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.
32 of 219 works
1784KantKant,An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?GermanEssayFull text
Immanuel Kant
Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?
German · Essay
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
Yes. Statutes and formulas, the mechanical instruments of reason, are the shackles of permanent immaturity; he criticizes 'do not argue, obey' while allowing obedience in office.
- Q36Should public officials carry out rules without exercising personal moral judgment?
Yes. In the 'private' use of reason within an office, an officer, tax official or clergyman must obey and not argue; he may criticize freely only as a scholar addressing the public.
- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
1813OwenOwen,A New View of SocietyEnglishEssayFull text
- Q06Can people be morally responsible for actions that follow necessarily from their bodily constitution and circumstances?
No. A person's character is formed for him by circumstances, not by him, so it is unjust for society to punish the characters its own arrangements produce; crime should be prevented, not punished.
- Q06Can people be morally responsible for actions that follow necessarily from their bodily constitution and circumstances?
1837MacaulayMacaulay,Lord BaconEnglishEssayFull text
- Q32Is widespread use of machinery evidence that a society is more civilized?
Yes. Judges Bacon's philosophy by its fruits: it has lengthened life, spanned rivers, annihilated distance and driven cars without horses; its law is progress.
- Q32Is widespread use of machinery evidence that a society is more civilized?
1841EmersonEmerson,Self-RelianceEnglishEssayFull text
- Q24Does using calculating devices weaken the ability to calculate without them?
Yes. Owning a watch and a nautical almanac, civilized man cannot tell the hour by the sun or name a star; each tool costs a native skill.
- Q38When a person accomplishes something through a machine, should the machine's power count as that person's capability?
No. 'The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet'; each gain in equipment is a loss of the person's own strength and skill.
- Q24Does using calculating devices weaken the ability to calculate without them?
1843KingKing,Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage, with Notes by the TranslatorEnglishEssayFull text
- Q01Can a machine originate an idea that its maker did not supply?
This answer is hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.
- Q01Can a machine originate an idea that its maker did not supply?
1845BastiatBastiat,Economic SophismsFrenchEssayFull text
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
Yes. Labour is a means, not an end; any machine that saves an hour of work is progress, and suppressing machinery to create jobs is a sophism.
- Q19Who should receive the benefits when machinery increases the amount a worker can produce?
Consumers, through cheapness. Society's interest is the consumer's interest in abundance; labour saved by machines is freed for other wants, so the gain spreads through lower prices.
- Q17Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?
1849ThoreauThoreau,Resistance to Civil GovernmentEnglishEssayFull text
- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
Yes. Soldiers and officials serve the state as machines, with no free exercise of judgment or moral sense.
- Q36Should public officials carry out rules without exercising personal moral judgment?
No. Most men serve the state 'not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies', as soldiers, jailers and constables, and so give up moral judgment; conscience must come first.
- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
1853RuskinRuskin,The Stones of Venice, vol. 2EnglishEssayFull text
- 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.
- Q18Does operating machinery develop or diminish a worker's skill and judgment?
1859MillMill,On LibertyEnglishEssayFull text
- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
Yes. One who lets the world choose his plan of life needs only the ape-like faculty of imitation; the faculties of judgment are exercised only in making choices.
- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
1869ArnoldArnold,Culture and AnarchyEnglishEssayFull text
- Q31Can reliance on machinery become a form of idolatry?
Yes. Says 'faith in machinery' is England's besetting danger: freedom, coal, railroads, wealth and even religious organisations are treated as ends in themselves.
- Q31Can reliance on machinery become a form of idolatry?
1870EmersonEmerson,CivilizationEnglishEssayFull text
- Q38When a person accomplishes something through a machine, should the machine's power count as that person's capability?
Yes. People are strong by borrowing the might of the elements; steam, gravity and electricity do their work, so a person should 'hitch his wagon to a star'.
- Q38When a person accomplishes something through a machine, should the machine's power count as that person's capability?
1874CliffordClifford,Body and MindEnglishEssayFull text
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
No. Mind and body are strictly correlated and physical events have only physical causes, so feelings run alongside the nervous process without acting on it.
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
1874HuxleyHuxley,On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and Its HistoryEnglishEssayFull text
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
No. Consciousness is a collateral product of the body's working, like a steam whistle, and has no power to modify it; humans are conscious automata.
