Take part in our global essay contest! Prizes include cash, publication and an interview with Daily Philosophy. (more...)

What could have led to the fact that the study of philosophy does not encourage independent thinking? (more...)

Hell is utterly impossible to put down just because of the sheer force of its language… (more...)

Hánfēizǐ advocated a realist political philosophy and its aim was the establishment of order. The function of the state is to survive – to suppress internal strife and resist external aggression. (more...)

For a long time, we have been watching the public discussion on cultural appropriation. Many writers and philosophers, even guests we have interviewed here on Daily Philosophy, have been reluctant to discuss the topic in public. (more...)

Pessimism today has an ambivalent status. On the one hand, even a cursory glance at the world reveals a depressing abundance of dreadful events, tendencies, and phenomena. (more...)

Karl Barth, born May 10, insisted that the Church should not collaborate with the Nazi state in Germany. (more...)

My eyes widen as I stare at the board, the possibilities beginning to fill my mind. (more...)

Is abortion ethical? Philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson created one of the most well-known thought experiments in modern ethics. In her 1971 paper “A Defense of Abortion,” she presents the thought experiment of the unconscious violinist. (more...)

Japanese martial philosophy has been mythologized to nefarious ends, but that does not mean it has nothing to teach well-adjusted individuals. (more...)

Christopher Hamilton’s “Rapture” is a very pleasant, well-written, intelligent, and inspiring essay on the many meanings of human lives. (more...)

Interview with Jean Arnaud, a pioneer of the digital renaissance in art, philosophy, technology, and education. (more...)

Kant’s ethics is based on the value of one’s motivation and two so-called Categorical Imperatives, or general rules that must apply to every action. (more...)

A new series of Daily Philosophy whiteboard explainer videos has just been published on YouTube. It gives a very short, and hopefully amusing, introduction to the main theories of Western ethics. (more...)

Ethics is the study of how we ought to behave, and why. There are many different theories of ethics, which we briefly discuss in this article. (more...)

We examine the basic ideas behind the four main Western ethics theories: utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, social contract ethics and virtue ethics. (more...)

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) was a German social psychologist and philosopher who had enormous popular success from the 1950s all the way to the end of his life in 1980. We discuss his work and his relation to Marxism and Freud. (more...)

Women philosophers: Gargi Vachaknavi, Aspasia, Ban Zhao, Hypatia of Alexandria, Rabia al-Adawiyya, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Nana Asma’u. (more...)

Descartes admired her intelligence and Leibniz stood at her deathbed, but during most of her life, she was a penniless refugee. Meet Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia. (more...)

We think our beliefs and attitudes, and even our feelings and moods, are more determined by a reasoning process that brings us to them than they are. (more...)

Kant on using reason to critically examine our inclinations and uncover the forces that manipulate and misinform us. (more...)