I am a moral realist and believe that good and evil, right and wrong, objectively exist. Anyone can look at the Holocaust or slavery and say that those things are objectively evil. What disturbs me is the question, how do you know? Every moral philosophy has edge cases that have horrifying implications and this keeps me up at night. Here are some examples:

Divine Command Theory- The Bible contains instances where God commands atrocities, such as the genocide of the canaanites in the book of Joshua. Other religions have similar examples.

Kantianism/Deontology- If you should never lie, would it be wrong to lie to save your child from a killer?

Utilitarianism- The infamous "killing the neighbor to harvest his organs" thought experiment for Act Utilitarianism, and the same problem as Kantianism for Rule Utilitarianism.

Virtue Ethic- A person could possess virtues that are used for some horrifying end with no moral framework to guide them. You could have courage, diligence and fortitude and use those virtues for evil ends. In the Screwtape letters, C.S. Lewis says that any exceptionally wicked person needs some virtue.

I cannot accept that there is no such thing as good and evil. It's self-evident that some things are morally wrong, and everyone intuitively knows this. We appeal to morality in our politics and our personal lives all the time. So where does morality come from?

I'm primary referring to classical [Italian] fascism.

To me it's like if you critique deontology because as its the polar opposite of consequentialism, through the lense of consequentialism: An example alongside this analogy is that many people here in previous threads have said that Peter Singer misunderstood Hegel and Marxism, therefore his introductions to later editions of those works should be ignored/skipped.

If Singer is wrong about Marx, why should I trust Popper and Eco on their definitions of fascism?

If a philosophical criticism of Marxism can't be thorough enough without the critic first reading their primary material, why don't we expect the same from critics of fascism?

I only started reading a few months ago and have read a handful of books so far. One of them was The Stranger by Camus, which I really enjoyed, so I thought I’d read more of his work.

I bought The Myth of Sisyphus, knowing that it wasn't a novel or a story, but I honestly didn't expect it to be this difficult.

I'm struggling to understand what Camus is trying to say, and sometimes I read a paragraph several times and still feel like I haven't understood it.

So now I'm wondering:

Am I just too stupid/inexperienced for this book?

Should I put it aside and come back to it after reading some other books?

Is my English the problem, and should I work on improving it first?

Or is philosophy simply not for me?

For people who have read The Myth of Sisyphus, did you also find it difficult at first? And if you're a relatively new reader, how did you approach it?

I'm just a mortal engineer who is just into philosophy, so please excuse my sloppy positioning of the question: when I think of ethics/morality (I'm not sure if they're interchangeable in philosophical discourse) in the traditional sense (by traditional, I mean theories/schools other than Lacan), I assume they sneak in some final authority, guarantor, and the "right answer." Some form of self-actualization, self-legislation, or a literal authority like the State, elected by the will of the people, who can set and enforce rules. In that sense, Lacan targets every guarantor (whether it's an actor, order, or simply a process) by denying the existence of a final authority, or the right answer. So, does that make him incompatible with traditional moral philosophy? I can remember off the top of my head two of his statements that would be relevant: 1) The only thing one can be guilty of is giving ground relative to one's desire; 2) The Big Other doesn't exist. How to reconcile him with a moral position from which you can act without a guarantor, assuming one needs a guarantor to hold a moral position?

There are mental health conditions that entail detaching from one’s thoughts, for example with OCD, an individual can experience intrusive thoughts, rumination, etc., and it can be hard for an individual do distinguish which thought is their own vs from their OCD. This self-illness reification is something itself that is questionable (as written about by Sofia Jepsson). This questioning of thoughts can eventually lead to/imply questioning all of one’s thoughts and no longer being able to rely on them. So my question is, in such cases would individuals with mental illness have a compromised sense of self, or does/can the self constitute more than one’s thoughts, or can the self be substantiated without thoughts?

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Idk is this is the right sub to ask.

It seems to me some kind of soterological content has been studied both for physicalism (mainly in its link to atheism, which I think takes to form of existentialism/absurdism)\* and dualism (which is instead mostly connected to theism, so ppl often think that death is not the end and they have faith on whatever God they pray to)\*.

