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.
43 of 219 works
1651HobbesHobbes,LeviathanEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
No. Argues a parent's dominion over a child does not derive from having begotten it but from the child's consent.
- Q35Does treating the state as an artificial machine give its members grounds to redesign it?
No. Hobbes criticizes private conscience as a competing judge of good and evil where civil law has determined the matter, arguing that competing private judgments would divide the commonwealth.
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
1680FilmerFilmer,Patriarcha: or, the Natural Power of KingsEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
Yes. Filmer treats patriarchal dominion as sovereign power, explicitly invoking life-and-death judgment, war and treaty making. The argument concerns paternal rule, not directly the manufacture of an intelligent being.
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
1689LockeLocke,Second Treatise of GovernmentEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
Both. Argues men are God's property because they are his workmanship, but that human parents do not own children they beget, since children are the workmanship of their maker, the Almighty.
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
1694LockeLocke,An Essay Concerning Human UnderstandingEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
Yes. Places personal identity in continuity of consciousness, not in the body, so a person who loses a limb, or whose consciousness follows a severed finger, remains the same self.
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
1739HumeHume,A Treatise of Human NatureEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
No. Argues that we ascribe identity to a ship or body whose parts are gradually replaced only because the change is gradual, and that this identity is a fiction of the imagination.
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
1748HumeHume,An Enquiry concerning Human UnderstandingEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
Undecided. We feel the arm move when we will it, but the power by which will produces motion is unknown and inconceivable; we observe only constant conjunction.
- Q06Can people be morally responsible for actions that follow necessarily from their bodily constitution and circumstances?
Yes. Actions are caused by character and motives like any natural event, and this necessity is what makes praise and blame possible; an uncaused act would reflect nothing about the person.
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
1765BlackstoneBlackstone,Commentaries on the Laws of EnglandEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q11Should a judge follow a general rule when it produces an unjust result in a particular case?
Yes. Allows equity to correct law's generality but holds that law without equity, though hard, is better than equity without law, which would make every judge a legislator.
- Q11Should a judge follow a general rule when it produces an unjust result in a particular case?
1776SmithSmith,An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsEnglishTreatiseFull 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?
1785ReidReid,Essays on the Intellectual Powers of ManEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
Yes. Reid argues that amputation does not divide the person: the enduring self is indivisible even though its thoughts, actions and feelings change.
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
1788ReidReid,Essays on the Active Powers of ManEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q06Can people be morally responsible for actions that follow necessarily from their bodily constitution and circumstances?
No. Moral accountability requires a real power to will or not will an action; if every act were necessitated, no one would be responsible.
- Q06Can people be morally responsible for actions that follow necessarily from their bodily constitution and circumstances?
1789BenthamBentham,An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and LegislationEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q28Would the capacity to suffer give an artificial being a claim to humane treatment?
Yes. Argues that what matters for moral standing is not whether a being can reason or talk but whether it can suffer.
- Q28Would the capacity to suffer give an artificial being a claim to humane treatment?
1792WollstonecraftWollstonecraft,A Vindication of the Rights of WomanEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
Yes. Standing armies and women's education both train blind obedience; strengthening the mind would end it.
- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
1793GodwinGodwin,Enquiry Concerning Political JusticeEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q15Should extending human life indefinitely be a goal of technical progress?
Yes. Speculates that mind will gain power over matter and that human life may be greatly prolonged once society is rationally ordered.
- Q15Should extending human life indefinitely be a goal of technical progress?
1798MalthusMalthus,An Essay on the Principle of PopulationEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q15Should extending human life indefinitely be a goal of technical progress?
No. Rejects Condorcet's indefinite prolongation of life, arguing that a partial improvement whose limit is unknown does not show that improvement is unlimited.
- Q15Should extending human life indefinitely be a goal of technical progress?
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?
1901MorganMorgan,RegenerationEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q08Does an organism's ability to repair itself distinguish it fundamentally from a machine?
This answer is hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.
- Q08Does an organism's ability to repair itself distinguish it fundamentally from a machine?
