The Philosophy Gym: 25 Short Adventures in Thinking

312 Pages·2003·2.25 MB·English

by  Stephen Law

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Contents

Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
How to use this book

1. Where Did the Universe Come From?
2. What’s Wrong with Gay Sex?
3. Brain-Snatched
4. Is Time Travel Possible?
5. Into the Lair of the Relativist
6. Could a Machine Think?
7. Does God Exist?
8. The Strange Case of the Rational Dentist
9. But Is It Art?
10. Can We Have Morality without God and Religion?
11. Is Creationism Scientific?
12. Designer Babies
13. The Consciousness Conundrum
14. Why Expect the Sun to Rise Tomorrow?
15. Do We Ever Deserve to Be Punished?
16. The Meaning Mystery
17. Killing Mary to Save Jodie
18. The Strange Realm of Numbers
19. What Is Knowledge?
20. Is Morality like a Pair of Spectacles?
21. Should You Be Eating That?
22. Brain Transplants, ‘Teleportation’ and the Puzzle of Personal Identity
23. Miracles and the Supernatural
24. How to Spot Eight Everyday Reasoning Errors
25. Seven Paradoxes
Notes
Index
Also by Stephen Law
Copyright
For Tilda
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks are due to a number of philosophers, including Anita Avramides, Alan
Carter, Michael Clark, Michael Lacewing, Scott Sturgeon, James Rachels and
Stephen Williams. I’m especially indebted to Nigel Warburton, who read and
commented in detail on many of the chapters.
Addition help was provided by Elene Kostas, Maureen and Bill Law, Chris
Michael and Emma Webb, David Mills and Catherine Pepinster. Tony Youens,
of the Association for Skeptical Enquiry, assisted me with the chapter on
miracles. A special thank you to Mick O’Neill, Taryn Storey and John and
Karenza Storey for their very useful advice.
INTRODUCTION

Have you ever wondered where the universe came from? Whether a machine
might think? If time travel is possible? Whether it’s morally acceptable to design
children genetically? Then you have already begun to think philosophically.
Each chapter of this book provides a short, easy to follow introduction to such a
philosophical puzzle or mystery, taking you through key arguments and ideas in
an accessible, and, I hope, entertaining way.
What is Philosophy?

What is philosophy, exactly? Philosophy deals with certain questions. The first
thing to notice about these questions is that they have a depth that appears to
make them unanswerable by science.
One of the deepest philosophical mysteries – the first addressed in this book –
is: why is there something, rather than nothing? Why does the universe, or
indeed anything at all, exist? An astrophysicist might tell us that the universe
began with the Big Bang. But this merely postpones the mystery. For the
question then becomes: and why was there a Big Bang? Whatever scientists
posit to explain why there is something rather than nothing itself becomes part of
the something the existence of which needs explaining. Science cannot solve the
mystery of why there is anything at all.
Moral questions are also important questions that science cannot answer. Take
the question of whether we should genetically design our children. Science may
one day allow us to do so. It can’t tell us whether we should do so.
It’s with such questions that philosophers grapple; deep questions that appear
to reach beyond the point where science might provide us with answers.
True, it’s not just philosophy that addresses these questions. Religion also
offers answers to many of them. Religions typically try to explain the existence
of the universe, e.g. they claim it was created by God. And in many cases they
lay down moral commandments. For example, there are passages in the Bible
that condemn stealing, killing and homosexuality.
So how do philosophy and religion differ? One feature of philosophy that can
set it apart from religion is that it is supposed to be an essentially rational
enterprise. Philosophers are interested in justifying their answers to these
questions. While religion tries to provide answers, it doesn’t always attempt to
make a reasoned case for accepting them. Often, the answers are handed down
by a religious authority to be accepted on faith. Where that is the case,
philosophy and religion part company.
It’s easy to come up with a philosophical position on something. Ask me
where the universe came from and I could suggest it was created by a huge
yellow banana called Duffy. The trick, of course, lies in coming up with grounds
for supposing this answer is actually correct. In the Western tradition, no one is
much interested in someone’s philosophical point of view unless they are able to
justify it. Unless I can present a reasoned case for supposing the universe was
created by a huge yellow banana called Duffy, no philosopher will take me
seriously. And quite right too.
Applying Philosophy to Life

People sometimes ask what philosophy has to do with everyday life. Perhaps
more than they think.
Even if we have never studied philosophy, or heard of it, we all hold a great
many philosophical beliefs. Take, for example, the belief that physical objects
continue to exist even when no one is experiencing them. That’s a belief we all
share. Yet it is, for all that, a philosophical belief, a belief famously challenged
by the eighteenth-century philosopher George Berkeley.
Other examples are not hard to find. Belief in an afterlife is a philosophical
belief. So, too, is the belief that death is the end. The majority of us believe that
morality is not just a matter of subjective preference. We believe that infanticide
is wrong, period. It’s not wrong-for-us but right-for-anyone-who-thinks-
otherwise. Again, that’s a philosophical belief. And of course so, too, are
atheism and belief in God.
Clearly, many of these beliefs have a direct impact on day-to-day life. Take,
for example, someone who believes in reincarnation. They may for that reason
lead a rather different sort of existence from someone who does not. They may
be less frightened of death, for example. And an individual who genuinely
believes morality to be nothing more than a matter of subjective preference may
be much more likely to cheat and steal if they think they can get away with it.
Our philosophical attitudes play a fundamental role in shaping our lives.
Philosophy can also help us with innumerable practical questions, particularly
questions about what we ought or ought not to do. The chapters that follow
provide a number of concrete examples. Is it right to sacrifice the life of one
conjoined twin to save the other? Is gay sex morally permissible? Should
children be sent to religious schools? Is it morally acceptable to eat meat? You
will discover how all these questions can be illuminated by a little philosophical
thinking.
Other Reasons to Think Philosophically

Even where philosophy might seem to lack any direct relevance to everyday life,
it remains valuable.
Most of us live out our lives within a very narrow envelope of concerns. We
worry about how to pay the mortgage, whether to buy a new car, what to cook
for dinner. When we start to think philosophically, we take a step back and look
at the wider picture. We start to examine what we have previously taken for
granted.
I believe that those who have never taken a step back – who have lived wholly
unexamined lives – are not only rather shallow, they’re potentially dangerous.
One great lesson of the twentieth century is that human beings, no matter how
‘civilised’, tend to be moral sheep. We are disastrously prone to follow without
question the moral lead provided by those around us. From Nazi Germany to
Rwanda, you find people blindly going with the flow.
An advantage of a little philosophical training is that it can provide the skills
needed to think independently and question what others might take for granted.
It can also help fortify your courage in making a moral stand. As the philosopher
Professor Jonathan Glover points out in an interview in the Guardian:

If you look at the people who sheltered Jews under the Nazis, you find a number of things about
them. One is that they tended to have a different kind of upbringing from the average person: they
tended to be brought up in a non-authoritarian way, brought up to have sympathy with other people
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and to discuss things rather than just do what they were told.
Glover adds, ‘teaching people to think rationally and critically actually can make
a difference to people’s susceptibility to false ideologies’. Admittedly, there’s no
guarantee that someone who has been encouraged to think critically will avoid
such pitfalls. But, like Glover, I believe the greatest risk comes, not from a
society of autonomous critical thinkers, but from a society of unreflective moral