Five Seats Infinite Questions – 6th June 2026
An intentionally small weekly online meetup for relaxed, thoughtful philosophical conversation.
Each event is built around 3–6 questions, suggested by attendees or chosen by the host. We’ll spend up to around 20 minutes per question, depending on how the conversation flows. The question list will be posted in the event comments on the Thursday before the meetup, so everyone has time to think it over.
The group is intentionally small: around five open attendee places, plus a small core group. The aim is to create a friendly space where everyone can take part, rather than disappear into a sea of muted rectangles.
No expertise is needed. You do not need fully formed opinions, prior reading, or a working relationship with Kant, Hegel, or Heidegger. Half-formed thoughts, tentative objections, and “I’m not sure, but…” are very welcome.
This is not a lecture, debate club, or name-dropping contest. Just bring curiosity, kindness, and a willingness to think out loud.
The goal is a good conversation, not a final answer.
Online Meetup Link: see https://www.meetup.com/exeter-philosophy-meetup-group/events/314596130/
The topics for the week are:
When the world feels less secure, is military strength a necessary condition of peace, or does preparing for war help create the very danger it is meant to prevent?
Recent discussions around NATO have focused on whether Europe can rely as heavily on the United States as it has in the past, and whether European countries should spend far more on defence. Poland has argued that NATO members should reach defence spending of 5% of GDP by 2030, while SIPRI reported that European military spending rose sharply in 2025. Behind the budgets is a deeper question: is Europe entering a new period where peace depends less on shared rules and more on deterrence, rearmament and strategic independence?
Imagine a neighbourhood where one powerful neighbour has always helped keep order. Now that neighbour seems less reliable, and everyone else begins buying stronger locks, alarms and weapons. Each household says it only wants safety. Yet the more everyone prepares, the more dangerous the neighbourhood begins to feel.
Is rearmament a responsible response to danger, or a sign that politics has failed? Can peace be preserved through strength, or does treating security as an arms race make trust impossible? And if defence spending rises, what duties are being displaced elsewhere — health, welfare, climate, education, or future debt?
“Standing Armies shall in time be totally abolished.”
Immanuel Kant – Toward Perpetual Peace
source: https://www.reuters.com/world/nato-must-spend-5-gdp-defence-by-2030-poland-says-2026-05-06/
When a private company becomes powerful enough to shape humanity’s future beyond Earth, should space be treated as a market, a commons, or a trust held for everyone?
SpaceX’s proposed blockbuster IPO has raised huge economic questions about valuation, investor access and private control of strategic technology. Reuters reported that the company set a $135 share price for a planned IPO that could value it at about $1.75 trillion, while earlier filings highlighted both losses and Elon Musk’s continuing control. But beyond the financial spectacle lies a more philosophical question: if companies build the rockets, satellites and infrastructure that make space accessible, do they gain a special moral claim over that future?
Imagine a bridge being built to a newly discovered island. One company funds the bridge, builds the boats, controls the maps and charges the tolls. Without that company, almost no one could get there. But once the island becomes reachable, everyone starts asking whether it was ever right for one company to control the gateway.
Should space be opened mainly by private ambition and investment, or governed as a shared human inheritance? If profit is what gets us there, should ownership follow? And when a private company becomes essential to communications, defence, exploration and perhaps settlement, does it begin to resemble public power?
“God gave the World to Men in Common.”
John Locke – Second Treatise of Government
When old political loyalties weaken, is democracy becoming more alive, or entering a more dangerous historical period?
Recent UK politics has shown signs of fragmentation. Reform UK has raised more in donations than Labour and the Conservatives, while the Greens and other parties have also benefited from dissatisfaction with the traditional party system. LSE analysis has argued that Britain’s two-party era is ending, with Brexit still reshaping the political landscape. Across Europe, similar patterns are visible: mainstream parties are weaker, anti-establishment movements are stronger, and politics increasingly feels less like a contest over policy and more like a struggle over identity, belonging and historical direction.
Imagine a town where two old clubs used to organise almost everything. People complained about them, but they also knew where they stood. Now the clubs have lost trust, and many smaller groups have appeared. Some bring fresh energy and neglected voices. Others thrive on anger, suspicion and nostalgia. The town is more plural, but also harder to hold together.
Is political fragmentation a healthy correction to stale democracy, or a warning sign that shared reality is breaking down? Are voters discovering new choices, or are they losing faith in the possibility of common life? And are we simply living through another electoral cycle, or the beginning of a different historical period?
“What prepares men for totalitarian domination… is the fact that loneliness… has become an everyday experience.”
Hannah Arendt – The Origins of Totalitarianism
Are we responsible for suffering we did not cause, but could easily help to prevent?
Imagine a lifeboat floating safely after a disaster. There is plenty of room on board. There are enough supplies. The people already in the boat are not in immediate danger. They could rescue a drowning woman nearby without any serious risk to themselves.
But the self-appointed captain objects. If they save her, everyone will have to give up a little comfort: perhaps an extra biscuit, a small luxury, a slightly easier time. He argues that they did not push her into the water. Her drowning is not their fault. Why should they disturb their own peace to solve a problem they did not create?