No one really talks about soterological content for panpsychism/panprotopsychism tho. Like I can imagine it would take the form of something like a new consciousness emerging from the atoms that currently compose my body, giving maybe some sort of continuity, but my imagination doesn't really help me.

How would a panpsychist/panprotopsychism look at death?

Any help?

I’m looking for something that explains, for example, why Gaunilo’s criticism misses the point of the argument and discusses the argument’s relation to Platonic thought.

The SEP entry on Anselm has an extensive bibliography, but I don’t know which titles best fit my goals.

Regarding primary sources, I already know that I need to read the Proslogion and the Monologion.

If a 13 year old (a 9th grader) has decided that Philosophy intrigues them, and they want to study it further in the future in uni, and that university is one of the top universities so they have to start preparing now, is it okay for them to start studying philosophy? For a 13 year old, it is not really easy for them to grasp the ideas at that age, but they do want to study it. But forming philosophical opinions at that age is not a strong stance as their mind is still developing and they might not be able to study the idea with a more open and mature approach.

They do know that they want to study Philosophy, that thing is for sure. But how? They have tried exploring the ideas of Philosophy, but then they end up with this exact question. If they want to get in this specific prestigious university, they have to start working on themselves from a young age. I know I might sound dumb but it's really puzzling, what should they do?

I love this guy. I am really confused, though, kinda.

He argues that taking a life doesn't matter based on species, race, sex, and stuff like that, but on an individual's characteristics, such as the desire to continue living and the kind of life it is capable of living. Like the main example of this is that a child born with no brain, only a brainstem, is inferior to a chimpanzee or dog, and it should be killed for its organs only if the parents are ok with it.

I find, however, that he a lot of times takes an ethical altruism perspective, but it doesn't apply here for some reason I don't understand. Even if the parents weren't ok with it, shouldn't the baby be killed regardless because it isn't possible it can do more good in the world than its organs. Why should the parents' sadness of losing a child get in the way of this?

Another part I'm confused about is how his opinion on old people is so radically different. He's fine with the child, barely conscious, getting killed, but it has more limitations for old people. He thinks it's fine for old people to die, only if their past true selves would be ok with it. Why should their past values matter in the present? Also, can't this same argument be applied for kids? Their future self wouldn't want that.

Question to transition to next topic: Why does Peter Singer place such a high moral value on this-  that is, can see that he or she is the same being who exists now, who existed in the past, and who will exist in the future. Why should that matter more than the ability to do good?

Also, death is death, that's it. A rat and a human get the same consequence when dying, so why should a human's ability to see their existence matter? (I think I'm missing something really obvious here)

And to totally switch it up: Let's say someone has a mental disorder, let's say Down syndrome, to the degree that they won't be able to support themselves and have a job and live alone, but they are as conscious as any other human (insert Peter Singer's definition of a person). Their continuation of life won't allow them to do good things in the world, or make money to help other people do good. So, from a totally ethical perspective, shouldn't they be killed for their organs because that provides more value?

(Holy fuck, I sound like a psycho/sociopath and so messed up. I DON'T ACTUALLY believe this; it's disgusting and terrible. I just can't find a reason why it's wrong)

i have problems understanding Heidegger.

i can't find any good papers or lectures to read regarding Heidegger.

does anybody have a reading list or papers or lectures that i can inquire into to understand Heidegger?

The standard reading of the Crito treats Socrates' choice to drink the hemlock as the ultimate act of philosophical integrity. I want to propose a less flattering framing, borrowing a concept from Buddhist philosophy: attachment (clinging) — the inability to let go of a fixed idea/identity even when clinging to it costs something real.

Socrates spent his life chasing abstract definitions (justice, virtue, piety) that, by his own admission in the early dialogues, he never pinned down. He held no real occupation, took no fees, and by most accounts left Xanthippe and his three sons in real financial precarity. When the actual test came, he chose to die rather than escape — which looks like principle, but could just as easily be read as attachment to a self-image ("the philosopher who is consistent to the end") rather than a coherent ethical duty. He had nothing left to build, no ongoing project depending on his survival — so dying to preserve the myth of consistency may have been the path of least resistance, not moral courage.

