Philosophy Talk Starters
595 episodes - English - Latest episode: 7 days ago - ★★★★ - 54 ratingsBite-size episodes from the program that questions everything... except your intelligence. Learn more and access complete episodes at www.philosophytalk.org.
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407: Philosophy of Sleep
March 18, 2019 14:59 - 10 minutes - 18.6 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/philosophy-sleep. "Blessed are the sleepy ones," writes Nietzsche, "for they shall soon drop off." Sleep is an extraordinarily, albeit profoundly odd, phenomenon, yet we seem to accept prolonged nightly blackouts without question. Still, sleep has played a major role in philosophical thought, with the likes of Aristotle, Locke, and Leibniz putting forth theories about just what exactly sleep and dreams are. So what is the purpose of sleeping and d...
406: Altered States
March 04, 2019 15:00 - 10 minutes - 9.87 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/altered-states. Aldous Huxley explains his conception of the brain as a "reducing valve" of consciousness in his provocative book, The Doors of Perception. His famous experiment with the psychedelic substance mescaline was an attempt to open this valve and expand his capacity for knowledge. However, many drugs and psychedelics today are seen as simply tools for pleasure or the source of bad habits. Do drugs possess the capability to expand our con...
408: The Philanthropy Trap
February 25, 2019 16:04 - 10 minutes - 9.54 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/philanthropy-trap. Many of us generally admire people who donate large sums of money to charity. Yet people donate for all sorts of reasons – some selfless, some not so much. Should we consider philanthropy as mere ego expression for the wealthy, or is it genuinely altruistic behavior? If philanthropists are so concerned with having an impact on society, how should we think about "measuring" this impact? Are there better ways than philanthropy to ...
475: The 2019 Dionysus Awards
February 18, 2019 15:05 - 7 minutes - 6.78 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/2019-dionysus-awards. What movies of the past year challenged our assumptions and made us think about things in new ways? Josh and Ken talk to philosophers, film critics, and listeners as they present their sixth (mostly) annual Dionysus Awards for the most thoughtful films of the past year, including: • Least Superficial Superhero Movie • Best Thought Experiment in the Possibility of Racial Justice • Most Profound Existentialist Cowboy Movie
410: Identity Politics
February 04, 2019 15:15 - 12 minutes - 11.1 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/identity-politics-0. The notion of identity has become so hugely important in contemporary political discourse that no conversation on social issues would be complete without it. Identity politics typically focuses on how to empower individuals from marginalized groups so that they can achieve greater equality and representation. But why should anyone mobilize behind a banner of identity rather than ideology? Why is it important have a diversity o...
405: Affirmative Action – Too Little or Too Much?
January 21, 2019 01:08 - 10 minutes - 9.75 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/affirmative-action-too-little-or-too-much. Addressing our nation’s history of racial injustice can be a truly backbreaking endeavor. Race-based affirmative action is usually thought of as one such effort, and colleges and universities often use it in their admissions process. However, affirmative action does seem to lower standards for certain under-represented minorities like Blacks and Hispanics. Should we think of affirmative action as patroniz...
404: One Child Too Many
January 14, 2019 14:57 - 11 minutes - 10.2 MBMore at www.philosophytalk.org/shows/one-child-too-many. The United Nations predicts human population growth will surpass 9 billion around 2050. We know the consequences of overpopulation have the potential to be catastrophic in terms of our continued existence on the planet, with negative environmental effects already visible. Limiting the number of children we have seems like one obvious way to tackle the problem. But is there a moral imperative to limit reproduction? Is having multiple ch...
403: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
January 07, 2019 14:34 - 10 minutes - 10 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/why-something. The old metaphysical question – why anything exists at all – has perplexed and intrigued humankind for ages. It has long been a question reserved for philosophers, but now some physicists claim to have answered it. Yet these attempts have raised questions of their own: is this even a meaningful question in the first place? Can it be answered by science alone, or is philosophy necessary? And what will answering the question mean for ...
