"Philosophical Questions" provides the perfect balance: a reader that instructors will want to use and students will be motivated to read. Selections include classical and contemporary readings, philosophical fiction, and interdisciplinary perspectives on philosophy. The topical organization covers the areas typical to an introductory philosophy course, and the extensive student-friendly pedagogy surrounding the readings structure the topics and provide useful guidance.

1. Questions about Philosophy

What Is Philosophy? Why Is It Important?

Plato: "The Activity of Philosophy"

Plato: "Philosophy on Trial"

How Can I Decide What to Believe? Tools for Examining Arguments

2. Questions about God, Faith, and Reason

Philosophy of Religion: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning Philosophy of Religion?

Opening Narrative: Is There a Reality that Transcends Our Own?

Edwin Abbott: "Flatland"

Is There Evidence for the Existence of God?

The Cosmological Argument

Thomas Aquinas: "Five Arguments for God"

Richard Taylor: "Why the World Needs an Explanation"

William Rowe: "A Critique of the Cosmological Argument"

The Teleological Argument

William Paley: "The World Shows Evidence of Design"

David Hume: "The Evidence of Design is Weak"

The Ontological Argument

St. Anselm and Gaunilo: "The Ontological Argument-For and Against"

Michael Martin: "A Critique of the Ontological Argument"

Do Suffering and Evil Count Against the Existence of God?

Albert Camus: "Two Responses to Suffering"

B.C. Johnson: "Evil Disproves the Existence of God"

John Hick: "There Is a Reason Why God Allows Evil"

Is Religious Faith without Evidence Justified?

Blaise Pascal: "Faith is Pragmatically Justified"

William James: "Faith is Subjectively Justified"

Michael Scriven: "Faith is not Justified"

Antony Flew, R.M. Hare, and Basil Mitchell: "Three Parables about Religious Faith"

Contemporary Application: Does Religion Conflict with Science?

Richard Dawkins: "Science is in Tension with Religion"

Paul Davies: "Science Supports Religion"

3. Questions about Human Knowledge

Human Knowledge: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning Human Knowledge?

Opening Narrative: Do We Know as Much as We Think We Do?

Plato: "The Allegory of the Cave"

What Can We Know? How Do We Know?

Rene Descartes: "Rationalism and the Search for Certainty"

John Locke: "Empiricism and Common Sense"

George Berkeley: "Empiricism and Idealism"

David Hume: "Empiricism and Skepticism"

Immanuel Kant: "Knowledge Is Based Both on Reason and Experience"

William James: "The Pragmatic Theory of Knowledge"

Alison M. Jaggar: "A Feminist Perspective on Knowledge"

Can We Know Anything at All? Responses to Skepticism

O.K. Bouwsma: "Descartes' Evil Genius"

John Hospers: "An Argument Against Skepticism"

Contemporary Application: Does Science Give Us Objective Knowledge about the World?

Steven Weinberg: "Scientific Knowledge Is Based in Reality"

Richard Rorty: "Scientific Knowledge Is Based in Social Solidarity"

4. Questions about the Mind

The Mind: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning the Mind?

Opening Narrative: What is the Self?

Daniel Dennett: "Where Am I?"

What is the Mind? Is It Separate from the Body?

Hugh Elliot: "Tantalus"

Rene Descartes: "Dualism-The Mind Is Separate from the Body"

Gilbert Ryle: "Logical Behaviorism-Mental Statements Refer to Behavior"

Paul Churchland: "Eliminative Materialism-There Is No Mind"

David Chalmers: "The Puzzle of Conscious Experience"

R. Buckminster Fuller: "What's a Man?"

What is the Basis of Personal Identity? Do I Survive My Death?

John Locke: "The Self Is Identical to Its Psychological States:

David Hume: "There Is No Self"

Jeffrey Olen: "An Account of Personal Identity and Immortality"

Linda Badham: "An Argument Against Immortality"

Contemporary Application: Can Computers Think?

Christopher Evans: "Computers Will Some Day Be Able to Think"

John Searle: "Computer Programs Can Only Simulate Thinking"

Terry Bisson: "They're Made Out of Meat"

5. Questions about Free Will and Determinism

Freedom and Determinism: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning Human Freedom?

Hard Determinism

Libertarianism

Compatibilism

Opening Narrative: When Are We Morally Responsible for Our Actions?

Jonathan Harrison: "The Case of Dr. Svengali"

Do We Have Free Will? Are We Morally Responsible?

Baron d'Holbach: "Hard Determinism-We Are Determined and Not Responsible"

C.A. Campbell: "Libertarianism-We Are Free and Responsible"

W.T. Stace: "Compatibilism-We Are Determined, Free, and Responsible"

B.F. Skinner: "Can Determinism Explain Creativity?"

Contemporary Application: Can Criminals Be Held Morally Responsible for Their Actions?

C.S. Lewis: "Criminals Are Responsible for Their Actions"

Clarence Darrow: "Criminals Are Not Responsible for Their Actions"

6. Questions about Right and Wrong

Right and Wrong: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning Right and Wrong?

Opening Narrative: Why Should I Be Moral?

Plato: "The Ring of Gyges"

Are Moral Principles Objective or Relative?

Ruth Benedict: "A Defense of Moral Relativism"

James Rachels: "A Critique of Moral Relativism"

How Do We Decide What Is Right or Wrong?

Aristotle: "Virtue Ethics"

Immanuel Kant: "The Call of Duty"

John Stuart Mill: "Utilitarian Ethics"

Ayn Rand: "Ethical Egoism"

Alison M. Jaggar: "A Feminist Perspective on Ethics"

Contemporary Application: Is Abortion Morally Permissible?

Judith Jarvis Thomson: "Abortion Is a Matter of Personal Choice"

Sidney Callahan: "Abortion Is Morally Wrong"

7. Questions about Individual Liberty and the Government

Individual Liberty and the Government: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning Government Authority?

Opening Narrative: Who Makes the Rules? Why Should I Obey Them?

Richard Taylor: "The Parable of the Man"

Should I Always Obey the Government?

Plato: "We Have an Absolute Obligation to Obey the Government"

Martin Luther King, Jr.: "We Should Obey Just Laws and Disobey Unjust Laws"

What Makes a Government Just?

John Locke: "The Social Contract Theory"

John Stuart Mill: "The Utilitarian Theory of Government"

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: "The Communist Theory"

John Rawls: "Contemporary Liberalism"

John Hospers: "Political Libertarianism"

Contemporary Application: Does the Government Have a Right to Protect Us from Ourselves?

James Q. Wilson: "Drug Laws Constitute Justified Paternalism"

Thomas Szasz: "People Should Be Free to Take Any Drug They Want"

8. Postscript: What Is the Meaning of Life?

The Meaning of Life: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning the Meaning of Life?

Opening Narrative: The Problem of Meaning

W.H. Auden: "The Unknown Citizen"

Alternative Visions of Life

Epicurus: "Moderate Hedonism-Enjoy Life's Simple Pleasures"

Epictetus: "Stoicism-Take Things as they Come"

Leo Tolstoy: "Theism-Meaning is Found in an Infinite God"

Bertrand Russell: "Atheism-Finding Meaning in a World without God"

Jean-Paul Sartre: "Existentialism-We Must Each Create Our Own Meaning

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