Philosophy Ought To Question The Basic Assumptions

Sometimes We Know The Best Thing To Do, But Fail To Do It. New Year's Resolutions Are Often Like That. We Make Resolutions Because We Know It Would Be Better For Us To Lose Weight, Or Get Fit, Or Spend More Time With Our Children. The Problem Is That A Resolution Is Generally Easier To Break Than It Is To Keep.

If Governments Did Not Mislead Their Citizens So Often, There Would Be Less Need For Secrecy, And If Leaders Knew They Could Not Rely On Keeping The Public In The Dark About What They Are Doing, They Would Have A Powerful Incentive To Behave Better.

If We All Think Only Of Our Own Interests, We Are Headed For Collective Disaster - Just Look At What We Are Doing To Our Planet's Climate.

It Is Easy For Us To Criticize The Prejudices Of Our Grandfathers, From Which Our Fathers Freed Themselves. It Is More Difficult To Distance Ourselves From Our Own Views, So That We Can Dispassionately Search For Prejudices Among The Beliefs And Values We Hold

If A Being Suffers There Can Be No Moral Justification For Refusing To Take That Suffering Into Consideration. No Matter What The Nature Of The Being, The Principle Of Equality Requires That Its Suffering Be Counted Equally With The Like Suffering - Insofar As Rough Comparisons Can Be Made - Of Any Other Being. So The Limit Of Sentience Is The Only Defensible Boundary Of Concern For The Interests Of Others. To Mark This Boundary By Some Other Characteristic Like Intelligence Or Rationality Would Be To Mark It In An Arbitrary Manner. Why Not Choose Some Other Characteristic, Like Skin Color?