Emotions are assumed to be beyond our control, ebbing and flowing in anarchic independence from the rational mind. But if we question the judgments that lie behind our emotions, we will often find that those feelings do, indeed, change. We can help the way we feel, if the way we feel flows from a mistaken judgment that we can correct.
ReadMost people think you need a special reason to feel sorry for yourself, such as a bereavement or a terrible medical diagnosis. But, according to the philosopher David Benatar, there is a sense in which each and every one of us would be fully justified in feeling aggrieved, because life is a lottery in which everyone with a ticket loses. Put bluntly, it would have been better not to have been born…
ReadIt requires less effort to put aside all doubts than to keep them alive. That is why the easiest way to live with our mistakes is to keep them out of mind until we die with them.
ReadPhilosophers have tended to have an inflated sense of their ability to “follow the argument wherever it leads”, as Plato’s old saw has it. What matters is the argument, not the arguer, which means there is no need even to think about gender or ethnicity. Philosophers have thus felt immune to the distorting effects of gender bias. Logic is gender-neutral, philosophy is logical, ergo philosophy is gender-neutral. I suspect this has led to complacency, a blindness towards all the ways in which, in fact, gender bias does creep in.
ReadAs always happens when we think carefully about other animals, we are reminded both of the many things that we have in common, but also the significant ways in which we differ.
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