The basics of - Morality and Ethics part 2

Hi,

Welcome to the second instalment of "part 2" in this series where i write about "the basics of philosophy by Nigel Warburton"

I part 1 we discussed questions surrounding the various versions of God.

In the first instalment of the part 2 about Ethics i discussed a few of the theories that define what may or may not be considered "Moral", or "Ethical" actions.

Here in the second instalment we take  look at Meta Ethics. thats is the study of theories about those central theories, and applications of them

In his book Nigel looks at Naturalism, Relativism, and Emotivism. A brief discussion of these will bring into focus some of the  things that the  first order theories of duty, consequentialism and Virtue cannot fully explore.

Naturalism.

In essence a theory that postulates formations of value based ethical judgments following on from directly discoverable scientific facts. Born from utilitarianism, and a  description of human nature, which leads to how we ought to behave. At it's core it presupposes a biological or naturally occurring reason for things to be as they are and moral judgements  as to what to do about that knowledge follow from that.

Problems with naturalism.

How can one link facts to value based judgments? One does not directly lead to the other, in a  relevant and quantitative  sense, except via the  method of opinion.

It may be a fact that I am fat for instance. Some might see that as inherent proof of my laziness, or perhaps a suggestion of an injury that precludes sufficient exercise. Both of these  are born of opinion and do not directly link to the  fact that i am fat.

So, ought we to make these  judgments of fat people based on our own perceptions of  them? David Hulme first raised this objection to naturalism by demonstrating that philosophers move, as i have done here, towards  "what we ought to do" from "what is", without further discussion.

To link this to a real world question. Arguments as to the causality of trans gender, or homosexuality. Both exist in the realm of science. Or to put it another way, discoverable biological or physiological fact. The Naturalist would argue therefore that the value placed on homosexuality and or transgender issues does directly follow from thees arguments, where as the anti naturist would suggest further debate is needed.

It's kinda like the "I was born this way, therefore it's natural, therefore its ok" argument.

On the surface this seems fine. But what of other traits that we are born with? Aggression, intolerance, integrity, or lack thereof? Just because we are born with traits doesn't mean we "ought to" act on them. Thus the presence of scientific knowledge regarding causality and reasoning about how homosexuality, transgender or any other trait to exist will not tell us what to do about it.

Questions surrounding human nature also play into this argument. Since if Human nature is given too much credence then it presupposes a somewhat passenger like life for humans. It diminishes "free will" and thus our responsibility for our own actions. How far each of these opposing arguments, "human nature" and "free will" play into each other becomes a matter for debate as too much emphasis on human nature leads us to devolve ourselves from responsibility for our failings at the species level. Its an interesting question when one considers the field of anthropology. Looking at humans as animals, subject to the same evolutionary forces that others on this planet live under. Animals is discussed in the next chapter... so i'll revisit this.

Relativism. 

Consider two areas of the world. Saudi Arabia and the UK. the laws in each country for the basis of their moral structure for ma societal POV. Yet one can be killed in Saudi, for committing an offence that in the UK would not even be considered so.

This is "moral relativism". The theory that different societies have differing views fright and wrong and thus an individuals perception of right and wrong is dependent on one's society. Which as we know is an accident of birth.

So..are ideas of "right" and "wrong" therefore definitive or subjective?

Consider the historical context as well as geographical. Years ago slavery was acceptable and not so long ago homosexuality was illegal in Britain. The case of Allan Turing, the father of modern computing and robotics remains a great moral question. His story was made into film, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, If you haven't seen "The imitation game" I heartily recommend it.

Two criticism of the relativism argument are firstly that "all morals are relative but relativism is true" which is almost animal farmesque in its complicit contradiction, and secondly that "what defines a society" is open to interpretation since it need not be a legal or country based definition.

This is highlighted by the case of Marine A. Sgt Blackman, killed a wounded Taliban fighter in Afghanistan and was subsequently tried and convicted of murder in a uk courts marshal. Recently the murder conviction was ruled unsafe on evidence of mental health considerations. The moral relativism here are that one can arguably say Soldiers or the military are their own society since they do have a different moral code to the average civilian, specifically to use the christian phrasing, "thou shall not kill".

