Shady asked:

Hey, I was wondering about a couple philosophical questions:

For one, who has the right to tell someone else what to do? I mean regarding laws and rules. Also, I
would like to hear a philosophical argument of an ongoing controversy. Any kind, but I'm tired of
hearing of free will/ determinism, and proving the existence of God. Thankyou.

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As far as your first question goes... first, I'm not sure what the word "right" means, especially in this
context. But let's take a couple of scenarios relating to "rules".

Children: children are incompetent to deal with the world. Period. If you've seen a young child, then
you know this point is not even worth discussion. Ok, so then their parents have the duty to guide
them, and this includes, when necessary, telling them what to do. Now you might be saying, "ok, fine,
but I'm not a child any more, I'm 12 (or 15 or 16... or whatever) now". Who is competent to judge your
competence? If a 5-year old says that, you say, very gently, "yes, you're a big [boy or girl] now"... and
continue telling them what to do, right? So when do you (the parent) stop? When you judge you can,
gradually. When is that? Um... obviously I have no answer to that. That's something that has to be
worked out, usually painfully, unfortunately.

Disabled: what about intellectually disabled people? What about emotionally disabled? We tell them
what to do, right? As little as possible, but still that must be done to some extent.

Incompetent: what about when you're in a situation where something mustbe done but you don't
know how to do it, or don't know well enough for that situation? Then hopefully there is someone
around who will tell you what to do. And you'd better do it, or someone will die... if, say, you work in a
hospital and a doctor is telling you what you must do. Or you have to survive somewhere and don't
know how.

But, you say, these are extreme situations. Yes. But I'm using them to set up a baseline, so to speak.
From that baseline, commands, advice, hints, etc... shade off to the other extreme where youare
telling a child, for example, what to do. If you want some black and white solution here, forget it. Each
situation has to be judged on its own merit.

I'm not going to tackle "laws". I see them as cultural or societal extensions of the above; but I'm sure
others will have other points of view.

The second question: well, just think of how tired Iam of that. Here's one source of questions:

Tye, M. Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind.Edited
by H. Putnam and N. Block. 2nd ed, Representation and Mind. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,
1996.

You might also look at "the new problem of induction", and Goodman's exposition of that. A nasty
problem.

There are also open problems dealing with, for example, essentialism. Are there essences, in an
epistemological sense? A metaphysical sense? Believe it or not, this is a very interesting and
important question which relates not only to epistemology but also to cognitive structures.

Philosophy of language: see the Pinker/ Langacker or Chomsky/ Lakoff positions: sophisticated
nativism vs. sophisticated cognitive-developmental positions.

Philosophy of science: Kitcher vs., say, Lacan or even Derrida.

I mean, once you get past the basics... the necessary 3 to 5 years learning what to learn about the
issues and how to learn about them, it gets very interesting and complicated. But you are wanting to
do the equivalent of reading journals in mathematics or physics without learning the language and
background. Or reading articles in genetics with a bare knowledge of what DNA is. You can't do it,
sorry... there's background you simply have to know to understand, much less participate, in these
issues. But. The issues are out there, they're just not easy to grasp, any more than technical issues in
physics, genetics, or mathematics are easy for the layman to grasp.

Steven Ravett Brown