- Q28Would the capacity to suffer give an artificial being a claim to humane treatment?
Yes. Holds animals may be conscious automata; because they probably feel and an error could have terrible consequences, they should be treated as weaker brethren.
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
1875Pitt-RiversPitt-Rivers,On the Evolution of CultureEnglishEssayFull text
- Q13Can machines undergo a process of evolution even when humans build and reproduce them?
Yes. Argues that artefacts such as firearms and boats change by many small successive variations, in a process analogous to Darwinian evolution.
- Q13Can machines undergo a process of evolution even when humans build and reproduce them?
1879EliotEliot,Impressions of Theophrastus SuchEnglishEssayFull text
- Q13Can machines undergo a process of evolution even when humans build and reproduce them?
Yes. Speculates in dialogue that machines may come to evolve self-supply, self-repair and reproduction and so succeed humans.
- Q13Can machines undergo a process of evolution even when humans build and reproduce them?
1880Bois-ReymondBois-Reymond,The Seven World-RiddlesGermanEssayFull text
Emil du Bois-Reymond
Die sieben Welträthsel
German · Essay
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q05Can human choices be fully explained by physical causes?
Unresolved. Under the mechanical view the brain's state at each moment is the necessary effect of the previous one, leaving no room for free will, yet the felt freedom of choice remains one of seven unsolved world-riddles.
- Q05Can human choices be fully explained by physical causes?
1883LafargueLafargue,The Right to Be LazyFrenchEssayFull text
- Q14Would machines becoming more capable than humans necessarily place humans in a subordinate position?
No. Quotes Aristotle's self-weaving shuttles and calls the machine the redeemer of humanity that could free workers into leisure, if not for capitalist overwork.
- Q19Who should receive the benefits when machinery increases the amount a worker can produce?
The workers, as leisure. As machines improve, workers work harder instead of resting; machine productivity should be taken as leisure by limiting work to three hours a day.
- Q14Would machines becoming more capable than humans necessarily place humans in a subordinate position?
1884JheringJhering,Jest and Earnest in JurisprudenceGermanEssayFull text
Rudolf von Jhering
Scherz und Ernst in der Jurisprudenz
German · Essay
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q11Should a judge follow a general rule when it produces an unjust result in a particular case?
No. In the satire, the heaven of theoretical concepts is separated from the practitioners’ afterlife: practitioners could neither breathe nor see in the theorists’ world. This excerpt does not give a particular unjust judicial decision.
- Q11Should a judge follow a general rule when it produces an unjust result in a particular case?
1889CarpenterCarpenter,Civilisation: Its Cause and CureEnglishEssayFull text
- Q31Can reliance on machinery become a form of idolatry?
Yes. Says locomotives, machinery and telegraphs must be reduced to subjection to the real man instead of remaining objects of 'mere fetish-worship as now'.
- Q31Can reliance on machinery become a form of idolatry?
1890LeibnizLeibniz,On the Characteristic Art for Perfecting the Sciences Founded on ReasonLatinEssayFull text
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
De arte characteristica ad perficiendas scientias ratione nitentes
Latin · Essay
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q10Can a fixed procedure for reasoning settle a disagreement when the participants accept the same premises?
Yes. Proposes a universal symbolic calculus so that disputants could settle a disagreement by sitting down and saying 'let us calculate'.
- Q10Can a fixed procedure for reasoning settle a disagreement when the participants accept the same premises?
1891WildeWilde,The Soul of Man under SocialismEnglishEssayFull text
- Q14Would machines becoming more capable than humans necessarily place humans in a subordinate position?
No. Argues that machinery now competes with men but under proper conditions will serve them, and that the future depends on mechanical slavery.
- Q25Does relying on machinery for ordinary necessities reduce people's ability to provide for themselves?
No. Argues that under proper social arrangements machinery will do all necessary and unpleasant work, freeing people to cultivate themselves; at present it competes with men only because of private ownership.
- Q14Would machines becoming more capable than humans necessarily place humans in a subordinate position?
1900HilbertHilbert,Mathematical ProblemsGermanEssayFull text
- Q10Can a fixed procedure for reasoning settle a disagreement when the participants accept the same premises?
Yes. States the conviction that every definite mathematical problem can be settled, either by solution or proof of impossibility: 'in mathematics there is no ignorabimus'.
- Q10Can a fixed procedure for reasoning settle a disagreement when the participants accept the same premises?
