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.

Iris Murdoch (1919–99) was a philosopher and novelist who wrote extensively on the themes of love, goodness, religion, and morality. In this article, we explore her notion of ‘moral vision’; the idea that morality is not just about how we act and make choices, but how we see the world in a much broader sense.

Michael Bradie does not share Blackmore's enthusiasm for the ‘new science of memetics’.

Thomas Nagel has recently discussed whether intelligent design theory (IDT) is scientific and should be taught in public schools alongside the theory of evolution (ET). Nagel writes:

Should we congratulate runners who participate and finish a marathon without winning it? Although it might seem that all who muster the will to do so deserve praise, this article questions whether self-regarding virtues, such as running a marathon, deserve it.

Nick Bostrom presents an argument that our species will shortly disappear.

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

I argue that there is an important emotion for which we do not have a name.

Issue two contained three pieces arguing against relativism: the view that what is true from one individual's or community's perspective might be false from another, that there is no ‘absolute’ truth on any issue. Here David Mills, an anthropologist, argues that, even if we are right to reject philosophical relativism, there is still value in embracing a methodological form of relativism.

Moral dialogue for moral subjectivists is gravely limited. As soon as moral subjectivists hold another person to any moral standard independent of the person's belief, they must give up their moral subjectivism. Some moral subjectivists might turn out to be moral realists who accord primacy to autonomy. This, however, is a senseless position that renders all persons equally worthless, unless such moral realists concede that norms that limit autonomy exist. But if so, they are not different from any other moral realists after all.

As our wealth increases, more and more of us undergo cosmetic surgery. From tummy tucks, breast enlargements and nose jobs to hair transplants and face-lifts: You name it, they fix it.

In a democracy people are free to express their opinions and question those of others. This is an important personal freedom, and also essential to the very idea of government by discussion. But it has also been held to be instrumentally important because in open public debate true ideas will conquer false ones by their merit, and the people will see the truth for themselves. In other words, democracy has an epistemic function as a kind of truth machine. From this it follows that in a democracy there should be no dogma: no knowledge protected from public challenge and debate. Yet this whole argument is founded on embarrassing misconceptions of the nature of truth and of the working of democracy.

Many on both sides of the gun control debate are under the impression that the best way to settle it is by weighing outcomes in the context of a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis. This article suggests that this way of thinking about the gun control debate is fundamentally mistaken. What matters is not the risk (or lack thereof) that guns pose to society, but simply whether guns are a reasonable means of self-defence when used to resist crimes. What this means is that even if we were to grant the claim that gun ownership decreases average safety, it wouldn't follow that restrictive gun control measures would be justified.

I consider the metaphysics of farts. I contrast the essential-bum-origin view with a phenomenological view, and I argue in favour of the latter.

It is my contention that what is generally construed as the Euthyphro Dilemma as a reason to deny that moral facts are based on theological facts is one of the worst arguments proposed in philosophy of religion or ethical theory, and that Socrates, the character of the dialogue who poses the dilemma, was both morally bankrupt in his challenge to Euthyphro, but more importantly here, ought to have lost the argument hands down. But in any dialogue, the author controls what people say. Plato was able to easily give Socrates the victory by writing the ending of the story himself, where Euthyphro, believing that piety is what the gods approve of, loses the argument abysmally. The version of events presented here is different. This time, Euthyphro is permitted to offer a reasonable defence of his position, and he has the benefit of having been able to read all that has been said on the Euthyphro dilemma over the last couple of millennia, and especially the last fifty years. Under such circumstances, Socrates does not stand a chance. We arrive at our scene, the steps of the Dunedin High Court, in Dunedin, New Zealand, on a cool mid-winter July morning.

Hugh Mellor examines both the fine-tuning argument and the suggestion that this is but one of many universes within a great ‘multiverse’.

Several lines of argument are presented to support the notion that hooved animal rescue is justified, however expensive and controversial. The work of Singer and McNamee is discussed. The article concludes that various breeds have distinct arguments in their favour when it comes to rescue.

Hempel's famous Raven Paradox derives from Nicod's criteria for confirmation and the Equivalence Condition, the unintuitive conclusion that things like white roses, green T-shirts and ice cubes confirm the raven hypothesis ‘All ravens are black.’ By a small rearrangement of the Equivalence Condition, I show that we can also derive the conclusion, which sounds even more intuitively intolerable, that observation of black ravens fails to confirm the raven hypothesis. We are left with the contradictory result that black ravens both confirm and do not confirm the raven hypothesis.

In the second of our two articles focusing on the war in Iraq, Richard Ryder looks at a range of possible justifications, and finds them all wanting.

This article responds to Tibor Machan's criticisms of government provision for needy citizens. It argues that although charity may be morally worthy, private charity is inadequate to the task of providing our fellow citizens with the security they deserve; the tremendous social good of secure access to a life of dignity can only be produced by a public social safety net. Moreover, individual rights to property do not stand in the way of providing a public social safety net. Since there are social inputs in wealth creation, reasonable levels of taxation do not violate people's rights to their wealth.