The situational issues of where Sgt Blackman was also bear thought. It certainly wasn't what we in the peaceful west might call an "ordinary societal construct".  Thus can we reasonably suggest that ordinary societal rules should apply? Then their are the legal issues. The relative legality of "when" the afghan man was shot, not whether. Arguably it wasn't murder that Sgt Blackman was convicted of, rather it was "unsanctioned" murder, by virtue of the legal change inherent over those few minutes. Had the afghan man died by virtue of an exchange of fire, he would still have been "murdered" in the philosophical sense of one human killing and other deliberately, but it would have been legal and therefore by extension relatively morally justified for the POV of UK forces. Though not so by the afghan side. There are many other arguments in the case of Sgt Blackman, but this gives a flavour of the contradictory and relative nature of morality and legality based on situation.

Emotivism

"homosexuality is wrong"

Torture wrong"

"telling a lie is wrong"

"going against gods will is wrong"

Emotivism would suggest all these statements above, which are ethical statements of position, are meaningless. That is to say that in and of themselves they give not facts, only opinions. And as such should be accorded the same level of legitimacy. 

This it perhaps a weird one to get ones head around. exact when one asks the  question "why" of any of these statements. In doing so and opening the debate we then move from statement of opinion into discussion of reason why, factual or conceptual arguments as to evidence or moral theory. Thus Whilst once can quite easily see that bare statements have limited intrinsic value, the value of exploration of these statements cannot be understated. 

The major criticism of Emotivism is that it reduces significant and very weighty matters to mere triviality. If we simply decided that the statement "torture is wrong' was a matter of personal choice, it's not hard to see the consequences for society as whole. 

So there you have it. Three "meta ethical"theories of what "right" and "wrong" might mean. Theories that lean on the 1st level descriptions of ethical thought and attempt to further define Societal Ethical questions. In a sense, one can think of the first order theories being concerned with the individual relating to the world, and the second order meta ethical ones taking a broader societal view. One of humans examining how we deal en mass with societal ethical questions rather than individual ones. 

Of course theres over lap, and the boundaries are never clear, but hey, that's philosophy for ya...you want facts, try science! It's down the hall third door on the left! 

Tata! 

part three on applied ethical questions is found here! 

Sarah

So, "The basics of" - Morality & Ethics part 1

Hello all you lovely people of the world.

It has been a while since the first part of my discussion of "The basics of philosophy" by Nigel Warburton, In writing this the second instalment, looking at right and wrong, I've decided to split the subject into 3 parts.

1) Theoretical models of morality
2) Meta Ethics
3) Application

Otherwise you would need about 6 hours to read a massive amount of text in one single blog entry that probably wouldn't do the subject justice and would very likely leave you with square eyes and a scrambled brain!

Regular readers will have noted a pervasive thread of ethical discourse in my recent blogs, and obviously that's because all my thoughts about the application of these concepts inevitably seep into other writings when trying to make any given point. Also just in case you were wondering, the terms "Ethical" and "Moral" are often used interchangeably. Ethics is the study of that which makes things right or wrong, and is also occasionally called "Moral philosophy".

So, to recap and clarify some the ethical models that I have referenced in recent Articles

Duty based theories:

i Christian -judaeo tradition ethics

Religious views of morality are by design dependent on the teachings of the religion in question. Most - though not all - religions suggest an all powerful creator being. That being's will is said to be supremely good, therefore by extension anything deemed as "good" by that being must be morally and ethically sound.

This argument has two defining elements:

Firstly, It presupposes the existence of the supreme being which as you'll have seen in my first article in this series is itself open to philosophical question and scrutiny.

Secondly this approach is suggestive that actions are either "good" or "bad" irrespective of the consequences of those actions.

Religious deity based morality also invites the question, "Is what a deity defines as good actually good because they say it to be so, or do they say it is so, merely because a given action is already good?"

Dependent on ones point of view on this last question, It can lead to a some very odd actions being deemed to be "moral" or conversely it reduces the "all powerful deity" to a being subject to a higher power, that of predetermined and separate laws of ethical and unethical action.

ii Kantian ethics

Emmanuel Kant took a view that it was ones duty to act in a moral way. He posed the question "what is a moral action?" As a result he devised things called Maxims, which he defined as the "thought behind the action" what we today might call a motivation. Crucially Kant devolved this process from any emotional input. It is a purely rational thought mechanism.

This is useful since it can distinguish between identical actions that have very different maxim's and thus may be on opposite sides of the moral argument.

