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Giggalo_Joe t1_j8e27b3 wrote

Reply to comment by SplodyPants in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 13, 2023 by BernardJOrtcutt

This is kinda a standard university topic. One I haven't been asked in decades. Put simply, there are many possible answers but a couple of the more prominent ones are:

  1. Philosophy teaches you how to think, how to see the important questions in any problem solving exercise. Once you begin to think like a philosopher, many every day problems will become easier to solve. You may even find yourself helping others with problems they have languished over for a long time and privately wonder why they didn't come to the same conclusion long before. And this teaching you how to think is an excellent foundation for politics, medicine, law, any kind of research position and a great many other professions.

  2. Philosophy is the foundation of all knowledge, in all topics. Science is nothing more than applied philosophy. Quite often philosophy is thought of as the asking of questions but not answering them. And for some, this is all they ever want philosophy to be. But it can be more if you want it to. Ex: You have two competing ideas that can be thought of as two roads diverging in a wood. You arrive at the fork in the road and stand there wondering which direction to go. Without being able to see the end of either road, it is difficult to say which is the correct path. So you can a) conduct observations and see what factors may lead you to choose one versus the other, b) gather information from those who may be traveling down the same road and see which is has been observed to be the more likely correct path, or c) you can simply choose to walk a path and by walking it find an answer for right or wrong. All three of these are the foundation of all scientific study in all fields.

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DoctorDream614 t1_j8kr4sq wrote

But what if all the choices we have arn't either right or wrong they just exist to be used if someone decides too that route. It's like the question of is evil real and is good and kindness real we say certain things are evil but that's just something the majority of pp have come to except as evil there is neither good nor bad theirs just our perception of actions that tells us what's good and bad. Killers think nothing is wrong with their actions and how can that be if evil does exis cuz evil would have self knowledge of it being the wrong thing to do but a lot of cereal killers see no wrong In their actions is it really kindness and good to feed ur dog everyday or is it just a agreed upon that he gives u satisfaction so u give him satisfaction back by feeding him

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Giggalo_Joe t1_j8lslcf wrote

Do killers think nothing is wrong or do they simply not care? Everything is black or white. Everything is right or wrong. Every question has an answer. Whether we can ever know these things...that is another question.

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