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What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

philpapers.org

61–70 of 115 posts

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#61
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if it didn't destroy the old one? Would there be any doubt at all?

The person who popped out of the other end of the teleporter would be doubtful. Does it make a difference if it's a teleporter that destroys the original as an necessary part of its function, vs one that destroyed the original but didn't need to do so, vs one that did not destroy the original?

I don't think there's much doubt about whether a document received via fax is the original or not, regardless of whether or not the sent document is shredded immediately after.

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#62
post #57
post #51

I was hoping to see absolute or relative moral values, but couldn't find it on there.

No, but there is a question concerning moral realism. Since moral relativism is a type of moral anti-realism which is entertained by 27.7% of respondents, it follows that less than 27.7% philosophers are relativists.

Thank you for the clarification. I would agree with the majority in this case.

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phil major here. Imagine a being that acted exactly like a human, it spoke, laughed, etc. - everything that you'd imagine a human being to do. However, it does not actually feel or think. For example, if you were to prick one of these "zombies," they would say "ouch," recoil, perhaps berate you, but the zombie does not actually feel pain - it's a purely mechanical process. Metaphysics is concerned with the nature of…

Thanks for the explanation! Now I'm way interested in reading more about these zombies.

For those of you interested in learning more, look up these terms (I studied philosophy related to Complex Systems, and zombies were a central question in my thesis):

John Searle's Chinese Room, Turing Test, physicalism, Conway's Game of Life

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#64
post #30

I was surprised to see so many leaning towards the switch in the Trolley problem. I still haven't made my mind on that.

Simple, switching results in fewer deaths.

But switching requires an action that will cause the death of another.

Rational people look for a lower number of deaths and the less rational (emotional) look to avoid action creating the misery of someone else.

People that pull the switch are thought to have more sociopathic tendencies even though doing the action would result in a lower overall number of deaths.

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who tend to be interested in philosophy and are theists probably tend to go into religion rather than philosophy.

That's one hypothesis. An alternative hypothesis would be to suggest that the more educated one becomes in philosophy the less that religion makes sense, and the clearer it becomes that there is no evidence for theism. (Note, I'm not advocating for either of these hypotheses, but correlation is not causation.)

Your alternative proposition (hypothesis has a different meaning in philosophy than it does in the sciences) is rather confusing from a philosophical perspective. What is 'educated'? Education is a culturally relative idea that is very hard to closely define. Thus, for a religious person being 'educated' may mean something very different from a gypsy who grows up on the streets of Paris who is very 'educated' in the workings of life on the street. Does the 'educated' individual mean some one who can create amazing works of art? Or, does it indicate some one who has memorized and repeats certain culturally important texts and ideas?

There is certainly a cultural side to philosophy in Modern Western society that is largely anti-religious from the very beginning. I started out as your average fervent evangelical Christian, which I am no longer, but it was initially incredibly uncomfortable in a philosophy department to try to hold on to certain belief systems. However, it is not necessarily for the reasons that one would believe. It is a culturally phenomenon. In older generations, it was entirely unacceptable to be religious and be in philosophy. You were naturally routed towards theology by the university staff because the topics of conversation are entirely different; modern philosophy does not concern itself with the question of religion. Yet, the vast majority of older philosophy professors, when being honest, will acknowledge that despite their atheism there are still countless religious systems that have fascinating thinkers and concepts that are both rational and consistent.

It just so happens that in America, Christianity is the de facto symbol for religion and it is both irrational and inconsistent.

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#66
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple, switching results in fewer deaths.

But switching requires an action that will cause the death of another. Rational people look for a lower number of deaths and the less rational (emotional) look to avoid action creating the misery of someone else. People that pull the switch are thought to have more sociopathic tendencies even though doing the action would result in a lower overall number of deaths.

> People that pull the switch are thought to have more sociopathic tendencies

That's interesting. Do you know what is the rationale behind this?

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#67

Here's one of my favorites. Glad to see the pros are evenly split, because this one really toasts my brain too. Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? Accept or lean toward: survival 337 / 931 (36.2%) Other 304 / 931 (32.7%) Accept or lean toward: death 290 / 931 (31.1%)

I lean towards a sort of death. But perhaps we're all dying and reanimating in between each Planck time instant anyway, in which case we shouldn't worry about it too much :)

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you have just said doesn't in any way help answer most of the questions on the survey.

It does help to answer most of the true philosophical problems about reality etc. Many problems on that page are IMHO psychological or sociological problems, e.g. the ethical problems.

I think this claim is just confusing descriptive and normative ethics. Probably the most common confusion about ethics there is.

True, descriptive ethics is almost entirely composed of various facts about human psychology and sociology, but no normative claim can be deduced from these facts alone.

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#69
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But switching requires an action that will cause the death of another. Rational people look for a lower number of deaths and the less rational (emotional) look to avoid action creating the misery of someone else. People that pull the switch are thought to have more sociopathic tendencies even though doing the action would result in a lower overall number of deaths.

> People that pull the switch are thought to have more sociopathic tendencies That's interesting. Do you know what is the rationale behind this?

I originally heard of the Trolly Problem in an episode of the The Brain Series on Charlie Rose where the guest neroscientists presented that viewpoint. I personally don't belive it, but that was the messaage they were presenting.

The series is both fascinating and frightening in way. I reccomend watching it to see the current ideas in brain science presented by the people creataing them.

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