Everyday Philosophy How open-minded should a Christian be? On the one hand, open-mindedness is generally a good thing. Being open to the possibility of learning new things, and to the possibility that one is mistaken, is a mark of a healthy mind. It’s also a sign of humility. Openness to being wrong is an acknowledgement…

Everyday Philosophy There’s a standard bit of ethical terminology that gets thrown around a lot in Catholic circles: the difference between moral questions that involve ‘intrinsic evils’ and moral questions that involve ‘matters of prudential judgment’. This comes up a lot in politics: support for certain things like abortion and euthanasia are supposed to be…

Everyday Philosophy There’s an interesting tension in Catholic moral thought. On the one hand, we have the prevalent idea that living well as a Catholic is not a matter of rule-following. The last few popes have spoken extensively about how authentic faith is not about obeying a set of rules, but a relationship with God.…

Everyday Philosophy Is there something immature about deferring to authority on moral questions? If your reason for doing something is that “person x said it was good” or “x group says it is morally mandatory” is that ever legitimate? Immanuel Kant is often thought of as arguing something like this. Kant thought that the only…

Everyday Philosophy If you do something voluntarily, it must be because you wanted to do it, at least in some sense. This apparently innocent statement can in the hands of some philosophers have quite disturbing implications. First, let’s think about the statement itself. It is true as far as it goes. Even if you do…

Everyday Philosophy You hear a lot in apologetics about how if the materialist image of the world favoured by the likes of Richard Dawkins was true, there would be no room in reality for human free will. But why exactly is this? What’s the nature of the tension between free will and scientific materialism, and…

Everyday Philosophy In my first year of university, the study of philosophy was divided into three subtopics. There were lectures and classes in logic, ethics, and then ‘general philosophy’ which was supposed to include everything else. I showed up to my first lecture in the latter as a fresh-faced undergraduate eager for knowledge, and left…

Everyday Philosophy Imagine two firefighters. Lynda regularly puts herself in danger, entering burning buildings to perform difficult rescues that others are too afraid to. Lynda isn’t reckless: she’s extremely competent and only tries rescues that she thinks have a good chance of success. But she is fearless, or close to it: fear for her is…

Everyday Philosophy Much philosophical discussion about lying has tended to focus on the most extreme of extreme cases. “Is it acceptable to lie to a murderer about whether or not his would-be victim is in your house?” As is often the case in philosophy, the extreme case is a very bad place to start. Starting…