472: The Examined Year – 2018
December 31, 2018 15:19 - 15 minutes - 14 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/examined-year-2018. A new year offers an opportunity to reflect on the significant events of the previous year. So what happened over the past twelve months that challenged our assumptions and made us think about things in new ways? Join the Philosophers as they celebrate the examined year with a philosophical look back at the year that was 2018. • The Year in Climate Consciousness with Greg Dalton, Founder and Host of Climate One at the Commonwe...
399: The Ancient Cosmos – When the Earth Stood Still
December 24, 2018 18:55 - 11 minutes - 10.5 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/ancient-cosmos. Even in ancient Greek society, philosopher-scientists engaged in heated debate about the origin, composition, and structure of our universe. Tracking our understanding of cosmology from then until now shows monumental shifts in thinking. So what did the Ancients think was the fundamental nature of the cosmos, and what kind of evidence did they use to support their theories? How did Copernicus provoke such a radical shift in cosmolo...
402: Extreme Altruism
December 10, 2018 15:42 - 11 minutes - 10.3 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/extreme-altruism. We can all agree that helping others is great, a deed worth doing. But devoting too much to helping others – too much time, too many resources – may get you labelled an oddity, a freak. How much can morality demand of us? Is it good to live as moral a life as possible, or do we lose something – devotion to one’s family, for example – by adhering to extreme moral principles? Can somebody be both fully rational and also a saintly t...
400: The Science of Happiness
November 19, 2018 15:16 - 12 minutes - 11.5 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/science-happiness. Positive psychology is an emerging science that investigates the qualities, attitudes, and practices that enable people to thrive and be happy. So what does this research reveal about human happiness? Are some of us just born with happier dispositions than others? How (if at all) do health, wealth, family relations, and community ties affect our happiness? Do happy people have a better or worse grip on reality than unhappy peopl...
401: Gun Control
November 05, 2018 15:48 - 11 minutes - 10.1 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/gun-control. The right to bear arms, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment, is at once both distinctly American and highly controversial. Incidents such as the Sandy Hook school shooting force the nation to think hard about how the law should balance gun ownership with the risk these deadly weapons present to society. What kind of right is the right to bear arms, if it is a right at all? What responsibilities ought to come with gun ownership? And ...
415: Election Special
October 29, 2018 10:51 - 7 minutes - 6.71 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/election-special. In this re-broadcast of our special episode ahead of the 2016 election, John and Ken look beyond the horse races at some of the bigger questions raised by our electoral process. • Do we always have a duty to vote? with Stanford political scientist Emilee Chapman • Can our democracy survive the amount of money in politics? with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich • How do we justify the two-party system? with Elaine Kamarck from ...
398: The Ethics of Debt
October 15, 2018 23:55 - 10 minutes - 9.89 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/ethics-debt. According to a report from the Jubilee Debt Campaign, there are currently 24 countries facing a full-blown debt crisis, with 14 more on the verge. Globally, there is about $200 trillion of debt on the books. Although the poor and disenfranchised of the world play no role in negotiating these loans, in debt crises they usually end up paying the price. So when a country borrows money, who or what is the “economic agent” responsible for ...
466: The New Golden Age of Television
October 01, 2018 14:03 - 6 minutes - 5.86 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/new-golden-age-television. They called it a “vast wasteland” in the 1960s, but TV is very different today. Freedom from the broadcast schedule means TV makers can create longer, more complex, more philosophical stories, while binge-watching and on-demand viewing have changed the way we see those stories. Josh and Ken talk to philosophers and others about television's new golden age.
391: Your Lying Eyes - Perception, Memory, and justice
September 10, 2018 13:56 - 11 minutes - 10.6 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/your-lying-eyes. The criminal justice system often relies on the testimony of eyewitnesses to get convictions. Yet more and more, psychological science demonstrates how unreliable eyewitness reports can be. Moreover, jurors have all kinds of cognitive biases and unconscious influences, and they rely on dubious folk psychological theories when assessing evidence. So, how should psychological science be used to improve our justice system? Is there a...