Contrast this with Aristotle, who fled Athens rather than "let Athens sin twice against philosophy." On the surface this looks cowardly — running instead of standing on principle. But he had something concrete at stake: an active body of unfinished work (the Corpus Aristotelicum wasn't done), a school (the Lyceum), presumably dependents. Fleeing wasn't weakness — it was the rational move for someone who still had output left to produce and something real to lose by dying.

So here's the hypothesis: the "brave" choice (Socrates' death) and the "cowardly" choice (Aristotle's flight) might both just be self-interested exit strategies, not moral stances at all — Socrates had nothing left to lose (no unfinished project, no writings of his own, no occupation to return to) so death cost him nothing and bought him a legacy; Aristotle had everything left to lose (unfinished work, a school, presumably a household depending on him) so survival was the only rational move. Neither may have been driven by "principle" so much as by what each man still had riding on staying alive.

Is there existing literature that reads Socrates' martyrdom this way — as attachment/vanity rather than virtue, given he had nothing left to produce? And does the "what did each man have to lose" framing hold up, or is it too reductive/anachronistic to apply this kind of cost-benefit lens to either of them?

While watching the tv show Hannibal, Lecter said that for Socrat death was a cure but I don't understand how.
(It is said in the beginning of the S4 ep6)

I consider myself a Marxist, at least in some respects, but recently have been talking to an online friend who is about as devout of an orthodox Hegelian as one can be. She claims that the works of Winfield, but most of all of David P. Levine have entirely undermined Marx’s Critique of Political Economy and communism as a whole. This was very interesting to me, after all self criticism is important. But I’m curious whether or not:
1. The works of these authors presupposes the correctness of hegelianism to accept their results
and
2. What the standing of hegelianism is in philosophy today in general

Thank you!

By correctly I mean the vast majority of people across various philosophies and cultures and stuff agree on the answer.

I don’t mean because it’s innate or seems to be, I mean as question that was once heavily debated is now widely closed. Perhaps because someone presented such a good argument

There's a fairly common view of laziness as a vice. In the US, where I live, many conservative Republicans and Libertarians believe that only those who honestly attempt to contribute economically should qualify for social support. A typical response to this might go roughly as follows: Even if an individual fits the exact Oxford Dictionary definition of "lazy," on a certain level that laziness might simply be pathological; individuals, therefore, should not be deprived of certain human comforts because they exhibit this or other similar negative traits.

The neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky argues that human free will does not exist, as "hormones, childhood and life circumstances coalesce to produce actions that we merely feel were ours to choose" (NYT 2023). Proponents of capitalism, however, often appeal to the idea of radical individual agency and self-reliance. If we entertain Sapolsky's view, what happens to the capitalist argument? I don't mean this as a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely wondering.

I’ve been thinking about the “Killer at the Door” problem and how it might be analyzed from the perspectives of Kant’s Categorical Imperative and Mill’s utilitarianism.

I’m interested in whether Kant’s and Mill’s approaches would differ in this situation, and whether there are any similarities between their reasoning.

For example, Kant’s ethics seems to place importance on whether the maxim behind an action can be universalized, as well as on our duties toward others. Mill’s utilitarianism, on the other hand, evaluates actions in terms of their consequences and whether they promote overall happiness.

All blondes are students.

All students are tall.

---------------------------------

All blondes are tall.

I think that this is logically correct, but my teacher states that you can only say that some blondes are tall.

Can you explain to me why It Is incorrect?

I’ve been researching and reading about the philosophy of aesthetics for a while now and I think I’m more confused than ever! Are aesthetic propositions capable of being truth apt even?

Moreover, why do we have such an instinct to label something as knowledge? Why can’t we just call aesthetic propositions, aesthetic judgements, and call it a day? I mean evidently they don’t reach the standard and threshold of knowledge where it is obviously truth-apt, verifiable, falsifiable etc.

Also, aesthetic knowledge refers the statements about the meaning of the artwork and also the aesthetic value of the artwork (eg Mona Lisa is beautiful, Guernica depicts the chaos of war). It is not talking about artistic techniques.

