 for his advances in mathematics, who was the author of one of the most famous philosophical and theological dilemmas.
His dilemma, Pascal’s bet, it is about the existence of the monotheistic GodAs is the case with the riddle of Epicurus, it is only here that Pascal defends the belief in his existence. What he raises is that in probabilistic terms, believing in God is better than not believing in him.
For him, even if the existence of God were a tiny probability, the mere fact of believing in him and that God existed would involve great gain, eternal glory, in return for an act involving little effort.
Believe in God: if you exist, you gain eternal glory.
You believe in God. If it doesn’t exist, you don’t win or lose anything.
Don’t believe in God. If it exists, you do not gain eternal glory.
Jean-Paul Sartre was a French philosopher, representative of existentialism and humanist Marxism. He posed a dilemma known as “bad faith”, in which he stressed that human beings are absolutely free and therefore responsible for their behavior.
Despite this, when it comes to taking responsibility, people prefer to “reify” themselves, in the sense that they prefer to say that they were objects of the will and designs of others who are not responsible for their own. their own actions.
This is often seen in cases where human rights violations have been committed, especially with war criminals claiming that they have only obeyed orders, which their superiors pressured them to commit. atrocities.
The paradox is that there is a point where the person chooses to act badly, then they would be really free to do whatever they want, but at the same time, he denies his freedom of choice, claiming to have been pressured.
According to Sartre, in all circumstances, human beings are free to choose between one or the other option, but what they don’t always do is take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
If this question does not have the name and first names of an author, it is a philosophical debate present throughout the history of philosophy and especially of morality.
Pious lies are seen as a form of social interaction which, despite breaking the rule of never lying under any circumstances, is a very, very Kantian idea. with them, we avoid causing damage by telling an uncomfortable truth.
For example, if a friend of ours comes to us with a t-shirt that we find very unpleasant and asks us if we like it, we can be honest with him and say no to him or we can lie – then he feels good.
This lie is essentially harmless, but we have broken a fundamental rule in all friendship and in society in general: We have not been sincere.
According to consequentialism, raised by utilitarians Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, what matters are the results of our actions.
These acts and results can be good or bad, but they do not necessarily involve each other. In other words, doing an action that we think is right can have disastrous consequences, although it must be said that it all depends on how you look at it.
For example, imagine that we go shopping at the supermarket. We can look at a bag of ecological and organic potatoes, grown by an NGO that fairly pays its third world workers and helps them build schools. All of this is great, at first glance, because we are apparently helping people who don’t have a lot of resources. We are in favor.
However, if we look at it from the other side, maybe our benevolent actions have very bad consequences. For example, the potato sack comes in a mesh which is not at all resonant or organic, the transport from the country of origin to our trusted supermarket involves pollution and besides, we think a lot about the third world people but the money we spend is not spent on local commerce.
Given this example, we can approach it in two ways. The good thing is that we are good people to help people without resources and the bad thing is that we are contributing to the greenhouse effect. How do we guide our behavior if everything we do is fundamentally wrong?
It is difficult to predict all the results of our actions, especially if we do not have all the information.
The liar paradox has its origin in the New Testament and in it the following statement is made: “the Cretan Epimenides say: all Cretans lie”.
This statement is self-referential, with one part of object language and another of metalanguage.. To find out if the sentence is true, you must first divide it in half and analyze it separately.
Whether true or false, the expression “all Cretans lie” is independent of the truth or falsity of the first part of the statement, which is metalinguistic. In the part of “Epimenid Cretans says”, we study whether Epimenides says or not that “all Cretans lie”, while in the part “all Cretans lie”, we study whether they really lie or not.
The paradox occurs because the two levels blend together causing us a headache. Is Epimenides lying because he is Cretan? If he lies, then don’t the Cretans lie? But then shouldn’t Epimenides, who is Cretan, be lying?
 It’s a truth, so his nose isn’t growing. But now he goes and tells us that his nose is going to grow now, and that he is sure of it. Will his nose grow? If he grows up, we is he lying or telling us the truth? His nose really grew, but he didn’t know if he was going to push on it, did he?
In 1974, the American philosopher and environmentalist Garret Hardin proposed the following moral dilemma. He compared the Earth to a lifeboat carrying 50 people, while 100 were in the water and needed to be rescued. The problem was that only 10 more people could get on the boat.
The people in the boat represented the most developed and wealthy countries, while those desperately swimming were the poorest countries. It is therefore a metaphor for the distribution of resources in the overcrowded world in which we live.
Faced with the situation, questions arise such as who decides who to put 10 people on board, whether to throw overboard someone who is on board but shows signs of death, or what criteria should be used to select who is being rescued and who are not.
The solution proposed by Hardin himself is that the 50 people who are already in the boat will not allow anyone else to board the ship, because with the 10 positions available, you have a safety margin for nothing to give up.
As Hardin’s moral dilemma gained fame, the Northwest Association of Biomedical Research in Seattle adapted it.
A woman who thinks she could be six weeks pregnant.
Two young adult brides.
An elderly man with 15 grandchildren.
Two thirteen-year-old twins.
A seasoned nurse.
Who are we saving?
We live in a world where free speech is encouraged, or at least we believe it is.. No one should forbid us from speaking our opinion, let alone censor them or threaten to hurt us if we don’t shut it down.
But at the same time, we are also aware that there are opinions that hurt others. This is where the question arises as to whether it is legitimate to regulate what people say. In other words, silence others based on your opinion.
Philosophers have long debated which way of thinking to tolerate and which should not. Freedom of expression is a delicate matter and it is difficult to establish universal and clear criteria that allow a clear line to be drawn between what is politically correct and what is not. Should we tolerate intolerance? Doesn’t tolerating intolerance make us intolerant? What do we mean by intolerance?
Regarding the above dilemma, sometimes there is a situation where someone does something wrong to us. That’s when, after going through various feelings, we must decide whether to forgive or continue to feel, Blame that person for what they did, even if it was unintentional or without being aware of the consequences of their actions.
This mundane question has been a hotly debated philosophical question throughout history, especially in situations where people who have suffered greatly, such as Holocaust survivors, have forgiven those who hurt them, in this regard. case, Nazi officers.
It’s just? Is it normal to forgive despite the harm done? Are guilt and resentment negative but necessary emotions? Is just having resentment bad?
Of course, guilt and forgiveness are two fundamental aspects of our culture and our relations with institutions, which, unfortunately, is seen a lot today with the government’s management of the health crisis. Is it fair to blame our leaders for the way things turned out?
The tram dilemma is an already very classic example of how people think morally. The situation is well known: we have an uncontrollable tram on the road on which it is traveling. On the road, there are five people who did not realize that the vehicle was coming at high speed and hit them.
We have a button at hand with which we can change the trajectory of the tram, but unfortunately on the other road where the tram would be traveling there is a person who did not take notice of the situation.
What do we have to do? Did we hit the button and save five people but kill one? Don’t we push the button and let five people die?
A journalist travels to the Amazon to report on its indigenous peoples. Arrived on the scene, he is kidnapped by a troop of guerrillas who lead him to his camp.
The kidnapped have 10 people in the zulo. The guerrilla leader hands a gun to a journalist and tells him that if he kills one of these ten