The scenario is simple, but its target is much larger. The lifeboat stands for affluent societies, or perhaps for any comfortable person surrounded by preventable suffering. If we have enough to help others without seriously harming ourselves, is refusing to help merely ungenerous, or is it morally wrong?
This thought experiment challenges the comforting difference between killing and letting die. We usually think it is worse to actively harm someone than to fail to save them. But if rescue is easy, the need is urgent, and the cost to us is small, does that distinction still protect us?
Are we morally entitled to enjoy our extra biscuit while someone else drowns?
“If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.”
Peter Singer – “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”
Does someone else’s need give them a right to use your body?
Imagine waking up in a hospital bed to discover that you have been connected to another patient. This person cannot survive without your organs temporarily supporting theirs. If you disconnect yourself, they will die. If you stay connected, you must give up nine months of your life: your freedom, comfort, plans, privacy, and control over your own body.
The situation was not something you clearly agreed to. Perhaps there was a mistake. Perhaps you acted carelessly and ended up there through a mixture of irresponsibility and bad luck. Either way, another human life is now dependent on you.
The question is not whether it would be generous, noble, or compassionate to stay connected. Perhaps it would be. The harder question is whether you can be morally required to do so. Does another person’s right to life include a right to make use of your body? Or does bodily autonomy mean that even saving a life cannot be demanded from you in this way?
Baggini’s thought experiment draws on Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous violinist argument about abortion. It forces us to separate two questions that are often tangled together: whether a dependent being has moral value, and whether that value gives it a claim over another person’s body.
Are we obliged to keep someone alive if doing so turns our own body into their life-support system?
“The right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly.”
Judith Jarvis Thomson – “A Defense of Abortion”
When does healthy scepticism become a conspiracy-shaped refusal to believe?
Imagine someone tells you that the moon is made of cheese. Not just any cheese: mozzarella. They know this sounds absurd, but they are ready for every objection. The moon landings? Faked. Moon rocks? Suppressed or planted. Scientists? Paid off, threatened, or part of the cover-up. Telescopes? Not powerful enough to show the truth. The fact that almost nobody believes it? Exactly what you would expect if the conspiracy were working.
At first, the belief seems easy to dismiss. But the troubling part is that it can be made to fit the evidence if enough surrounding beliefs are rearranged. Every challenge becomes part of the story. Every lack of proof becomes evidence of concealment. The theory survives not because it is strong, but because it has become slippery.
Baggini uses this absurd example to explore a serious problem: evidence rarely forces only one possible conclusion. Our beliefs form a web. If we are determined enough, we can protect almost any claim by changing the rest of the web around it. This helps explain why conspiracy theories can feel so persuasive from the inside and so ridiculous from the outside.
The question is not simply why some people believe strange things. It is how any of us decide when a belief is reasonable, when evidence is good enough, and when a theory has become so over-protected that it no longer deserves our trust.
Are conspiracy theories irrational because they contradict the evidence, or because they explain the evidence too easily?
“Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system.”
W. V. O. Quine – “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”
Overview of session:
After the Centre Gives Way — Discussion Summary
The conversation explored whether political fragmentation is a sign of democratic renewal or a warning that shared public life is weakening. A key theme was the effect of electoral systems, especially how first-past-the-post tends to reinforce two large parties and may discourage collaboration, while more proportional or multi-party systems can allow more voices to be represented but may also make decision-making slower or less stable.
The group discussed how traditional political loyalties, especially class-based voting patterns, appear to be giving way to more issue-based concerns such as healthcare, rights, immigration, economics and identity. This raised the question of whether democracy is becoming more responsive to real differences in society, or whether it is becoming more vulnerable to populism, misinformation and political disillusionment.
A significant part of the discussion focused on the influence of wealth, media and public perception. The group considered whether extremely wealthy individuals and media organisations can distort democratic debate, especially when money, attention and online engagement shape what people see and believe. This led to questions about whether voters are genuinely free and informed, or whether modern politics is increasingly driven by manipulation, fear and spectacle.
The conversation also touched on free speech and its limits. Participants considered how democracies should distinguish between robust disagreement, offensive speech and language that encourages harm or intimidation. This connected back to the wider question of whether political fragmentation makes open debate healthier by allowing more voices, or more dangerous by amplifying division.
Comparisons were made between two-party and multi-party systems, including examples from Belgium and other European contexts. The group noted that coalition politics can encourage compromise and broader representation, but may also produce deadlock or instability. Smaller political units were also discussed as potentially more democratic, though the group recognised that borders rarely match neatly with language, culture, ethnicity, resources or identity.
The final part of the discussion moved towards cultural heritage and belonging. The group explored how identity is shaped by family background, place, language, migration and shared culture, often in ways people only partly recognise. This raised a further question about democracy itself: whether diverse societies can build enough shared identity to govern well together, or whether political fragmentation reflects deeper uncertainty about who “we” are.
Overall, the discussion suggested that the centre giving way can be read in two ways. It may represent a healthier demand for more voices, more local influence and more honest representation. But it may also signal declining trust, weakened common ground and a move into a more unstable political era.