Good topics for philosophical discussion

[Blasphemous]

I started a philosophy discussion group at school today, and it's a kind of open thing where we just sit around and talk about stuff. We're gonna meet weekly and although I'm supposedly the main guy organizing it, anyone can bring things up... Only last night did I realize I'd need some topics to start with, so the two topics I could think of were:
-Why is killing immoral? (And/or is human life more valuable than animal life, and why)
-(Why) Is democracy better than communism?
We ended up discussing the first (and since it's a very open thing, half the discussion ended up being about hypothetical situations involving either a still-alive-today Hitler or really cute cats.) It's not that hard to find a question to kick off an hour's discussion, but I'd like to hear some good ideas here, preferably ones that won't have me pitted as a lone atheist against a bunch of believing Jews (plus a couple apatheist agnostics).
Also, as hard as it may be, I hate how discussions of morality always end up including Hitler, so if there are any ideas of topics where that can be avoided I'd like to hear them.
Anyhoo, just please give me ideas, and if you have some experience with this style of discussion I'd love to hear about it.

 

[JoeM]

Is advertising the root of all evil?

Why is charging greater than 5% interest legal now, when in the 1300s it was punishable by hanging?

 

[empire]

Does anything absolute exist, whether in physical terms, or as an idea/ethic?

 

[sanabas]

I don't remember hitler coming up all that often in philosophy when the discussion was on morals. As for topics on morality:

Is there an objective, correct morality? Or is all morality subjective?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Most of the time when people discuss such things they start with a big broad topic: Is killing immoral? and then work their way through it using examples. You should try going the other way. start with a collection of specific examples from the real world and see if you can come to a conclusion that is broad. For example, you could talk about the social structure of hunter gatherer tribes and that of early cities and see if you can come to a conclusion about how people use, need, or are willing to impose on themselves for the sake of a larger purpose. Each member could be asked to prepare on some focused specific so when you meet, there is something to generalize from.

 

[thetrooper]

Some classics:

Free will and determinism.
Causality or causation.

 

[RoboPig]

here is a good philosophical topic: does the world as we know it really exist? is this just a dream that we live in? is death what happens when we wake up and find ourselves as tiny babies of some other species in another world?

 

[Urederra]

Have you tried reading Sophie's World?

`http://www.teenink.com/Past/2001/November/Books/SophiesWorld.html

 

[Blasphemous]

@Birdjaguar: While I agree that starting with examples and reaching conclusions is a more useful approach, it requires much more preparation and isn't as conductive of freewheeling open discussions...
What I'd really like is to have some topic where I can convince everyone of the mostly "wrong" position, and then break it all with a simple statement that sets things right... Until you've more-or-less agreed with a position, it's not possible to appreciate just how wrong it is...

 

[Blasphemous]

Have you tried reading Sophie's World?

`http://www.teenink.com/Past/2001/November/Books/SophiesWorld.html

I think I've heard of it but I haven't read it... I'll check it out if I have the chance... (It sounds interesting but that review makes it sound stupid because it's not written seriously and it assumes that teenagers don't like philosophy.)

 

[thetrooper]

Don't let a silly review stop you from reading an important book.

 

[Kyriakos]

Should a turkey be roasted before arriving at the EU table?

 

[Masquerouge]

Does History make sense ?

 

[Blasphemous]

Don't let a silly review stop you from reading an important book.

Oh, it won't stop me, like I said it sounds interesting, the review just doesn't get the point through very well...

 

[Richard Cribb]

Don't let a silly review stop you from reading an important book.

Surely you don't regard Sophie's World as an important book - for everyone except Jostein Gaarder that is?
As for a topic for a philosophical discussion; why not human nature? Are we basically destructive and evil or good?

 

[Birdjaguar]

What I'd really like is to have some topic where I can convince everyone of the mostly "wrong" position, and then break it all with a simple statement that sets things right... Until you've more-or-less agreed with a position, it's not possible to appreciate just how wrong it is...

Hmmm...so your goal is to show off your ability to manipulate a discussion, tie things up in a nice gordian knot and then with a swift blow cut it into pieces?

 

[Blasphemous]

Hmmm...so your goal is to show off your ability to manipulate a discussion, tie things up in a nice gordian knot and then with a swift blow cut it into pieces?

Well, more or less, but it also really is a good way to convince people how wrong something is... I would not dislike communism so much today if I hadn't once believed it was a great ideal.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Beware the law of unintended consequences. What people often learn from such "discussions" is all about manipuation and not about content. Are you trying to help people come to their own conclusions about values (or whatever)? Accept your values? Or learn to manipulate psuedo discussions?

 

[Blasphemous]

I dunno, it just kinda sounds like a fun thing to do and it'd be cool to really really convince people of something by shattering the alternative...
I'm thinking of doing that with the communism thing, since I know why someone would agree with it...
Frankly I got the idea of arguing that way from a friend of mine who's learning part-time in a Midrasha (equivelant of Yeshiva for girls, a boarding school where you learn a whole lot of Judaism all day long)... I don't remember what the issue was, but a rabbi there convinced the class completely of why the traditionally wrong position is right, and then quickly shattered it. Sounds impressive.

 

[Birdjaguar]

As a technique to teach critical thinking it can be very effective. But to do so you have to build an apparently solid framework of supporting data and get the class to accept the data. Then at the end you take a critical look at the data and show how it is fraught with errors and unsupported assumptions. The students then see how th uncritical eye can take one down a path that only appears to go somewhere. I've seen it done well with Atlantis over a 5 or 6 class time frame. The goal though was not to debunk atlantis but to show how important it is to think about what is presented to you as fact.