1901PearsonPearson,National Life from the Standpoint of ScienceEnglishEssayFull text
- Q34Does superiority in industrial or military technology justify one people governing another?
Yes. Progress comes through struggle between races, and a scientifically efficient nation is justified in displacing less efficient peoples.
- Q34Does superiority in industrial or military technology justify one people governing another?
1906FlaviusFlavius,The Battle for Legal ScienceGermanEssayFull text
Gnaeus Flavius (Hermann Kantorowicz)
Der Kampf um die Rechtswissenschaft
German · Essay
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q11Should a judge follow a general rule when it produces an unjust result in a particular case?
No. Manifesto of the Free Law movement, arguing that judges already decide with more freedom than the statute allows and should do so openly.
- Q11Should a judge follow a general rule when it produces an unjust result in a particular case?
1912LoebLoeb,The Mechanistic Conception of LifeEnglishEssayFull text
- Q07Does living activity require a principle beyond physical and chemical processes?
No. Life phenomena, including development and instinct, can be explained by physics and chemistry, and experimental control of them removes the need for a vital principle.
- Q09Can the development of an organism from an egg be explained as the operation of a machine?
Yes. Argues from artificial parthenogenesis and tropism experiments that life processes, including the start of development of the egg, can be explained by physics and chemistry.
- Q07Does living activity require a principle beyond physical and chemical processes?
1914RilkeRilke,Dolls: On the Wax Dolls of Lotte PritzelGermanEssayFull text
Rainer Maria Rilke
Puppen. Zu den Wachs-Puppen von Lotte Pritzel
German · Essay
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q40Can an artificial companion satisfy the need for companionship if it has no feelings of its own?
No. The child's doll takes all the love given it and answers with silence, because it is made of stuff that cannot respond; Rilke treats this as the child's first experience of not being loved back.
- Q40Can an artificial companion satisfy the need for companionship if it has no feelings of its own?
1917TagoreTagore,NationalismEnglishEssayFull text
- Q32Is widespread use of machinery evidence that a society is more civilized?
No. Argues the West has turned society into a machine of commerce and politics whose aim is success, not goodness, eliminating moral responsibility.
- Q33Can a society adopt another society's machinery without adopting its ways of life?
Conditional. Japan can take Western science only if it assimilates it to its own character; if it copies Western nationalism it becomes a borrowed machine left with only borrowed weapons.
- Q32Is widespread use of machinery evidence that a society is more civilized?
1919WeberWeber,Politics as a VocationGermanEssayFull text
- Q36Should public officials carry out rules without exercising personal moral judgment?
Yes. The honor of the civil servant is to carry out a superior's order conscientiously as if it were his own conviction, even when he thinks it wrong; personal responsibility belongs to the political leader.
- Q36Should public officials carry out rules without exercising personal moral judgment?
1924HaldaneHaldane,Daedalus, or Science and the FutureEnglishEssayFull text
- Q26Can inventors remain responsible for harmful uses of their inventions that they did not intend?
No. Uses Daedalus, who caused the death of Minos yet was never punished, to argue that the scientific worker is not concerned with gods and that mankind must adjust its morality to the powers science gives it.
- Q30Should technological invention be understood as carrying out a divine purpose?
This answer is hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.
- Q26Can inventors remain responsible for harmful uses of their inventions that they did not intend?
1924RussellRussell,Icarus, or the Future of ScienceEnglishEssayFull text
- Q26Can inventors remain responsible for harmful uses of their inventions that they did not intend?
No. Argues science only lets the holders of power realise their purposes more fully; whether it does good or harm depends on those purposes, which at present are mostly evil.
- Q26Can inventors remain responsible for harmful uses of their inventions that they did not intend?
1925HaldaneHaldane,Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical WarfareEnglishEssayFull text
- Q27Should a useful invention be restricted if its harmful consequences cannot be reliably controlled?
No. Argues gas weapons such as tear gas are more humane than shells and bayonets, and that the Hague ban on gas projectiles was well meant but misguided.
- Q27Should a useful invention be restricted if its harmful consequences cannot be reliably controlled?
1929BernalBernal,The World, the Flesh and the DevilEnglishEssayFull text
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
Yes. Proposes replacing the body organ by organ with mechanisms until the person is a brain in a cylinder linked to artificial senses, and treats this as the same mind continuing.
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?