44
votes
Accepted
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
We should (and do) "teach abstinence" in the sense of talking about the consequences and risks of sex, teaching them about STDs, and recommending that kids wait until adulthood.
But when ...
- 13.9k
32
votes
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
Your last paragraph contains the heart of your problem.
otherwise radical inclusion of ideas like pre-marital sex, dating, condoms etc. can cause a very deep shock and trauma.
In reverse order, the ...
- 2,446
25
votes
How can animals be objects of ethics without being subjects as well?
There's no paradox here.
Let A be the characteristic of having moral value.
Let B be the characteristic of having the ability to recognize moral value.
You have imposed A -> B. Which implies ~B -> ~...
- 702
10
votes
How does atheism answer the problem of goodness?
There are non-divine hypotheses for why people would be benevolent:
The evolutionary advantage for social animals to protect each other's well-being (already discussed in other answers). In short, ...
- 1,624
9
votes
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
I mean the obvious elephant in the room is that sex is a natural process and that having sex is a completely natural thing and that your body might even gear you towards having sex and reward you with ...
- 8,148
8
votes
Can non-agents be moral or immoral?
Children are not denied moral agency, they are usually denied legal culpability. That's a big difference. Children as agents can be engaged in ethics and are ethical beings, but they are often ...
- 35.6k
8
votes
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
In addition to the excellent answers already given, you may not be aware that in many places "abstinence education" is a euphemism for an educational course that is ideologically associated ...
- 189
6
votes
How can animals be objects of ethics without being subjects as well?
Welcome user37552
I'd phrase my answer in terms of a moral community. You might say that only humans can belong to a moral community because only they can have moral agency, owe obligations, deserve ...
- 36.1k
6
votes
Can non-agents be moral or immoral?
Since all morals are relative, the answer depends on the values of the culture in which the wrongdoer is being judged. In some societies a child who murders another, say, might be considered not to ...
- 26.4k
6
votes
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
no, because everyone already knows they can choose to not have sex.
That's like teaching people to stay at home instead of driving somewhere because driving is dangerous. People want to drive, and ...
- 199
5
votes
Proof for the Absence of Free Will (Revised)
This argument suffers from all the failings of the Standard Argument against free will, plus an additional one of relying upon infinite regress reasoning.
The core problem for both arguments is they ...
- 17.5k
5
votes
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
The question is, do you want to prevent unwanted pregnancies, or do you want the young people to abstain from pre-marital sex altogether?
These are different goals, and while successfully teaching ...
- 322
5
votes
Do any philosophers describe drama as fundamental to, or the essence of, the human condition?
When I read the topic first, I went straight to SEP to look for resources on Drama. As in the theatrical form. Then I read OP's question more closely and am now aware that they are asking about a ...
- 3,710
4
votes
Accepted
What does Iris Murdoch mean by genetic analysis of mental concepts?
It is not an idiom, but it is specific to Murdoch. "Genetic" here refers to something pertaining to genesis, formation, not biological genes. From context, she refers to analysis as "...
- 44.2k
4
votes
Why do non-moral agents have rights?
In practice, rights seem to be present wherever there exists potential capacity for suffering -- either now, or in the future. Two big areas of contention are (1) what constitutes potential and (2) ...
- 1,281
4
votes
Proof for the Absence of Free Will (Revised)
You’ve couched your argument in an “insofar as” that cripples it.
If I have trained myself to respond instinctively to a situation of a particular kind (Kahneman’s “fast thinking”), I do not ...
- 5,990
4
votes
When is someone culpable for being tricked
If Person A has the easy ability to verify the situation but chooses not to and instead proceeds to destroy person B's life then Person A is almost as guilty as he would be had no one attempted to ...
- 323
3
votes
Accepted
Was there a philosophical underpinning that enabled the holocaust?
The beginnings of a movement
The Nazis did not invent eugenics, which was a movement the emerged in the USA, the UK, France and Germany towards the end of the 19th century. Its aim was to apply the ...
- 36.1k
3
votes
What is the difference between responsibility and commitment?
Both concepts are vague and often used interchangeably, and their dictionary definitions are almost indistinguishable:"the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something" vs. "the state ...
- 44.2k
3
votes
Immorality, evil and badness without agency? Can inanimate objects be innately bad?
It depends greatly on your ethical system, your metaethical system, and to some extent, on how you define the terms "good" and "evil" when they are used to describe objects (most ...
- 2,344
3
votes
Morality of belief
One may revert to the beginning and ask, why is a judgement being given in the first place? Two basic motives enter the mind: (1) An attempt to change or reeducate the recipient; (2) An attempt to ...
- 1,281
3
votes
Proof for the Absence of Free Will (Revised)
Decisions may be either voluntary or involuntary.
False. Decisions are not actions. Only actions are either voluntary (=decided) or involuntary (=not decided).
Insofar as free will requires the ...
- 3,888
3
votes
Proof for the Absence of Free Will (Revised)
In the science fiction novel The Sirens of Titan there is a brief "business" concerning a scientist. He has the idea that all human creativity arises due to a small organ in the brain that ...
- 1,565
3
votes
Proof for the Absence of Free Will (Revised)
The fault in your argument is at point 5. It is possible that one involuntarily is prompted to make a voluntary decision.
- 26.4k
3
votes
Does choice exist?
Most legal systems rest on the view, implicitly or explicitly, that humans are largely responsible for their actions. You do not need to invoke a particular definition or test of free will to justify ...
- 26.4k
3
votes
Does choice exist?
That's a long OP. I'll try to limit my answer to this:
the question of my post can still be constrained to what kind of things I would have to concede to as existing in order to concede to "...
- 3,294
3
votes
When is someone culpable for being tricked
When is someone culpable for being tricked
When the said someone is blameworthy because blameworthiness signifies that the said someone is culpable.
when are we blameworthy for what we don't know
...
3
votes
The Copenhagen Interpretation: From Quantum Mechanics to Ethics?
QM is a mathematical model of aspects of reality that allows us to perform very precise calculations. The possible outcomes of a 'measurement' in QM are strictly limited in most cases to a particular ...
- 26.4k
3
votes
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
As a preamble, regarding the (recently edited) question:
The question title is so incredibly loaded it should be edited again.
What is "unwanted pregnancy" ? It would be as if in the US ...
- 368
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible