Philosophyspeaking topic
For an action to count as yours, you have to want it. But you never chose your wants; they simply came to you. Nobody can want what they want to want. So are even your deepest desires things that were loaded into you from outside?
— Schopenhauer, the freedom of the will
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- It may be shameful to be happy by oneself.
- Peter Singer's drowning child: you would ruin your expensive shoes to save a child drowning in front of you, so why do you hesitate to spend the same money saving a child far away? Does distance shrink moral responsibility?
- He who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
- To call something 'evil' you first need a measure of 'good'. But who set that measure? If morality is not a law of the universe but a human agreement, is genocide 'wrong' only because most people say so?
- The social contract: do we obey the state because of an implicit promise we made to escape the chaos of nature? We never signed any contract, so why are we bound to follow the law?