Consider a scenario where you discover an injured person by the side of the road. You may decide to help them, and the outcome would therefore be beneficial to the person.

However this result can be achieved via two Maxim's:

"Help those in need", or "Help those in need and you shall be rewarded"

Arguably the second one is a less moral version of the first, since it predisposes personal gain from what is, at least outwardly, an apparently self-less act. Thus the action is not entirely driven by a sense of duty.

Kant sets out his version of categorical imperatives, or rules if you will, that suggest a framework on which to hang judgment of our actions in the moral sense, chief amongst them being:

"Treat other people as ends in themselves, never as means to an end" 

Which roughly fits with a more commonly heard christian tradition ethic in todays language of:

"Do unto others as you have them do to you"

The main criticism of Kant's theory is that it can of course be demonstrated to be used with very immoral maxims, and in some ways doesn't really tell us what we should do, just how to judge what we might. There are also moral dilemma's where some immoral acts based on breaking a maxim might lead to a moral outcome. For example, not telling a gunman where his target is, if you actually do know that information. This goes against "You should always tell the truth" but may in effect save someones life. "The lesser of two evils..." so to speak. 

Consequentialist theory

This problem with Kant's view of morality brings us nicely onto the next ethical model. That of consequence. Consequentialism, as the name implies, looks at the outcomes of actions to determine the nature of whether that action is moral or not. The best known of these is utilitarianism. The underpinning principle of good moral action in this case is defined as "that which brings the greatest good to the greatest number of people"

It is a system that very broadly encompasses much of the legal systems of the western world. Since rule based utilitarianism could be said to be a version of "law" by which people live their lives.

However. As has been discussed in much of my recent writings, pure application of this method does lead to under representation of the minority groups of society, Since by virtue of their being in the minority they will always be disadvantaged in terms of that defining principle. Plus, there is the ever present question of where does one draw the line's when considering actions that are good for one group but evidently bad or questionable for another.

One way to address this is to apply Negative utilitarianism. Basing ones actions on the outcome that produces the least amount of suffering rather than the greatest amount of a universal good, (happiness)

Both of these have limitations, and still bring up situational moral dilemmas. Also there are problems of weighing one action against another and the possible justification of immoral actions based on the idea of the greater good. (For example, how many times has that argument been used as a reason for going to war?)

Virtue based theory.

Rising from a study of Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics, Virtue theorists considered the question,

"How should one live their life?

The answer was to cultivate the virtues, and thus "flourish", leading a successful and prosperous life. This you might think is very similar to the Kantian ethics version of a Maxim, which it is, but with one critical difference. Virtue theorists included the emotional aspect of human intention. 

Bringing emotion into a central role allowed discussion of things like compassion, generosity, and charity. It raised the issue of why we might act to benefit our fellow humans from one of mere duty to one of empathy, and being able to appreciate the consequences of their situation through a form of kin ship with them. 

It encourages one to look for the similarities between different peoples, actions, viewpoints etc, and base ones actions from those observations.

The criticism of virtue based theory is simply, "what is to be classed as a virtue?" There is still much discussion around what to include in a list of virtues, since "That which allows one to flourish" is open to interpretation. 

Additionally people change, their inherent tendencies altering over time with experience. Thus one might start off with the virtue of generosity, but having been conned in the  past by an immoral individual, reassess that view in later life. There is also the consideration of "Human Nature" and arguments as to what that is, or if it exists. 

These are three of the major ethical theories that exist. There are others, and this page here gives a very brief breakdown of each, including those discussed here. 

One slightly confusing thing however, that some of you might have noticed, is that in all of the above  there still isn't a clear definitional of what is "right" or "wrong" in the moral context. 

To answer that it is necessary to study and theorise on the ethical theories. A field known a "Meta Ethics" 

And that we will leave till part 2. 

Sarah 

The Concept of God.. some thoughts.

Hello! Welcome to another Saturday morn' powered by the human mind and copious never ending cups of tea.

A little while ago I got myself a copy of  Nigel Warburtons book "the basics of philosophy", and did a wee blog saying that I planned on reading each chapter/section and then jotting down my thoughts on the arguments and concepts within.

See here

The first of these that Nigel explores in the book is the question "Does God exist?" OK, for some to even ask this is a big step, however it is a problem thats has kept religious philosophers busy for centuries and is at the very heart of religious teachings.

