to be. Philosophy is about ideas, ways ...

Why do you accuse Logical Positivism of 'assuming' criteria regarding meaning. I think positivists over the years have written a quite some length det...

You've mistaken my position, and that of the Logical Positivists for that matter. The claim, that this bulk of philosophical statements are meaningles...

Well, that's very magnanimous of you. If Hawking claims he's making a truth statement, I take it to be brave attempt to further our understanding, If ...

Well that didn't take long did it, we're back to just insulting your opponent's intelligence - "You don't know what you're talking about"..."No you do...

People have all sorts of motivations. This is amatuer psychoanlysis.

And yet Hawking's claim "philosophy is dead" or Unger's claim that "philosophers proceed to write up these stories, and they’re under the impression t...

Exactly. "you're a slave to the money then you die."

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” ? Friedrich Nietzsche “There are no fa...

You can't, not in the dedective sense you're thinking of. I'm talking about abductive reasoning. I believe that when Agustino tells me he has $100 in ...

No, but; a) That is clearly not the case. Philosophical literature is not a series of questions (at least not since Plato) it is either a series of pr...

Toga, sandals and beard it is then.

Do I get the beret and the black polo-neck yet?

But what is an 'excellent' question? What is a 'question' at all, and how could it possibly be excellent, what is it excelling in? How do we know what...

Yes, I believe so. I can't think of any other reason why I would be interested in the veracity of the statement unless I intend to do something about ...

Ah yes, I'd forgotten your supernatural ability to divine a person's deepest intentions from just 6 lines of rhetoric, and with such confidence that e...

Firstly, unless you are a mind reader you cannot possibly know what definition he had in mind. Secondly I think you made it quite clear in your commen...

For Christ's sake give the guy a break. Oxford English Dictionary definition of 'man' - "2A human being of either sex; a person."

Absolutely, I don't see how it is possible to accept any metaphysical statement as true unless it transpires to be an empirical statement. Even then '...

The point is not everything can flourish. Potential new species are evolving all the time and if cannot find a niche to exploit (or outcompete a speci...

No. The vast majority of people haven’t read Nietzche and they don't seem to be doing markedly worse at living than the tiny minority who have. There ...

Yes, but what of the insects? Do they need bats? Maybe you could argue that they need bats to control their numbers so that they don't succumb to dise...

Here's the relevance of my facetious summary. How 'deeply' someone has delved into a problem is a subjective opinion, generally if they haven’t agreed...

It's this bit That there is a 'value' to non-human life beyond its utility to us I find deeply problematic. 1. It is an assertion that itself goes aga...

This is missing the point, I'm not suggesting that it is our business to resolve such conflicts, I'm suggesting that is a logical conclusion that foll...

I didn't say it was a criticism. Just a summary. Even as a criticism, it would be criticising the dressing up of promoting a personal moral theory (ag...

Fair enough. I still think the presumption that we could know what a bat wants is problematic, not just by degree (in that it's hard to be sure but we...

Since your post is quite long, I thought it might help to summarise it for those who are too busy to read the whole thing. - Why don't people think an...

Exactly. This is why I dislike the paternalism of much ecological philosophy. Our very existence is absolutely dependent on our stewardship of the nat...

I understand. The point I was trying to make is that it's not the 'rights' of the environment that get protected or negotiated, it's still what the hu...

We have many similar systems here in England. I've had cause to argue with their version of 'what nature wants' on quite a number of occasions.

Then ethics is not a negotiation is it? If it is possible to act ethically to someone (or something) whose preferences you have not had a chance to he...

Firstly, I'm thinking this is going to be a problem. If ethics is just a negotiation between subjects, then how does the non-human (non-speaking) worl...

I've written, or responded to, 14 pages of posts , half of which have been about the position that science provide solutions to moral dilemmas. If you...

I think we're going round in circles, so I'd like, if it's OK, to return to the claim that I'm making as quite a bit of what you've written is actuall...