460: Summer Reading List
August 20, 2018 16:11 - 7 minutes - 7.21 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/summer-reading-list-2018. Summer is here – what philosophers, philosophies, or philosophical issues do you want to read up on? Heidegger's Being and Time may not be the obvious choice to take on vacation, but there are lots of readable, beach-friendly classics and non-classics to add philosophical depth to your summer reading. Host emeritus John Perry joins Debra and Ken to think about which classics of political philosophy to dig into this summer...
460: Summer Reading List 2018
August 20, 2018 16:11 - 7 minutes - 7.21 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/summer-reading-list-2018. Summer is here – what philosophers, philosophies, or philosophical issues do you want to read up on? Heidegger's Being and Time may not be the obvious choice to take on vacation, but there are lots of readable, beach-friendly classics and non-classics to add philosophical depth to your summer reading. Host emeritus John Perry joins Debra and Ken to think about which classics of political philosophy to dig into this summer...
390: Will Innovation Kill Us?
August 06, 2018 11:48 - 10 minutes - 9.72 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/will-innovation-kill-us. Innovation, be it social, economic, or technological, is often hailed as the panacea for all our troubles. Our obsession with innovation leads us to constantly want new things and to want them now. But past innovations are arguably the main reason for many of our current predicaments, which in turn creates a further need to innovate to solve those problems. So is innovation – and our obsession with it – ultimately a force ...
450: The 2018 Dionysus Awards
July 30, 2018 13:22 - 7 minutes - 6.48 MBmore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/dionysus-2018. Josh and Ken talk to philosophers, film critics, and listeners in presenting their fifth (mostly) annual Dionysus Awards for the most philosophically compelling movies of the past year. Categories include: • Most Searing Depiction of Humankind's Propensity to Dehumanize the Other • Most Philosophically Absurdist and Cinematically Transgressive Film • Richest Investigation of the Drivers of History
388: Living On Through Others
June 25, 2018 14:41 - 10 minutes - 9.49 MBhttps://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/living-through-others. Imagine that the world will end in thirty days. Would your life have meaning anymore? Would anyone’s? It seems that there would no longer be any point to making technological or medical advances, developing new forms of art, or even taking good care of ourselves. Imagining the doomsday scenario shows that there is something particularly disturbing about the prospect that not only we, but also everyone else, will die. Why is this? Wo...
386: The Logic of Regret
June 18, 2018 13:59 - 11 minutes - 10.7 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/logic-regret. A teenager decides, on a whim, to conceive a child. Even though we might say that this decision was irrational, she cannot regret it later, because raising the child eventually becomes the most important part of her life. Cases like this show how complicated regret is: that an action was irrational or wrong doesn’t necessarily imply that we should regret it. When, then, should we regret? For that matter, why should we regret anything...
383: The Ethics of Drone Warfare
May 28, 2018 18:03 - 11 minutes - 10.3 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/ethics-drone-warfare. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, aka ‘drone,’ is increasingly the weapon of choice in America's military operations. Many laud its ability to maintain our global power while reducing human and financial costs. By the same token, however, this safe and secretive weapon may in turn cause civilians to disengage ever more from the politics of war. What are the responsibilities of civilians in the face of this 'Revolution in Military ...
380: Neuroscience and Free Will
May 18, 2018 16:42 - 12 minutes - 11 MBMore at philosophytalk.org/shows/neuroscience-and-free-will. We like to think of ourselves as rational agents who exercise conscious control over most of our actions and decisions. Yet in recent years, neuroscientists have claimed to prove that free will is simply an illusion, that our brains decide for us before our conscious minds even become aware. But what kind of evidence do these scientists rely on to support their sweeping conclusions? Is the "free will" they talk about the same kind ...