Some key concepts.

Theists, is a term used to describe those who believe in a classical vision of God as singular being, a person if you will, who is supremely benevolent, omnipresent and all powerful.

Atheists as I'm sure you're all aware do not believe this version of God to be real, they do not believe in this God.

Agnostics reserve judgement, preferring to wait it out a little on the fence.

There's little point in me re-writing Nigel's book here since he has done a much better job of it than I could ever hope to do, so I will limit myself to a brief mention of the arguments pertaining to the existence (or otherwise) of the theists God

The Design argument - such complex beings as humans must have been designed by a supreme  intelligence.

The fine tuning argument - The idea that the chances of us humans existing are so small that it must have been pre ordained by a God ala the design argument.

The first cause argument - Everything has a cause, but what is the first  cause? proponents of this argument suggest the first cause is God. but then what caused God?

The Ontological argument - God exists simply as a result of his definition as an all powerful omnipresent being.

Ok, so in a slight shift of Focus, what struck me in reading the book is that it discusses only one possible version of God, namely the one the theists ascribe to, and the judo-christian view of a  singular entity. There are differing religions in the world, thus many people have come up with differing views of this thing called God. So in that vein I've been exploring the question

"What is God?"

First of all I think its' fair to say that God is or has a concept. This concept varies dependent on the teaching to which you ascribe, but non the less, God, as a "supreme power" and "the creator" is pretty much a  universal view. That this is true does not prove that God does/doesn't exist, merely that our knowledge of God is shaped by the world in which we inhabit, and that we humans have some idea or concept of "God" be that the theists version or other variants. "God" and the "Concept of God" are thus related but different things.

Theists ascribe two other virtues to this supreme being. "All knowing" and "All good" but this is  based on the concept of God being sentient, a person if you will. So I'm going to leave those aside for now. 

The ontological argument for existence of God suggest that God exists simply as a result of being an all powerful, all knowing God. Its a flawed argument in that as Nigel suggests , existence is not a property per see. Rather It is a precondition of having any properties at all. To use the example in the book, being unmarried is an essential property of being a bachelor, but saying bachelors exist is not conferring any further properties on the definition of bachelor. 

However. Lets turn the ontological argument on it's head. We humans exist. So then what are humans? We are a self aware species with knowledge of the past coupled with an ability to envisage the future as we might like it, based on this past experience. ("imagination" and "learning" if you will) As a result we've built things called societies.

This then means the definition of "bachelor" and its inherent properties must exist inside a societal framework and awareness, one must know what a "bachelor" is in the wider context for the term to have any meaning. So, then could the concept of God exist simply because we humans are aware of ourselves? 

Consider the old saying:

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it does it still make a noise"

and alter it to:

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is aware of it's falling did it still fall? 

In the first saying the answer depends on the definition of "noise". We and many animals perceive noise through the vibration of air on an ear drum. thus if theres no ear drum then the vibration goes unheard. But that which would give rise to noise in the presence of an ear drum still exists. (rather like sending a radio signal out to an absent receiver) 

However in the second we "could" sumise it fell, since the tree can be proved to be on the ground, but as no one saw it fall we cannot prove how it got there. A little like the schrodingers cat conundrum. Since we are self aware and have experience based on what is "likely" to have occurred we come up with a list of scenarios and pick the most appealing. In this case being that it probably did fall to it's current position, for how else could it have gotten there?

Its this last bit, "how else could it have gotten there?" that brings us back to God. The design argument is a reflection of this question. We are so complex, so indescribably wondrous as beings in the frankly ridiculously improbable world that is Earth in the vastness of the universe, that we must have been dreamt up by an all powerful being who kinda looks like us but knows way more. But the design argument has its well documented flaws, and a long time influence on my scientific thinking Dr Richard Dawkins has covered this at length so for me it doesn't quite cut it. 

In indulging this train of thought as I read the book I found myself drawn to what is known as "non realism". An idea that God exists simply as an aspirational concept of humanities' better and more praise worthy traits, which I found to be in essence a reversal of the cause and effect of the design argument. We do not exist because God made us. Rather God "exists" or least the concept does, in some sense because we became aware of the concept of God. 

However. 

