A great deal is made by commentators of educational decline in the modern world, and a similar amount of effort is expended by those running the educational system to show that there has really been no decline. It is not our intention to take up a position on either side of this dispute, but rather to draw attention to one fact which is incontrovertible. It is the decline of classical learning in our schools.

To understand death, you need to compare mortality with immortality. I am here to help. In addition to my personal testimony, I present highlights from a survey of immortal species and a survey of infinitistic varieties of mortality. These field studies rebut Fredrich Nietzsche’s thesis that immortality is inevitably repetitious, Bernard Williams’ allegation that immortality is inevitably boring, and Epicurus’ thesis that death cannot be bad for you. On the positive side, the study shows that the main difference between immortality and mortality are quantitative. Attention is also given to some striking qualitative differences.

This article argues for a distinction between reticence and lying on the basis of what Kant says about reticence in his correspondence with Maria von Herbert and in his other ethical writings, and defends this distinction against the objections of Rae Langton (‘Duty and Desolation’, Philosophy 67, No. 262 (October 1992), 481–505). Lying is necessarily deceptive, whereas reticence is not necessarily deceptive. Allowing another person to remain ignorant of some matter is a form of reticence that is not deceptive. This form of reticence may be ethically permissible.

Wittgenstein made numerous pronouncements about philosophical method. But did he practice what he preached? Cook addresses this question by studying Wittgenstein’s treatment of the problem of other minds, tracing a line of argument that runs through his writings and lectures from the early 1930s to the 1950s. Cook finds that there is an inconsistency between Wittgenstein’s methodological advice and his actual practice. Instead of bringing words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use, he allows himself to use uncritically words whose provenance is clearly metaphysical.

I consider the argument, thought to clinch the moral case for use of a human embryo solely as a means, that (i) only a human individual can be a person, (ii) because it can happen at any time before formation of the primitive streak that an embryo splits into monozygotic twins, no embryo in which the primitive streak has not formed is a human individual, and therefore (iii) no embryo in which the primitive streak has not formed is a person. I explore the following proffered arguments for (ii): (a) indivisibility is a necessary condition of individuality, (b) nonidentity of an embryo with successor twins impugns the embryo’s individuality, and (c) totipotency of an embryo’s constituents is inconsistent with the embryo’s being a human individual. These arguments are tested and found wanting; so too is an alternative to (a), the argument that indivisibility is intrinsic to personhood. Whereupon (ii) is unsustained. In search of ways to rehabilitate the nonindividuation argument, I canvass alternative metaphysical views and inquire further into biological individuality, but find that the argument cannot be saved. I conclude by analyzing where this leaves matters concerning the morality of embryo use.

The present article is an attempt to clarify the Kantian conception of duties to the self and to defend them against common objections. Kant’s thesis that all duty rests on duties to the self is shown to follow from the autonomy of the human will; and the allegation that they are impossible because the agent could always release himself from such a duty turns out to be question-begging. There is no attempt to prove that there are such duties, but they are revealed to be an indispensable part of morality. Traditional attributes of moral commands, such as ‘categoricity’ or ‘overridingness’ make no sense in a one-sidedly other-regarding or social conception of morality.

In my article ‘Pains and Places’ (Philosophy 78 (2003)), I argue, first, that sensations, such as aches and pains, are generally in the places where we say they are; and second, that sensations are states or modes of the sensitive parts of the bodies of sentient animals. Here I reply to Trus Wyller’s criticism of my views, in his article ‘The Place of Pain in Life’ (Philosophy 80 (2005)), and I comment on Kant’s claim, in his Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, that ‘I am as immediately in my finger-tip as I am in my head’.

To understand death, you need to dwell on the alternative. If you knew an immortal, then you could ask him to speak from experience.