387: In Praise of Love – Plato's Symposium Meets Bernstein's Serenade
May 14, 2018 14:55 - 11 minutes - 10.9 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/praise-love-platos-symposium-meets-bernsteins-serenade. Plato’s Symposium is arguably the most memorable philosophical work ever written on the subject of love. It is also the inspiration for Leonard Bernstein’s gorgeous violin concerto, the Serenade. What would Plato think of Bernstein’s Serenade, especially given his criticism of art and poetry? Is Bernstein more interested in what one of Plato’s drunken characters calls “vulgar love”? Or is he ...
445: The Examined Year - 2017
December 27, 2017 17:08 - 6 minutes - 6.01 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/examined-year-2017. What ideas and events took shape over the past twelve months that challenged our assumptions and made us think about things in new ways? Join Ken and Josh as they celebrate the examined year with a philosophical look back at the year that was 2017, featuring a roundtable discussion with host emeritus John Perry, as well as conversations with special guests: • The Year in Gender Relations with Laura Kipnis from Northwestern Uni...
363: What's Next? Death and the Afterlife
December 25, 2017 17:40 - 10 minutes - 9.89 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/whats-next-death-and-afterlife. The question of what happens to us after we die remains as mysterious now as it always was. Some think that death amounts to total annihilation of the self; others adhere to certain religious traditions, which teach that the immaterial soul (and, in some traditions, the resurrected body) can ultimately survive death. So how are we to judge between these radically different views of what happens to us in death? What ...
352: Is Intuition a Guide to Truth?
December 19, 2017 00:00 - 11 minutes - 10.5 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/podcasts/philosophy-talk-podcast/intuition-guide-truth. Turns out that Galileo was right and Aristotle was wrong: in a vacuum, a feather and a bowling ball will fall from a tall building at exactly the same speed. This is not to say that Aristotle wasn’t a brilliant thinker; empirical evidence shows he just had a wrong intuition. Even the most powerful intuitions we have can be misleading. Why is it, then, that many philosophers treat them as crucial wh...
372: When Democracies Torture
November 26, 2017 00:00 - 10 minutes - 10 MBMore at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/when-democracies-torture. Torture is prohibited under international law and is widely considered a human rights violation. But despite the fact that 157 countries ratified the UN Convention Against Torture, it is still practiced in many states to this day. Moreover, while we might associate torture with dictatorships, liberal democracies pioneered the modern techniques that leave no physical trace. So why do democracies torture? Can calling torture by ...
368: Diseases of the Mind - Philosophy of Psychiatry
November 20, 2017 16:32 - 10 minutes - 9.54 MBMore https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/diseases-mind-philosophy-psychiatry. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is the primary reference catalog for mental health illnesses. But whereas a medical textbook will show you the picture of a broken bone or a tumor, leaf through the DSM and you will find just one thing: lists of symptoms. Who creates these lists, and based on what criteria? Do such lists really capture the nature of a mental illness? What does it mean to be a disease of the mi...
369: Democracy in Crisis
November 13, 2017 19:01 - 11 minutes - 10.1 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/democracy-crisis. Democratic systems of government are supposed to reflect the interests of ordinary citizens, and not some shadowy political elite. But more and more, we see the influence of big money and special interest groups in so-called democratic politics, while income inequality and voter suppression grow. With millions convinced that politicians don’t speak for them, is there a "crisis of representation" in the US? Are these problems a re...
433: Summer Reading List
July 05, 2017 18:35 - 7 minutes - 7.08 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/summer-reading-list-2017. Summer is the perfect time to dig in to deep reading. Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism may be a bit much for the beach, but there are lots of readable classics and new titles that could make your summer reading a transformative experience. • Stanford literature professor Josh Landy on Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon • Philosophy Talk's film blogger, #FrancisOnFilm (aka Leslie Francis from the University of ...