What caused this awareness? The first cause argument states that everything is a result of something else. You kick a football, it moves, you cut your hair, it gets shorter, You touch water, you get wet, Causality is a thing that I've been involved with from a scientific viewpoint over many years, first with cellular physiology, then latterly health care diagnostics, and now management theory. Why something occurred and what pre condition(s) caused its coming about is a question that keeps many minds busy. As for the cause of our self awareness? The truth is, other than suposed evolutionary pressures, and speculation, we simply don't know. 

If you'll indulge me in a purely speculative moment, mythology often has its roots in long forgotten experiences. It's not wholly outside the bounds of credibility to suggest that enduring myths of other worldly beings might have something to do with this thousands of years ago. We humans tells stories of all sorts of weird and wonderful things, from superman, to mutant super heroes, giant extra terrestrial robots and stuff like lord of the rings or the avengers. Those are of course modern examples but their lineage is way back round camp fires, eons before 4k telly's were "a thing' and "a thing" was considered an expression. An admittedly "far fetched" thought is that our vision of God as a person may stem from long lost knowledge of some vastly powerful being on earth of unknown origin that has then become legend, myth and eventually ..religion. But, moving away from self indulgent conjecture, its fair to say enduring stories whatever their inception, may well have played a part in how humans evolved the theist concept of God, or even multiple gods as the greeks did.

My point is that somewhere back in our lost evolutionary past whilst sitting round that camp fire re-telling stores of monsters battled or daring feats of bravery we asked a simple yet profound question, 

"Where did we come from?"

It is worth mentioning here that "Evolutionary" might predispose some to think I do not believe in God since the world was created in 7 days. I've always been in the camp of the genesis story being metaphorical, and the evolutionary process being akin to the paint brush not the painter. Way back in 5th year during my school RE  (year 11 for younger readers) I coined the thought that evolution is the "how" and God, whatever that might be is perhaps the  "why" 

Another point that the first cause argument brought into focus for me is the question of God's  relationship with Time. If God is to be considered the first cause then he was arround before the  beginning of what we commonly call time. Usually thought of as the big bang. Could this mean God is timeless, ever present? 

It's here that I began to form the basis of an opinion, or position on the issue of God, since a few threads seemed to be coalescing in my mind. 

• Humans are self aware. We remember, and question. 
• God was was supposedly there at the beginning (big bang)
• Awareness of something does not prove or disprove its existence. 
• Ignorance or unknowingness does not prove/disprove existence.

So. millennia ago its possible that somehow we humans became aware of Time, mortality, and our species' existence in a way, and on a level that we do not yet see in other primates. (Although by all accounts evolution is still occurring and new things being discovered) Around this point we as a species also became aware of the questions "why are we here?" and "how did we get we here?"

Our respective cultures and story telling ability thus led to accounts, some very likely born of factual events, that have been passed down through the centuries. These stores are thus interpreted and examined, re written and disseminated, ultimately becoming what we know today as "religions" 

Could "Time" perhaps then be said to start for the human race at this point of awareness, rather than the "big bang" and thus so begins our evolutionary tale of the knowledge of the concept of self, species, and thus of God. (The beginnings of known real  time, documented human history?) 

But hang on, what about those trees in the forest? Stephen Hawking has done brilliant job of discussing time as we know it here...

Stephen hawking the beginning of Time

In the article Professor Hawking describes the period before the big bang as having no observational consequence, thus from the POV of physics this can be left out of the equation. The big bang is the beginning (for us) of observable time, observable change. But we know God isn't supposed to be constrained by mere things like physics, other wise that would disprove the all powerful angle and much like that tree in the forest, observation does not prove or disprove existence, Thus one can theorise that a measure of something akin to time, perhaps infinite, existed in a unobserved way before the big bang. 

It is this that has lead me to an oddly simple thought. Could the concept of God be the result of human knowledge of Time itself? Moreover Could God actually Be Time? After all "old father time" is a well known expression?  It dates back to greek mythology "times". 

I tried to test this idea by breaking it. 

It's not unreasonable to theorise that the big bang we humans know as the start of our observable time could well have been the end of something else, unknown and now unknowable, thus the law of unending causality would be satisfied. The mechanism for the continuation of "another time" back before the big bang is simply that there are unobserved trees falling in a unknown forest, due to unknown forces and the passage of "their" time. 