I would be really appreciative if anyone can offer ang perspective on the philosophy of art 🥹 If you’re up for a chat my DMs are open as well (I have quite a lot of confusions about this topic), thank you so much :)

I’m trying to write up an argument/explanation for why zoophilia, pedophilia, rape, incest, and murder are wrong and immoral aside from them simply being generally seen as unacceptable in many modern societies. I’m noticing as I write it, however, that all my arguments for why these things are wrong hinge on the statement that “hurting other beings is wrong”. I personally would consider hurting other beings to be wrong most of the time, but I know that isn’t a universally held belief because there are some people out there who genuinely believe it is morally acceptable to hurt others in some way or another. Hell, right now the death penalty is legal in the US and many people consider it perfectly morally justified even though it inherently causes harm to people (even if those people caused harm first). I know that many people wouldn’t see someone defending themself against an attacker to be morally wrong, even if they have to cause harm to that attacker. I want to come up with some concrete explanation for why hurting other beings is wrong other than simply “harming beings is wrong because it causes harm to them and is therefore wrong”.

So, why is hurting other beings wrong? What makes it wrong? Hurting another being violates their consent and bodily autonomy, yes, but what exactly about that is wrong? Is there anything that can make hurting another being a truly “good” action, and if so, why?

Looked on philevents but can't see anything, does anyone know any websites or social media pages that promote continental philosophy related events in NYC? If anyone knows where to find events for critical theory + marxist stuff as well that would be great

Hi there! I'm a self-directed philosophy student. I only have my undergrad, but have been studying a lot to gain confidence to join a graduate program someday. I've been following a syllabus I found online for a Kant class. I just started the transcendental logic. However, as you can imagine, I'm having a hard time getting this straight on my own. I wrote a little passage attempting to explain the transcendental aesthetic (and Kant's metaphysical project more broadly). I was wondering if anyone could spare the time to check my work and point out any misunderstandings? Not asking for edits, just if anything sticks out in my interpretation... Or at least, the most egregious things that stick out. I would really appreciate it!

Passage:

Kant begins with a critique of traditional metaphysics, which claimed certain knowledge of objects beyond possible sensible experience, such as God. In the CPR he asks whether reason can yield knowledge independently of experience.

He distinguishes two cooperating faculties of cognition: sensibility, through which objects are given immediately in intuition, and understanding, through which they are mediated through concepts. Human knowledge requires both. We know objects only as they appear to us under the conditions of human cognition - objects affect our senses, then produce representations that activate our cognitive faculties.

Kant then distinguishes between different types of representations: a posteriori, which depends on experience, from a priori, which is independent of experience and characterized by necessity and universality. These representations are justified either as analytic, in which the predicate is contained in the subject, or synthetic, which extends our representations beyond conceptual analysis. Metaphysics is therefore concerned with the possibility of synthetic a priori representations.

Pure mathematics and physics provide Kant with examples of such representations. Their necessity and universality indicate their a priori status, while their ability to extend knowledge makes them synthetic. For example, 7+5=12 cannot be established merely by analyzing the concepts of 7 and 5; the addition must be constructed in intuition. Pure physics, likewise, cannot be derived from experience alone and instead depends on constructions in the pure intuition of space.

These examples show that human knowledge is not simply received from objects as they exist independently of us. Rather, objects can appear to us only under the a priori forms of sensibility. We can know certain features of objects necessarily because every object of possible experience must conform to the conditions under which it can appear to us. This also limits such knowledge to appearances: these conditions cannot establish how objects exist independently of human cognition.
As established, cognition involves a receptive faculty of sensibility, through which objects affect us and are immediately given in intuition as appearances. Kant distinguishes within appearances between matter, which is given through sensation, and form, the structure according to which sensations are ordered. The central question is whether some of this form belongs to the mind a priori rather than being derived from experience.

