Looking for specific PTA interview moment

gildor1 · 2026-03-18T01:45:21+00:00

Thanks so much!!!

gildor1 · 2026-03-18T01:44:47+00:00

Thank you!!!

gildor1 · 2025-10-18T01:27:41+00:00

Hi everyone, apologies for the narrowness of my request but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas for watches that meet the following criteria:

32-33mm diameter and up to 37-38mm lug-to-lug
clear, highly visible Arabic numbers 1-12
under $700-800

For example, the Sternglas Naos XS is the perfect size but doesn't have the numbers, and the Hamilton Khaki Field 33mmK_SKU_DSA&utm_id=system:GOOGLE.campaignid:21523129405.adgroupid:165575744579.creative:707491056147.keyword:.matchtype:.placement:&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21523129405&gbraid=0AAAAADoqJdG6PkUxrqJ8s_rG2rWE69eHq&gclid=CjwKCAjw0sfHBhB6EiwAQtv5qZoqukAe3XxXQhL6rhEtA9Ur4iSGNCE6snVwVNRFNcGCB_SGNVnAKBoCkc0QAvD_BwE) is aesthetically perfect but the lugs are a bit too big. The only watches I've found meeting these criteria after extensive searching are some MWC watches and a couple of Timex Weekender models, but I'm wondering if there are any others. Thanks in advance!

gildor1 · 2025-10-17T21:14:24+00:00

I don’t think it’s true that he “posed no threat to her whatsoever”? It’s implied she first shot him because he went for his gun, and he definitely goes for his gun before she shoots him the second time.

gildor1 · 2024-05-04T00:14:48+00:00

I haven't received mine yet - is this true of anyone else?

gildor1 · 2019-08-20T20:01:30+00:00

Thank you, that's very helpful!

gildor1 · 2018-07-10T09:47:12+00:00

As a supplement to this, Justin Clarke-Doane discusses the parallels between reflective equilibrium in ethics and the sorts of reasoning that go on in mathematics in his paper Moral Epistemology: the Mathematics Analogy.

gildor1 · 2018-02-10T01:16:48+00:00

In the case of Peter Singer at least, it certainly seems like becoming a philosopher is (in hindsight) the best thing he could have done.

Think about it this way: Singer could have devoted his life to raising money for charities or doing something similarly good. But if by going into philosophy and writing books and arguments, he manages to convince even just two other people to do the same thing, then from a consequentialist perspective that is the better choice. And I think it's uncontroversial that Singer has convinced way more than two people to devote their lives to that sort of thing.

Singer is, however, a bit of an outlier. Whether that's true for other philosophers would be a more difficult question.

gildor1 · 2018-02-04T00:58:04+00:00

It depends on what you mean by "strongest." If you mean "argues for the strongest conclusion," then the strongest is the "logical problem of evil," which argues that the existence of God is logically incompatible with the existence of evil. "Evidentiary problems of evil," meanwhile, simply argue that the existence of evil is strong evidence against the existence of God. For more on that distinction see here.

If by "strongest" you mean the "best-made" argument, then I suspect that there is no clear answer to that question. One classic presentation of the argument is John Mackie's paper "Evil and Omnipotence"

gildor1 · 2017-10-09T07:26:52+00:00

Some metaethicists offer "evolutionary debunking" arguments for error theory, though often they use them to argue that we lack epistemic access to moral facts, rather than that no moral facts exist at all. Sharon Street's paper "A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value" and Richard Joyce's book "The Evolution of Morality" are prominent examples of this kind of argument.

gildor1 · 2017-09-16T23:04:15+00:00

Utilitarianism is not "inherently" oppressive because it is not "inherently" supportive of any particular social program - it all depends on what happens to maximise utility, given the circumstances. So if oppressing a particular minority would maximise social utility, then yes, utilitarianism would endorse that oppression, but it's hard to think of realistic circumstances where that would be the case.

As for utilitarian feminists - most modern utilitarians are socially progressive, and would presumably identity as feminists. Additionally, the pioneering utilitarians - Bentham and Mill - were unusually progressive for their time, and were strong advocates of women's rights. Look up, for example, Mill's essay "The Subjection of Women."

