Recent events in the Middle East once again focused attention on the Israel/Palestine issue. In the following article, adapted from his recent book, Ted Honderich controversially defends the Palestinians' moral right to engage in terrorism.

The question of the existence (or otherwise) of ‘absolute truths’ has been debated for thousands of years. The position that there are no such truths — relativism — comes in several varieties. In this, the first of two consecutive articles by Alchin, we hear a debate on the most common form of relativism: moral relativism.

We can contrast moral relativism, which was discussed in the previous article, with cognitive relativism, which holds that there are no universal truths about the world at all; that the world has no universal characteristics and that there are only different ways of interpreting it. Cognitive relativism is the subject of this article.

Stephen Law has recently argued (Think 9), using a dialogue set on the fictional planet Eth, that traditional belief in God is ‘silly’. Bergmann and Brower argue that theists on Earth should not be convinced.

In issue 12 of Think, Rodney Holder developed a version of the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God, claiming that certain features of our universe make the probability that God exists high. Here, Dene Bebbington responds.

We are often warned against stepping onto ‘slippery slopes’ — dangerously slick slides leading down to where the really bad stuff lies. But, as Arthur Miller here explains, these warnings often exaggerate the risk of a slip.

The question ‘Is everything relative?’ is philosophy' equivalent of a trashy horror movie. It sounds radical and deep. One is excited by the enormity of the insight one would gain were one to find out that indeed, everything is relative. Max Kölbel argues that indeed, everything is relative, but does so by presenting a ‘sensible’ form of relativism supported by a straightforward argument.

Are time machines philosophically possible? Is there something fundamentally illogical about the very notion of time travel? Tony Milligan introduces some of the key arguments in this amusing dialogue.

Could a machine possess an aesthetic sense? Could it appreciate the beauty of a pebble?

Wittgenstein once said that if a lion could speak, we would not be able to understand it. No doubt he would say the same about aliens. But is Wittgenstein correct? Derrick Farnell thinks not.

Is the law displacing morality? And should it?

‘Law is a bottomless pit and I have no inclination to fathom its depths.’

Joel Marks discusses the philosophical aspects of a question recently in the news: is Pluto a planet, or not?

Thinking Tools is a regular feature that introduces pointers on thinking clearly and rigorously.