Philosophy Miscellany

In The Myth of Sisyphus , Camus famously asserted that “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” [1] My idea is slightly different. I think the question of suicide is a bit of a diversion since there can be all sorts of reasons to stay alive, once one is already alive, that have little to do with one’s overall assessment of life’s value … beginning with simple fear of death or dying, but including also obligations to or caring about others and, for many, insufficient pain or angst to want to bother ending it.               I have come up with a kind of parlor game to tease out our true opinion of life no matter how happy and content a person may appear to be. Unlike me, most of my friends do not spend their lives struggling to get to the pith of things. Of course this could be why the...

  I sometimes enjoy reading the God Squad column by Rabbi Marc Gellman, who is obviously an intelligent fellow. But he is also a God and religion apologist (when he’s not getting in his humorous digs against Christianity), and at times his argumentation leaves a great deal to be desired. Thus in  his latest (as I write) column  (July 25, 2020), a reader asks: “ How can God be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, if evil still exists in the world?” This is the classic Problem of Evil in theology. Rabbi Gellman offers the classic theological answer: Murder, war, oppression, racism, bigotry and every example of wanton cruelty are all on us. We choose to do evil and our choices soil the world. We are able to make these bad choices because we are able to choose what we do and we are able to choose what we do because we have freedom of the will. … So the question now arises, “Why did God give us free will?” … The answer is that without free will we cannot love. We choose...

 The word “sacrifice,” which etymologically derives from “to make holy,” has a peculiarly Janus-faced usage in the language. The word now means to give up something, but sometimes what one gives up is … somebody else! This is the case in the paradigmatic sacrifice of an animal (historically sometimes a human one) on the altar to appease a god or God. This is still a  giving up  if the animal happens to be one’s own – a sheep from one’s flock, or even one’s own daughter (Iphigenia) or son (Isaac). But, in the scientific arena of animal experimentation, the notion has transmogrified into the sacrifice being made  by the animal . Lab researchers commonly speak of their appreciation for the sacrifice  being made by  the animals they experiment on and then, in almost all cases, kill. Now it is not to appease the gods or God but to advance medical science and, usually, human welfare (which was also for the purpose of appeasing the gods), or sometimes sheer biolog...

 I have written previously about how belief can be hijacked  by a sudden shock  and also  by an inexplicable situation . But now I realize that belief can be uncertain in its own right, that is, one may be uncertain about what one actually does believe, or one’s belief may be malleable.  This occurred to me when I was thinking about burial arrangements. Thus, I don’t want to be cremated. Why not? One reason is that the thought of being shoved into an oven like a pizza, or worse yet a broiler, terrifies me. But of course if I were dead that wouldn’t really be happening to me but just to my body, a lifeless corpse. So do I really believe that dead people are unconscious, or not? Another reason I don’t want to be cremated is that I want to continue to feel that I am somewhere. But, again, if you’re dead, you’re nowhere to begin with, right? So, bottom line: Do I really believe that when you’re dead, you’re dead, or don’t I?   Or even if I do believe it, do I r...