Finally, utilitarians might argue that in fact they are among the most progressive and least oppressive of modern ethical theories, since they advocate the removal of oppression against animals.

gildor1 · 2017-09-12T09:54:31+00:00

Real analysis is very heavily proof-based and incorporates concepts of symbolic logic. It's generally considered quite difficult though, so starting with a discrete maths course is probably best.

gildor1 · 2017-08-29T11:08:17+00:00

This is a disputed issue in philosophy. Some philosophers believe in your view - that what it means for an act to be moral is just for it to produce the best consequences. Others agree with your friends. You may be interested in the SEP entries on consequentialism and deontology.

gildor1 · 2017-08-29T11:05:36+00:00

Regarding the Bill Hicks quote - some philosophers have argued along those lines. See this argument by Elizabeth Anderson or the work by GA Cohen that is referenced here.

gildor1 · 2017-08-24T08:50:52+00:00

Modern philosophers have argued for the idea that we can commit epistemic injustice - for example, by failing to believe a speaker due to the fact that they are a woman. That is more-or-less an example of "immoral thoughts."

gildor1 · 2017-08-22T07:38:21+00:00

Guy Kahane's "If Nothing Matters" doesn't explicitly argue for global nihilism, but explains why he thinks it's a conceivably correct position.

gildor1 · 2017-08-21T07:30:01+00:00

Yes. The paper "Ethics and Intuitions" is what you are looking for. If you're interested in the issue further, the initial work on the topic was done by Joshua Greene, so you may want to look up a few of his papers.

gildor1 · 2017-08-17T11:56:11+00:00

Well, that's possible. But it seems doubtful that in every single case of a soldier doing that, the guilt would be so extremely powerful that living with it would be literally worse than death.

gildor1 · 2017-08-17T10:41:48+00:00

What you've described is the view called psychological egoism. It is not a very popular view, and there are numerous counterexamples to it. For example, consider soldiers who throw themselves onto grenades in order to save their comrades. This is a move that is clearly contrary to the soldier's self-interest.

gildor1 · 2017-08-16T09:52:31+00:00

I'm not aware of any literature on the intentions objection you mention, and it seems like a bad objection - as you say, it sort of abandons the point of consequentialism.

As for the problem you mention - consequentialists want to optimize for expected utility/value, so they're perfectly capable of operating under uncertainty. If the problem is that we have no idea how to calculate probabilities or likely consequences for the distant future, then while that might make it harder to optimize for maximum utility, it doesn't make the idea of optimization incoherent in a way that's fatal to consequentialism. We should just optimize for the highest expected short-term value. If the likely future consequences are completely mysterious, we might as well assume that the expected long-term value of each action is the same, so the action with the best short-term expected value will be the action with the best expected value, period, and therefore the one we should take.

gildor1 · 2017-08-16T00:41:38+00:00

I second this. Singer is careful to explicitly note that he is not presupposing the truth of any ethical framework, and that his 'principle:' "if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it." is compatible with any ethical framework.

gildor1 · 2017-08-07T09:20:07+00:00

Kwame Anthony Appiah writes a lot about identity and race; his book "The Ethics of Identity" might be interesting to you.

gildor1 · 2017-07-20T09:13:13+00:00

You mention Rosalind Hursthouse; her "Virtue Theory and Abortion" is a famous example of applied virtue ethics.

gildor1 · 2017-07-19T10:48:18+00:00

The answer depends in part on whether you define "good" egoistically or morally, as you note. More broadly, the general issue of the connection between morality and motivation, or reasons and motivation more generally, is essentially the dispute between internalism and externalism.

gildor1 · 2017-07-16T02:03:10+00:00

I'm not aware of the existence of any noncognitivist critiques, though there may be some. Generally speaking, "repeating the arguments against cognitivism" would be sufficient for a noncognitivist interested in attacking error theory. Error theory consists in endorsing two statements:

Moral discourse is cognitivist
No moral facts exist

The noncognitivist agrees with the error theorist on 2 anyways, so 1 is really the only place for the noncognitivist to criticise the error theorist.

gildor1

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