Philosophy: What We Can Know, What We Owe, and How to Live
The questions underneath every other subject, argued as their defenders argue them: what we can know and whom to believe; what consciousness is, and whether animals and machines have it; whether we act freely; what makes a person the same over time; the arguments for and against God; whether morality is objective, and the theories of right action, from consequences and duty to character, care, and Ubuntu; what we owe strangers, animals, and future people; death, abortion, and assisted dying; justice and the authority of the state; and how to live. Greek, Indian, Chinese, Islamic, African, and European thinkers come in where their arguments are strongest. Each answer gets its best case, the objection it must meet, and a place in a table of what it costs; on God, consciousness, free will, moral realism, abortion, assisted dying, and eating meat the course takes no side, and it gives a reading only where evidence or broad agreement settles a narrower point. Worked examples include Mary's room premise by premise, Pascal's wager as a decision table, a 10% pledge against GiveWell's estimates, Canada's assisted-death numbers since 2016, and three societies ranked by each theory of justice. Opens with where philosophers stand on each question in the 2020 PhilPapers Survey, a Who's Who of 135 thinkers, and a list of terms.** **