219 works selected for the 40 candidate questions. Selections approved by Ben Breen, 29 September 2026. Arguments are unverified. Quotations were chosen by machine and are unchecked.
15 of 219 works
1821RicardoRicardo,On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (3rd ed.)EnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
No. Added chapter concedes that the workers' belief that machinery often harms them is correct: it can cut the fund that employs labour while landlords and capitalists gain.
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
1832BabbageBabbage,On the Economy of Machinery and ManufacturesEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
Yes. Machinery first displaces labour, but lower prices raise demand and soon reabsorb most or all of the displaced workers.
- Q24Does using calculating devices weaken the ability to calculate without them?
Calculation need not require skill. De Prony's tables were computed by workers who knew only addition and subtraction and were more accurate than skilled mathematicians; this shows calculation can be done by machinery.
- Q25Does relying on machinery for ordinary necessities reduce people's ability to provide for themselves?
No. Argues that a machine which halves the time needed to make an article lets a self-supplying household enjoy the same comforts with less labour, and that displaced labour is soon reabsorbed.
- Q32Is widespread use of machinery evidence that a society is more civilized?
Yes. Says a country must have reached a high degree of civilization before it approaches the limit of economy in applying force to transport.
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
1835UreUre,The Philosophy of ManufacturesEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
Yes. Ure reports seeing cheerful child workers in factories and claims that, with adequate food and clothing, they would thrive there better than in unhealthy homes. These are Ure’s claims, not independently established facts about factory conditions.
- Q18Does operating machinery develop or diminish a worker's skill and judgment?
This answer is hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.
- Q27Should a useful invention be restricted if its harmful consequences cannot be reliably controlled?
No. Defends self-acting machinery against the charge that it harasses the poor, arguing that the blessings of mechanical science to society have been too little recognised.
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
1843MillMill,A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and InductiveEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q06Can people be morally responsible for actions that follow necessarily from their bodily constitution and circumstances?
Yes. Human actions follow from character and circumstances, but 'necessity' is a misleading word; a person who can shape his own character and resist his habits is morally free.
- Q06Can people be morally responsible for actions that follow necessarily from their bodily constitution and circumstances?
1848MillMill,Principles of Political EconomyEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
No. Doubts that all mechanical inventions so far have lightened the day's toil of any human being; they have let more people live the same life of drudgery and made fortunes for manufacturers.
- Q19Who should receive the benefits when machinery increases the amount a worker can produce?
The workers, through co-operative ownership. Expects labourers to associate as equals, collectively own the capital they work with, and elect their managers.
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
1869GaltonGalton,Hereditary GeniusEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q12Can numerical measures adequately determine a person's fitness for a position of responsibility?
Yes. Ranks men by reputation on a graded statistical scale of natural ability, using judges and statesmen as samples, and treats that ability as measurable and inherited.
- Q12Can numerical measures adequately determine a person's fitness for a position of responsibility?
1870HodgsonHodgson,The Theory of Practice: An Ethical EnquiryEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
No. Neural events form a closed causal chain; states of consciousness are always conditioned by them and never condition them.
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
1874CarpenterCarpenter,Principles of Mental PhysiologyEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
Yes. Much mental activity is automatic and physically caused, but the Will is an independent power that controls and directs that activity.
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
1877MorganMorgan,Ancient SocietyEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q32Is widespread use of machinery evidence that a society is more civilized?
Yes. Divides human history into savagery, barbarism and civilization, marking the stages largely by a sequence of inventions and discoveries.
- Q32Is widespread use of machinery evidence that a society is more civilized?
1879GeorgeGeorge,Progress and PovertyEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
No. It was expected that labour-saving inventions would lighten toil and end poverty; instead poverty deepens where machinery is most developed.
- Q19Who should receive the benefits when machinery increases the amount a worker can produce?
Currently landowners; it should go to the community. Improvements in production raise rent, so landowners capture the gain; the remedy is to tax land values.
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
1883FitchFitch,Lectures on TeachingEnglishTreatiseFull text
1890JamesJames,The Principles of PsychologyEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
Yes. Consciousness is selective and grows more complex where the nervous system is least determinate, which would be useless if it had no effect; the automaton theory is an unwarranted a priori claim.
- Q20Does making an action habitual increase a person's freedom to act?
Yes. James recommends making useful actions habitual so that automatic performance of daily details releases higher mental powers for their own work.
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
1892SaltSalt,Animals' Rights Considered in Relation to Social ProgressEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q28Would the capacity to suffer give an artificial being a claim to humane treatment?
Yes. Argues that if men have rights so do the lower animals, and rejects doctrines that deny animals feel pain.
- Q28Would the capacity to suffer give an artificial being a claim to humane treatment?
1898KiddKidd,The Control of the TropicsEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q34Does superiority in industrial or military technology justify one people governing another?
Yes. The tropics must be administered by the higher civilizations as a trust, because their resources are needed by the world and their peoples cannot develop them alone.
- Q34Does superiority in industrial or military technology justify one people governing another?
1899KropotkinKropotkin,Fields, Factories and WorkshopsEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q25Does relying on machinery for ordinary necessities reduce people's ability to provide for themselves?
No. Argues that the spread of industrial skill and intensive agriculture lets each nation and region produce its own food and manufactures instead of depending on distant specialised centres.
- Q25Does relying on machinery for ordinary necessities reduce people's ability to provide for themselves?