AboutCharles K. MacKay Expertise I can answer a number of questions in philosophy; my academic concentrations (graduate school at Cornell) are ethics, political philosophy, and 19th-century German philosophy (Marx, Hegel, and hangers-on.)
Experience EDUCATION:
BA, New College, 1971, Philosophy and Religion
Awarded four graduate fellowships upon graduation
MA, Cornell University, 1974
Social and Political Philosophy, Danforth Fellowship
All course work and dissertation drafts completed for Ph.D. Cornell University, 1971-1975, Social and Political Philosophy, Danforth Fellowship
Courses in statistics and microeconomics, George Washington University and The American University, 1976-1978
EXPERIENCE:
Health Insurance Specialist 2005 - Present
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service
US Department of Health and Human Services
Allentown Business School Instructor (Computer Science) 2003 - 2005
Northampton Community College
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy 2003 -2005
Lehigh County Community College
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy and Computer Science
PUBLICATIONS:
Medicare Made Easy (with Charles B. Inlander) Addison-Wesley, 1989
Good Operations, Bad Operations (with Charles B. Inlander) Viking Press, 1993
Health Rebooted: Information Changes Everything (in press), 2008
Question Hello, how are you? I have a question about morality and nothingness. If
nothingness is to be defined as the "nonpresence" of matter and energy in empty
space, what is the moral quality of nothingness? Matter and energy can be used for
good and/or evil, so if there is nothingness, does it mean nothingness is (in)directly
good(no harm can be done)? If "nothingness" is (in)directly good, does it mean it is
"something good" then? How can nothing be something at the same time? Please
help me understand the logical connection.
Answer You're essentially defining "nothing" as "empty space." That's not the way philosophers (or speakers of standard English)use the term. Nothing is quite ;iteraly "no thing." Space is, as any physicist will tell you, very much a "thing."
You then define goodness as, in part, causing no harm. Most philosphers would hold that causing no harm is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for goodness -- in other words, not causing harm is not, in an of itself, enough for something to be morally good. The would also argue that the term (moral) goodness can be properly applied only to the acts and intention of intelligent beings, not parts (or non-parts) of nature.
Finally, you're committing the centuries-old fallacy of assuming that if we have a word for something, that something must exist. Not so. The fact that we can say "The present king of France is bald" does not mean that there has to be a present king of France.
