A loyal reader posts a comment on my piece about my new philosophical obsessions:

I expect Charles will have a fun time on his one-year MA. We here might also have fun from his pithy views on what he is taught.

How about some non-philosophical problems.

Issue 1. Philosophers have, as their lives’ purpose, to argue. Should this be funded from tax?

Issue 2. Have the best ever beginners’ books on philosophy been written by Douglas Adams? Or did he (like all philosophers) pursue his theme(s) too slowly?

And some (perhaps) philosophical problems.

Issue 3. On the transplant surgeon conundrum, have we sufficient information to answer correctly? Surely we need numerical information concerning the life expectancy of all 6 current or prospective organ ‘owners’ in terms of quality-adjusted life years (QALY) with and without transplant.

Issue 4. Given that the organ compatibility is fungible within the set of 6 persons, would it not be better to take (while still practical) 4 healthy organs from one of the 5 patients, and install them in the other 4 patients? This very likely would also be the best solution under my Issue 3 (even allowing for organ ageing).

Hmm!

The first thing to tackle is that there may be no such thing as ‘non-philosophical problems’. If only because any statement on anything can be probed by asking what it in fact means. How might we identify what is or is not a ‘philosophical problem’? Are there such things in principle, or is philosophy merely a series of quixotic puzzles as Wittgenstein argued.

So to look at these specific issues in turn.

Issue 1. Philosophers have, as their lives’ purpose, to argue. Should this be funded from tax?

Obviously many profound ethical philosophical issues here about the supposed purpose of life, identity, responsibility, causation and the limits of the state’s power to take money from me to support activities I might not like. Is there a Social Contract? Where might I read it?

This, of course, is one reason to do this very course led by the steely independent University of Buckingham:

Buckingham was founded in 1976 by a group of Oxford academics who despaired of the way the other British universities were going. The other universities are all funded by the state, and the state is their customer, so they have to do what the state says…

Issue 2. Have the best ever beginners’ books on philosophy been written by Douglas Adams? Or did he (like all philosophers) pursue his theme(s) too slowly?

No idea. I have not read anything by D Adams.

But it seems unlikely. The deepest philosophical ideas pop up everywhere in almost any book. One of my familiar favourites that now needs no link:

“The three of them set out every morning on adventures of their own kind. Once, an elderly professor of literature, Mrs. Taggart’s friend, saw them on top of a pile in a junk yard, dismantling the carcass of an automobile.

He stopped, shook his head and said to Francisco, ‘A young man of your position ought to spend his time in libraries, absorbing the culture of the world.’

‘What do you think I’m doing?’ asked Francisco.”

Issue 3. On the transplant surgeon conundrum, have we sufficient information to answer correctly? Surely we need numerical information concerning the life expectancy of all 6 current or prospective organ ‘owners’ in terms of quality-adjusted life years (QALY) with and without transplant

Ah. Just say we had exactly the foresight needed precisely to measure QALY. It turns out that killing a passer-by and using his organs to save the lives of five other people would on that calculation in this case bring clear advantages. Would it therefore be OK to kill the passer-by? If not, why not?

Issue 4. Given that the organ compatibility is fungible within the set of 6 persons, would it not be better to take (while still practical) 4 healthy organs from one of the 5 patients, and install them in the other 4 patients? This very likely would also be the best solution under my Issue 3 (even allowing for organ ageing)

Fine if the organ-donating person consents. But what if the organ-donor not unreasonably asks to be paid a good pile of money for taking on health risks by making these organs available? That is BANNED by the state in the UK! Why? What moral or ethical reason is there for the state interfering with what I do with my body?! Is taking money for my kidney or an eye or an arm a priori immoral?

If the organ-donor does not consent, would it be OK to subdue that person and extract the organs by force, albeit with anaesthetic? The donor lives, and so do more people who otherwise might have died. What exactly is wrong with that outcome? Is it really that much different to the NHS deciding what drugs to buy or not, so that some live and some die? What principle is the key one in play here?

And so on.

The common theme here is trying to work out what exactly is the key question at issue, and what might in principle be the right way to tackle it. Even if philosophy can’t give all the answers (or maybe any answer haha), it maybe can help us grasp all sorts of implicit inconsistencies and biases in the way we look at things?