
Originally Posted by
Nj14
why?
why would it be a waste of time to change it, to make it better?
1. Do we have unlimited resources (including time) on our hands?
2. If not, by what criteria do we determine how to use them?
3. Would you stop all use of sugar in your household because it is a luxury you can do without, but allows you to spend more money on helping other starving people?
4. Forget sugar - how about hot running water?
5. New clothes? More than two sets of clothes?
6. Where do you stop and according to what principle do you decide to draw this line?
7. And when you have given all you can give, to whom have you given it: the starving child in southern Sudan, or the starving child in Afghanistan? Why?
Without philosophy to help, not only might we get all the answers wrong, we wouldn't even know enough to ask these questions. Admittedly, some aspects of philosophy can seem pointlessly arcane, but it doesn't preclude philosophy being implicit in every decision we make, not just the moral ones. The point therefore is to be as good as we can regarding this decision-making, and that is what the study of philosophy is about.