Set up a debate

We owe as much to distant strangers as to our neighbors

Whether physical and social distance reduce our moral obligations, or whether every person's needs weigh equally regardless of relationship.

Eating animals is morally wrong

Whether the pleasure and convenience of eating meat can justify killing and confining sentient creatures.

Suffering is necessary for a meaningful life

Whether hardship is an essential ingredient of depth, growth, and meaning, or an evil to be minimized wherever possible.

Breaking an unjust law is a moral duty

Whether citizens are obligated to disobey laws they judge unjust, or whether the value of legal order requires obedience even to bad laws.

Science is the only reliable source of knowledge

Whether empirical science exhausts what can genuinely be known, or whether mathematics, ethics, introspection, testimony, and the humanities deliver knowledge of their own.

Religious faith can be rational

Whether belief without conclusive evidence can be a reasonable stance, or whether faith by its nature is a failure of rationality.

Large inequalities of wealth are unjust even when acquired fairly

Whether the fairness of the process that produces a distribution is enough to justify it, or whether outcomes matter independently.

A society without art would be impoverished in a way that matters morally

Whether art is essential to the moral and human quality of a society, or a luxury that adds pleasure but not moral substance.

Forgiveness matters more than justice

Whether releasing wrongdoers from resentment and penalty is a higher value than ensuring they receive what they deserve.

Borders should be open to anyone who wishes to migrate

Whether states have the right to exclude peaceful migrants, or whether freedom of movement is a basic human right that borders violate.

A world without work would be a better world

Whether human beings would flourish if machines freed them from labor, or whether work is essential to meaning, dignity, and social order.