1902HobsonHobson,Imperialism: A StudyEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q34Does superiority in industrial or military technology justify one people governing another?
No. Hobson rejects the claim that the struggle of races lets the 'socially efficient' justly govern or displace others, and traces imperialism to the interests of finance.
- Q34Does superiority in industrial or military technology justify one people governing another?
1904VeblenVeblen,The Theory of Business EnterpriseEnglishTreatiseFull 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?
1908DrieschDriesch,The Science and Philosophy of the OrganismEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q07Does living activity require a principle beyond physical and chemical processes?
Yes. An embryo fragment can form a whole organism, which no machine could do, so development requires a non-physical ordering factor he calls entelechy.
- Q08Does an organism's ability to repair itself distinguish it fundamentally from a machine?
This answer is hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.
- Q09Can the development of an organism from an egg be explained as the operation of a machine?
No. Argues from sea-urchin experiments, where a half-egg still yields a whole larva, that development cannot be the work of a machine and requires a non-mechanical agent he calls entelechy.
- Q07Does living activity require a principle beyond physical and chemical processes?
1909SmithSmith,The Teaching of ArithmeticEnglishTreatiseFull text
1912FujisawaFujisawa,Summary Report on the Teaching of Mathematics in JapanEnglishTreatiseFull text
1913HaldaneHaldane,Mechanism, Life and PersonalityEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q07Does living activity require a principle beyond physical and chemical processes?
Neither. The mechanistic theory cannot account for the way an organism maintains and reproduces its own structure, but vitalism is no better; biology needs the organism as its own basic concept.
- Q08Does an organism's ability to repair itself distinguish it fundamentally from a machine?
This answer is hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.
- Q09Can the development of an organism from an egg be explained as the operation of a machine?
No. Criticizes the mechanistic theory of life, arguing that the self-maintaining and self-reproducing organization of the organism cannot be explained as the working of a machine.
- Q07Does living activity require a principle beyond physical and chemical processes?
1913MünsterbergMünsterberg,Psychology and Industrial EfficiencyEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q12Can numerical measures adequately determine a person's fitness for a position of responsibility?
Yes. Proposes selecting workers, including tram drivers and ship officers, by laboratory tests of the mental traits each job requires.
- Q12Can numerical measures adequately determine a person's fitness for a position of responsibility?
1915VeblenVeblen,Imperial Germany and the Industrial RevolutionEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q33Can a society adopt another society's machinery without adopting its ways of life?
Yes. Germany borrowed English machine technology without the English institutions that grew up with it, which let a dynastic state use it; Veblen holds that the machine discipline will erode those older institutions over time.
- Q33Can a society adopt another society's machinery without adopting its ways of life?
1916LoebLoeb,The Organism as a Whole, from a Physicochemical ViewpointEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q08Does an organism's ability to repair itself distinguish it fundamentally from a machine?
This answer is hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.
- Q08Does an organism's ability to repair itself distinguish it fundamentally from a machine?
1922DarrowDarrow,Crime: Its Cause and TreatmentEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q06Can people be morally responsible for actions that follow necessarily from their bodily constitution and circumstances?
No. Conduct follows from heredity and environment like the rest of animal life, so the legal idea of free will and personal guilt is a 'gross error' and punishment should give way to treatment.
- Q06Can people be morally responsible for actions that follow necessarily from their bodily constitution and circumstances?
1922DeweyDewey,Human Nature and ConductEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q20Does making an action habitual increase a person's freedom to act?
Depends on whether habit is intelligent or routine. Habit is not mere repetition but an acquired disposition that amounts to will; routine habit enslaves, intelligent habit is the means of action.
- Q20Does making an action habitual increase a person's freedom to act?
1928EddingtonEddington,The Nature of the Physical WorldEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q05Can human choices be fully explained by physical causes?
No. Quantum physics has withdrawn strict causality from the physical world, so physics no longer requires the complete determinism of mind that would rule out volition.
- Q05Can human choices be fully explained by physical causes?
1949HartreeHartree,Calculating Instruments and MachinesEnglishTreatiseIn copyright
- 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?