433: Summer Reading List 2017
July 05, 2017 18:35 - 7 minutes - 7.08 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/summer-reading-list-2017. Summer is the perfect time to dig in to deep reading. Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism may be a bit much for the beach, but there are lots of readable classics and new titles that could make your summer reading a transformative experience. • Stanford literature professor Josh Landy on Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon • Philosophy Talk's film blogger, #FrancisOnFilm (aka Leslie Francis from the University of ...
356: Racial Profiling and Implicit Bias
June 19, 2017 14:32 - 11 minutes - 10.2 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/racial-profiling-and-implicit-bias. Whether for counterterrorism measures, street level crime, or immigration, racial profiling of minorities occurs frequently. However, racial profiling is illegal under many jurisdictions and many might say ineffective. Is racial profiling ever moral or is it always an unjustified form of racism? Is there any evidence that certain races or ethnic groups have a tendency to behave in particular ways? Or is racial s...
353: Babies and the Birth of Morality
May 22, 2017 23:41 - 10 minutes - 9.74 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/babies-and-birth-morality. Doing the right thing is often an extremely difficult task. Yet psychological research indicates that infants as young as 21 months old have a crude sense of what is right and wrong. This capacity is reflected by infants' decisions to reward or punish characters in social scenarios. But surely a genuine, robust, mature moral compass is much more complicated than that. So what can babies tell us about adult morality? How ...
428: The Phenomenology of Lived Experience
April 24, 2017 19:30 - 8 minutes - 7.98 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/phenomenology-lived-experience. Phenomenology is the philosophical study of experience and consciousness, performed by philosophers ranging from Sartre and Heidegger to contemporary analytic philosophers of mind. But what methods do phenomenologists use to study the mind and experience in general? How can phenomenology help us understand a range of human experiences from agency to awe? And why does neuroscience and cognitive science need phenomeno...
351: Remixing Reality – Art & Literature for the 21st Century
April 17, 2017 16:51 - 11 minutes - 10.2 MBMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/remixing-reality. For decades, literary critics have been questioning the relevance of the novel as a literary form, with some going so far as to declare its death. But if the novel is dead, it’s not clear what new form can take its place. Should we treat the popularity of the memoir as a sign that what readers want is more truth, less fiction? Or is the memoir, like ‘reality TV,’ mostly just fiction dressed up as fact? In these fragmented times, ...
350: Captivity
April 10, 2017 13:20 - 9 minutes - 9.11 MBMore at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/captivity. Whether it's people incarcerated in prisons, or animals confined in zoos, aquariums, laboratories, farms, and in our own homes, millions of upon millions of sentient creatures live in captivity. To be held captive, some might say, is to be denied basic rights of autonomy. But physical captivity, others might say, can have significant social benefits. So under what conditions could it be morally justified to hold a creature in captivity? Sho...
420: The Examined Year - 2016
January 09, 2017 21:10 - 4 minutes - 4.5 MBMore at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/examined-year-2016. The annus horrbilis that was 2016 is over. But what ideas and events took shape over the past year that challenged our assumptions and made us think about things in new ways? Join John and Ken as they celebrate the examined year with a philosophical look back at a year of triumph and defeat in sports, politics, and technology with journalist David Johnson, philosopher Debra Satz, and political scientist Margaret Levi.
343: The Reality of Time
January 01, 2017 22:31 - 9 minutes - 9.05 MBMore at philosophytalk.org/shows/reality-time. St. Augustine suggested that when we try to grasp the idea of time, it seems to evade us: "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." So is time real or merely an artificial construct? Is time a fundamental or emergent property of our universe or a part of our cognitive apparatus? Do we live in a continuum with a definite past and present, or do we live in a succession of ‘No...
342: What Is Color?
December 16, 2016 21:09 - 10 minutes - 9.75 MBMore at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/what-color. Is the red you see indeed the very same red that anyone else does? What is the redness of red even like? These sorts of questions are not just amusing, if worn-out, popular philosophical ponderings. Thinkers in the philosophy of perception take such questions as serious windows into the nature of the world and of the mind. Although we are constantly surrounded by colors, the experience of perceiving them – what it is like to see red, for e...
