We need grief as a precursor to emotional refreshment, and so consume it vicariously in somewhat titrated but powerful enough form through engagement with the arts.

Moral claims aren't, as a class, truth-value apt or not.

The moves to contractualism and utilitarianism required some extra ingredients besides mortalism, the denial that God is in charge of the world, and the doctrine that physical and psychological pain are the greatest evils.

Moral theory develops from the divine command theory of medieval Christian philosophy, mixed up with a bit of ancient pagan virtue theory, to the purely secular moral sentiment and interpersonal reaction theories of Smith and Hume, to Kant's attempt to restore command theory but with something supersensible in the individual rather than God as the source of authority.

It used to be that nobody would really argue with a woman, because what she thought (unless it was by way of providing helpful comments about one's own work) just didn't matter.

I have to say that some philosophers such as the late Bernard Williams, and I would include myself in this group, would say that tranquillity is overrated as the goal of life.

You can find many philosophy papers on the themes of 'love' and 'friendship,' most of which are cheerful and somewhat anodyne; you don't find many on the loss of friends, relatives, and lovers from death or alienation, though it happens all the time.