But what of the things I've mentioned at the beginning?, of God being "all knowing" and "all good"?  Well God as Time would certainly "see all" since for anything to exist in our physical world post big  bang it must have, or have had, a greater than Zero time integer. And in "another time" before the big bang one can theorise that though different, and unknowable, this may have been true, since "our time" can exist independently of any observed or actual change and in the absence of the awareness of time  (consider a box of space vacuum, the fact it has "nothing" in it does not suddenly halt time. or perhaps an empty street at night, time still passes.) It's therefore not unreasonable to carry this premise backwards to before the big bang. 

However God as Time cannot be "all good" as it fails the test of the "problems of evil". Since some evil things happen with the passage of time. Probably due to "free will" in the case of humans and "random causality" in the case of natural disaster, time itself could be said to be complicit. 

But this does not in and of itself break the theory, since the premise of God as Good is tenant of the theists definition of God and not that of God as Time. 

If one accepts this definition of God as Time, it has similar ramifications to the non realism argument, indeed it could be said to be a version of it:

• Religion becomes merely a consequence of human self awareness, and societal pressure. 
• Religious morality can no longer be consider divine wisdom since the words of the various religious texts are reduced to merely those of men observing the world as they see it, regardless of how profound and wise they may be. 
• Good and Evil become action based and not based upon the promise of a physical Heaven or  hell. 
• God as Time makes no comment on the possibility of life after death. 

The third of these, the idea of a heaven or hell and resurrection/damnation has never sat well with me. Not because I have issue with the concepts, but rather the religious mechanism by which one enters either place. Moral actions, or "good" actions should be based on the intent to do good, rather than the intent to profit by the doing of good. Thus the idea of accessing heaven though a life of devotion is in my view too close to the gambler argument of Pascals wager. (the idea that its better to hedge your bets and believe in the theists God rather than be proved wrong and spend an eternity in hell.) 

Another place where "God as Time" and the traditional theist view diverge is this idea of "God" being the supreme moral authority. Nigel goes into the arguments surrounding God and morality much deeper than I have here, since I've barely touched them, so if you want to look at those grab a copy of his book, its well worth taking "the time" to read. (yeah its a bad pun, but I couldn't resist.) Handily though the next chapter in Nigel's book is all about Right and Wrong. So perhaps after looking at and writing about it i'll revisit this "loose thread" regarding God in a future article.

In conclusion, and I admit somewhat annoyingly, what really puzzles me is the premise I came up with all those years back in school. God as the "why" and evolution as the "how." God as Time starts to break a little here since Time, like evolution could be argued to be a mechanism for change.

Occasionally it's a driver but sometimes just a facilitator. Thus one can suggest that Time is merely another tool of the theist's concept of God and that God exists in an entirely different way. The only way to answer this is to either accept there is no why, thus Time is just Time therefore God doesn't exist, or that God is something else, separate from time, and that brings us right back to square one...

What is God?

And to answer that we need to figure out if God actually exists.....

;-) 

Have a great weekend, a lovely "Time", and may the  "God(s)" smile upon your endeavours. 

till next time 

Sarah 

The Basics of philosophy.

Hi all.

Welcome to a another sunny Sunday noon on planet Earth.

Today is intended to be something a short blog entry, since it serves an introduction to a bit of a  serialisation of my thoughts on a book I'm currently reading.

Nigel Warburton's "the basics  of  philosophy"

As regular readers of my random musing of the world at large will know I've developed something of an interest in the socratic method of questioning what we human presume to know. 

However, it seemed to me that it would be a logical approach to learn more about the central tenants of philosophical thought since my prior experience is based very much in the more scientific methods and well, to be honest, i didn't know know what I didn't know. 

In reading this book, aimed at the fledgling philosopher, I aim to find out what I don't yet know, as the author discusses arguments relating to 

God

Right and Wrong

Animals

Politics

Appearance and reality

Science

Mind

Art

I thought I would take an approach similar to that of Wayne Dyer in his explorations of the Tao De Ching, Dr Dyer took 4 days to examine each verse of the Dao. Of course theres quite a bit more to this that a single verse in each section. So I plan to read each section, probably re read it a few times and then write about it. Perhaps the arguments may tie into other more personal questions, such as  trans, parenthood, and who know what. 

So, there it is, my self imposed project for the next year or so, to explore and learn the basics of  philosophy 

Lets see what happens eh? 

;-) 

Sarah