336: Science and Gender
November 29, 2016 17:39 - 11 minutes - 10.6 MBMore at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/science-and-gender. What does gender have to do with science? The obvious answer is ‘nothing.’ Science is the epitome of an objective, rational, and disinterested enterprise. But given the history of systemic under-representation of women in science, what does it mean that science answers almost exclusively to the methodologies of men? Has male domination contributed certain unfounded assumptions or cognitive biases to the ‘objectivity’ of scientific ...
334: Memory and the Self
October 31, 2016 16:05 - 10 minutes - 9.52 MBMore at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/memory-and-self. Ever since John Locke, philosophers have wondered about memory and its connection to the self. Locke believed that a continuity of consciousness and memory establish a "self" over time. Now psychology is weighing in with new research suggesting that the relationship between memory and the self is even more complicated than that. But what's the connection between memory and the self? Can the self be explained strictly in terms of memory...
329: Dangerous Demographics - The Challenges of an Aging Population
August 29, 2016 16:31 - 11 minutes - 10.8 MBMore at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/dangerous-demographics. All over the world, people are living longer and having fewer children than ever before. In less than two decades, one fifth of the US population will be over 65 years old. So what do these radically changed demographics mean for how we re-imagine the shape of a human life? Should we think of the rapidly increasing older population as a blessing or a burden? And what kinds of changes should we make – both individually and as a s...
326: An Eye for an Eye - The Morality of Revenge
July 11, 2016 16:09 - 10 minutes - 9.53 MBMore at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/eye-eye-morality-revenge-1. We are often taught that vengeance is a reprehensible or unworthy motivation and that, as a result, pursuing revenge should not be the method of choice when meting out punishment for crimes. Incarceration and other penalties, according to this view, can only be justified in as much as they protect society, rehabilitate criminals, or deter further crime. But are these approaches to punishment really more just than the retribu...
325: The Limits of Self-Knowledge
June 27, 2016 16:56 - 11 minutes - 10.1 MBMore at philosophytalk.org/shows/limits-self-knowledge. Descartes considered the mind to be fully self-transparent; that is, he thought that we need only introspect to know what goes on inside our own minds. More recently, social psychology has shown that a great deal of high-level cognition takes place at an unconscious level, inaccessible to introspection. How then do we gain insight into ourselves? How reliable are the narratives that we construct about ourselves and our internal lives? A...
320: Life as a Work of Art
June 06, 2016 16:18 - 11 minutes - 10.1 MBMore at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/life-work-art. We know what it means for a painting to be beautiful. But what about a life? Like great works of art, great people exhibit style, originality, and creativity. Maybe, then, to live well is just to practice an ART of living. But what do the values that are important to a good life – happiness, moral goodness, or friendship, for example – have to do with aesthetic beauty? Aren’t the qualities that make a work of art good different from the ...
323: The Moral Lives of Animals
May 31, 2016 17:20 - 10 minutes - 9.44 MBMore at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/moral-lives-animals. From Aristotle and Kant to Hume and Darwin, philosophers and scientists have long denied the idea that animals are capable of acting for moral reasons. Yet empirical evidence suggests that many animals have rich emotional lives, and some even demonstrate distinctly altruistic or empathetic behavior. So how should we interpret this behavior? Do the moral feelings of animals suggest they are capable of responding to moral reasons? Or...
327: When Is It Wrong to Save a Life? Lessons from the Trolley Problem
May 16, 2016 16:15 - 10 minutes - 9.85 MBMore at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/when-it-wrong-save-life-lessons-trolley-problem. A trolley is approaching a track junction, and you happen to be standing by the switch. If you do nothing, the trolley will kill a number of innocent children playing on the tracks. If you throw the switch, it will kill only one fat man, who is sleeping on the tracks. The so-called Trolley Problem sheds light on many claims in moral philosophy: utilitarian positions (doing what's best for the greatest nu...