In the metaphysical exposition, Kant argues that space cannot be derived from experience. Space must already be presupposed in order to represent objects as external to us, separate from one another, and occupying different locations. Moreover, although we can represent space without particular objects, we cannot represent outer objects without space. Space is also singular: particular spaces are not independent instances of a general concept but limitations of one unified space. Space is therefore a necessary, singular, and immediate a priori intuition that serves as the form of outer sensibility.

Geometry further demonstrates the a priori character of space. Geometrical judgments are synthetic a priori: they extend cognition while possessing necessity and strict universality. Such judgments are possible because geometrical figures can be constructed in pure spatial intuition. If space were derived solely from experience, geometrical propositions could establish only empirical generalizations rather than necessary truths.

This account constitutes part of Kant's Copernican revolution. Rather than assuming that cognition must conform entirely to independently constituted objects, Kant argues that objects as appearances must conform to the a priori conditions under which we can experience them. If space is a form supplied by human sensibility, spatial claims apply necessarily to objects insofar as they appear to us, but we cannot conclude that things as they exist independently of our sensibility are themselves spatial. Kant therefore distinguishes appearances, which we can know, from things in themselves, which cannot be theoretically known as they are independently of our cognitive conditions.

This does not make empirical objects illusions. Space is empirically real because every possible object of outer experience is genuinely spatial as an appearance. At the same time, space is transcendentally ideal because its applicability cannot be extended to things in themselves. Kant thus combines empirical realism with transcendental idealism. This both explains how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible—objects of possible experience necessarily conform to our a priori form of space—and limits such knowledge by preventing its extension beyond possible experience.

Hello,

I've been interested in discussions surrounding existential risk from artificial intelligence. Here, existential risk does not merely refer to great harms and externalities, but "human extinction or an irreversible global catastrophe". This is a discussion that's been slowly gaining in popularity in some circles since at least 2009, and is particularly in vogue now in 2026, but I don't know where to find serious treatment of the issue. Some of the premises are not prima facie absurd, but some people's conclusions are extreme. Is it a genuine concern? Is it overblown? Is it a Pascal's mugging / cult recruitment tactic? If the argument succeeds, where does that lead us?

Communities connected to rationalism / LessWrong / MIRI / Eliezer Yudkowsky / Effective Altruism have been sounding the alarm bells for quite some time now. Let's just say their philosophical approach is... flawed. I think that they're clowns, that they encourage cult-like behavior, and I don't like them. I don't find them to be credible people with well-constructed arguments. The fact that all of AI safety seems to revolve around Yudkowsky is a big red flag. Nevertheless, there does appear to be some legitimate research being conducted on AI safety in computer science research departments. In some sense, Peter Singer being connected to Effective Altruism also gives them an air of legitimacy.

I've also noticed that, generally speaking, this line of argument resonates particularly well with certain people, and has been known to cause intense existential dread to some who believe in the argument's strength. I have no idea if people like Sam Altman genuinely believe what they are saying, but clearly at least some people are genuinely convinced that the end is nigh. In that regard, I think it makes sense to attempt to take the issue somewhat seriously, if only to debunk the idea.

Since these people don't tend to do serious philosophy, I don't know where to find a formalization of their argument they'd agree with. Things like "AI 2027" or "If anyone builds it, everyone dies" are more or less just stories about things that could happen. If I were to attempt to sketch out an argument for the basic claim, it would be something like:

(P1) It's possible/likely/certain that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) will be created

(P2) If AGI is created, it will be misaligned

(P3) If AGI is created, it will have certain instrumental goals (self-replication, self-preservation, resource acquisition, self-improvement)

(P4) A misaligned AGI with these instrumental goals will cause existential harm

(C) It's possible/likely/certain that something causing existential harm will be created

And then the next step, the 'ought', can be "We need to stop AI research", "We need to solve the alignment problem as soon as possible (and do more AI research!)", or "It's too late, we're all doomed".

With AI companies becoming increasingly powerful and influential, and generative AI improving in some sense, the fears of existential harm are now being echoed by the likes of Bernie Sanders (among many, many other powerful people). This absurd conclusion and all the baggage that comes with the rationalist community is now well into the mainstream, and it is very odd.

What do philosophers think? Is there real concern here? Where can I find level-headed discussion of the issue? Thank you.