Issue 26: April/May 2000

EDITORIAL

News: April/May 2000

Philosopher turns into lizard • Sexist jokes cost philosopher his job • Don’t mention euthanasia! • 100 and full of ideas • Bruno fêted on 400th anniversary of execution

Philosophical Rumblings in the German Republic: Der Philosophenstreit

Mark Peacock reports on a massive public row involving philosophy, history, language and genetic engineering.

ETHICS

Are There Any Moral Facts?

Bob Harrison talks about Moral Realists and the Boo/Hurrah party, and explains what David Hume overlooked.

Deep Ecology & Virtue Ethics

Warwick Fox on an approach to the environment which is also a way of living.

Ethics made Easy

Rick’s handy tear-out’n’keep guide to the main positions in moral philosophy.

Ethics versus Morality

Anja Steinbauer says Don’t Trust the Ethicists (too much).

Parachutes, Ticks & Moral Environments

Vance Morgan on how to build a moral environment of your very own.

ARTICLES

Bertrand Russell on Religion, with Buddhist Commentaries

Albert Shansky believes many of Russell’s opinions on religion are surprisingly in tune with those of the Buddhists.

C.S. Lewis, God and the Problem of Evil

C.S. Lewis, author of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, was a tireless academic defender of Christianity. Antony Flew examines his views on free will and evil.

Western Philosophy on the Defensive

Thomas Metzger suggests that contemporary Chinese philosophy, despite its weaknesses, challenges the foundations of modern, Western analytical philosophy.

Round Table Debate: Religion versus Philosophy?

Does religion need philosophy? Or vice versa? Are they rival ways of seeing the world? What do faith and reason have to say to each other? In the dying days of the old millennium, Philosophy Now and the organisation Philosophy For All gathered four distinguished thinkers in front of a large audience in a London bookstore to debate this most millennial of questions.

What’s New in… Ethics (part 1!)

Our overview articles reveal what’s going on now in different areas of philosophy. There is just too much happening in ethics for a single overview, so we asked Abdelkader Aoudjit to describe and comment on one strong tendency which is a major feature of the current ethics scene – the rebellion against theories.

Jürgen Habermas

by Michael Graubart

QUIZ

Andrew’s Quiz

See if you can identify the authors of the following ethical passages.

INTERVIEWS

Alexander Zinoviev

Alexander Zinoviev is a scientist, a writer, a painter, and a member of the Department of Ethics at Moscow State University. The author of many books analysing contemporary society, he was for over twenty years an exile in Germany, and became a German citizen. Now he has returned to Russia. This interview is by his colleague in the Department of Ethics, Professor Alexander Razin (a contributing editor of Philosophy Now).

David Papineau

To whet your appetite for our forthcoming Round Table debate on science and philosophy, Rick Lewis put a few questions to Professor David Papineau.

LETTERS

Letters

Free Speech • God and Humour • Detecting Androids • Peter versus Paul

COLUMNS

Peg’s Piece: Millennial Angst!

Philosophy Now’s columnist Peg Tittle takes on global corporate culture.

REVIEWS

A.J. Ayer: A Life by Ben Rogers

Ralph Blumenau reviews a new biography of A.J. Ayer, the angry young man who tried to abolish metaphysics.

FICTION

Eunoïtgozon

A lost dialogue, featuring Socrates and Plato and translated by Trevor Curnow.

Issues