Thorongil

How?

I don't know. I like watching nature documentaries, and I feel profound sympathy for animals that are the victims of predation, no less than when I se...

No. The mere capacity on its own is the condition. This means, however, that even if I do grant that killing a human is worse, that doesn't remove the...

And I say that non-human animals are things like me, and that we do possess sentiments to preserve them just as much as ourselves.

The question is whether it's a moral one.

We instinctually do, yes, but we clearly ought not to act on all our instincts, so they are a poor criterion for judging moral worth.

8-) I wouldn't know precisely. In one case a sentient being was killed and in the other a sentient being that can reason that 2+2=4 and the like was k...

Indeed.

Yes. No. They are both equally bad.

There's no shortage of that between Agustino and me....

Well, I disagree. I don't see that reason somehow makes humans possess more moral worth.

They would be imprudent, certainly, but to call such actions immoral really beggars belief. You have stated that the criterion for moral worth is to b...

:-O This is absurd. Doing this might negate their aesthetic value, but you haven't done anything morally wrong. My position appeals to how we use mora...

We do not confer moral worth to rocks, plants, tables, and the like, for the reason that they cannot feel pain. We do confer moral worth to human bein...

It still doesn't matter. The ability to feel pain and suffer is the condition for determining moral worth. The ability to reason has nothing to do wit...

Sentient life is more valuable than non-sentient life, but among sentient life there is not much to distinguish human beings from other animals, save ...

If one is opposed to abortion (as I am), then to be morally and logically consistent, one also ought to be a vegetarian (as I am) or a vegan.

Christians are especially vulnerable in the region, as are other non-Muslim minorities. This claim doesn't have solely to do with ISIS and nor is it m...

True, which is why they need to be spread around. At the moment, the Arab states and Turkey have not done their fair share of taking in refugees. It w...

The US can choose who can immigrate to the country by virtually any criteria it wants. The constitution legally applies to US citizens, not to those w...

Maybe he can't. But we certainly can. I already said I'm not trying to defend his argument per se. I'm only trying to defend him from certain accusati...

I'm not a huge fan of Murray as he puts too much stock into intelligence tests, but his point is well taken and correct.

There are two kinds of facts: things and events. Only when put into a sentence that takes the form of a judgment (with a subject and a predicate) do t...

Trump has a foreign policy? News to me.

Still don't get it. If the US were communist, then the USSR, upon defeating it, would make it communist? When does the US become communist in this sce...

Yeah, you probably should, as I was honestly expecting a better comeback than this.

>:O I think he's pulling your legs guys. Best let him stay beneath the bridge.

Not trying to dodge it, but I honestly don't understand what you're getting at with this question. The latter, of course. And nor do I care what you t...

Good. I'm better at that.

And inflating assigning grades to 20 something ignoramuses who barely know how to blink and who will forget everything you taught them, sell the borin...

Alright, I'll take you at your word. And just for the record, let me say that I never intended to defend the argument in question, so it doesn't matte...

Working on this one for a while, eh? No, not really. All you've shown is how pompous you can sound.

That's not what I'm doing and nor something I would ever wish to do. If you're done conversing in this thread, fine, but you're not getting away with ...

And this is to sully philosophy. "Academic philosophy," "professional philosophy," and the like strike me as oxymoronic phrases. One can be a professi...

That you clarify this now, albeit on page 6 of this thread, is most welcome. And speaking for myself, I'm the last person to think a person's credenti...

Aaaand now you contradict yourself.

Is slavery a basic institution? Yes or no. I answer no. You have answered no. We are now in agreement on the point of dispute. Did slavery arise and w...

I understand that you conceded to me my point. Perhaps you are a sore loser, though.

Other people not caring about what philosophy is doesn't change what it is. And turned off they should be. "Studying philosophy" for one or another va...

Utter nonsense. I was pointing out your unwarranted disposal of the principle of charity. Good, so we're done here.

So there you have your stock answers. Eat your heart out.

I find it hilarious that people in this thread smugly believe that slavery is a defeater of the argument in question. Do you think Marquez, a trained ...

Because, from an empirical perspective, the same underlying brain processes involved in the perception of color are at work in both A and B. They do n...

For what?

In your example, cognition isn't operating any differently, it's just that the results of said cognition are not the same.

If you have to ask that question, then I suspect the philosophy bug hasn't yet bitten you. If you do not feel the pursuit of wisdom to be something ak...

Oh, but they think they do, given their apocalypticism regarding "climate change."

Yes, we all think the same way, but what we think and the quality of our thinking is obviously different.

"Women's march" is code for "ignorant leftists and abortionists butthurt they lost an election." Notice, too, that they're all taking place in the Wes...

It opens up a huge can of philosophy of language worms that I am not fully conversant in, but suffice it to say that if the Trinity, for example, is a...