Helpful Stuff
The purchase of your text gives you access to an interactive web site that includes
chapter summaries, further resources, and self grading practice quizzes. Go to http://www.oup.com/us/philosophicalquestions.
In addition the instructor’s web page for this course will include sample exams, lists of important terms, and outlines of every class. All quizzes will also be preserved on that page for review purposes. Finally, it will eventually give you a fairly up-to-date record of your grades as we progress. Access the link for the Phil. 120 web page through the UTM page (click on faculty staff, then on faculty web pages) or by using this address directly: www.utm.edu/~nlillega/lillegard.htm.
Class Conduct, Instructor's Role, etc. What I Expect of Students.
1.Treat each other with respect. 2.Treat the instructor with respect. 3.Do not talk unless called on.
4. Do not leave the room without permission except in extreme emergency. 5. Be on time.
6. Be eager to learn. The best indication of progress is engagement with the issues and ideas we deal with.
7. Do not be afraid to say "I don't understand."
8. Expect the same of me as I expect of you. (Except for #3, and #4, of course. You will see that I follow #7 a lot.)
Classes will consist of a mix of lecture, discussion, possible occasional reports, and watching of a few videos (designated as >ICA@ (in class assignments) in the outline) followed by discussion and/or written reviews. Students are expected to treat other students in a polite fashion, even though they should feel free to express disagreement on ANY topic or ANY claim that is advanced by anyone, including the instructor. At the same time, each student must attempt to exercise responsibility by keeping discussion focused on the subject at hand and by listening carefully to the responses of the instructor and other participants.
Particular value is placed on argument, as opposed to mere expression of opinion. Say what you believe, but be prepared to say why. The instructor will attempt to clarify difficult concepts and passages in the text, and will attempt to model philosophical dialogue in his own lectures, which will be devoted primarily to showing the patterns of argument in the textual assignments. Students should feel free to interrupt with questions or comments, even though on occasion answers may be postponed for the sake of coherence. The instructor will be available for help in and out of class, and is eager to engage in one‑on‑one (or one‑ on‑two, three, etc.) discussion of the course's issues with any student any time. He is pledged to careful consideration of any view, including those which he finds unsupportable, and to critical thinking with any student who values thoughtful discussion. Students who feel a need for individual help should feel free to ask..
Academic Dishonesty (AKA ‘cheating’). Any kind of cheating is a serious offense and will be dealt with accordingly. It also ought to be beneath the dignity of each and every student. You may not
Solicit or offer help during an exam or quiz
Look at a cell phone during a quiz or exam
Copy someone else’s study guide answers
Do someone else’s study guides.
Anyone caught
violating any of these common-sense rules will AUTOMATICALLY GET AN ‘F’ for the
particular test or assignment involved and possibly FOR THE ENTIRE COURSE
NOTE: "Any student eligible for and requesting academic
accommodations due to a disability is requested to provide a letter of
accommodation from P.A.C.E. or Student Academic Support Center within the first
two weeks of the semester."
COURSE OUTLINE: (Approximate. Content and time periods may vary slightly.)
Week 1 (1/14) Philosophical Perplexity in Children and Adults. The Can of Worms A little logic.
Week 2 (1/21) (MLKing day) Belief in God and the problem of Evil.
Week 3 (1/28) Mystical experience. The cosmological argument. Religion and rationality.
Week 4 (2/4) Human nature. Determinism and free will.
Mini-exam I Monday, Feb.11.
Week 5 (2/11) . Frankfurt on freedom of the will. Achieving self-hood. Kierkegaard, Marx.
Week 6 (2/18) Achieving self-hood. Nietzsche.. Chuang Tzu, Darwin
Week 7 (2/25) Mind and Body. Intentionality ; Review.TEST I Friday, Feb. 29th.
Week 8 (3/3) Minds and machines. ICA. “The Measure of a Man”
Week 9 (3/10 – 16 - SPRING BREAK)
Week 10 (3/17) Week 9 continued March 21-Good Friday
Week 11 (3/24) The social construction of Knowledge. Moral relativism. Morality and self-interest
Week 12 (3/31).
Virtue and the best kind of life. ICA
“Weapons of the Spirit” Utilitarianism and Mill. Mini-Exam II, Wed. April 2.
Week 13 (4/7) Week XII cont. ICA Cruzan Video.
Week 14 (4/14). Theories of Justice
Week 15 (4/21) Individual rights and the Limits of State Coercion.
Week 16. Classes end Mon. April 28. Review. FINAL EXAMS, MAY 1-7.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contract:
I have read the full syllabus, I am familiar with all requirements and directions, I consider these requirements to be reasonable, and I will do my best to fulfill and observe them.
Signed _________________________________________________________
Print name _________________________________________
Section time___________________________
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Those who use on-line dictionaries, or very large printed
dictionaries, must write down the definitions of any unfamiliar words and bring
them to class.
Study Guides Phil. 120
Sp 2008
Read Answer
Questions
p. 2-12 Jan 14 q. 1-10
Jan 21
p. 35-41 // q. 37-42
p. 48-56 q.
54-56, 58-62
Jan. 28
p. 63-68 q.
73,74,76,77.
p. 90-99 q.
99-108
p. 103-110 q.
112-114, 116-118 and
EQ 1. If you follow the “agnostic
rule” for truth seeking, what do you stand to gain? To lose?
Feb. 4
p. 116-122 // q. 1-4,
p. 125-129 7- 11
p. 129- 137 q.
16-21
Feb. 11
p. 137- 146 // q. 22- 34
p. 164-183 // q. 57-88
Feb.
18
p. 202-208 // q. 114-116, 118
215-221 q.
129-140
Feb. 25
222,23
p. 248-53 q. 34-42
Mon. Mar. 3
253-60 q.
43-51
282-292 q.
79-92
293-314 ANSWER q.
93-121
Mon. Mar. 17
Questions on “The
Measure of a Man”
D1. Data keeps a book
from Picard and a “photo” of a crewmate. What are we supposed to infer about
Data from these facts?
D2. The robotologist
asks Data whether the words in his book are just words or whether they mean something
to him. What does this question have to do with intentionality and mind? What
would Searle say?
D3. The robotologist
claims that if Data were a “box on wheels” rather than “human in appearance”
there would be no question about his civil rights. This amounts to the claim
that we may_______ when we think about Data. Do we? Argue.
D4. Could an android
be “intimate” with a human being? Does the fact that Data does “not alter with
the passage of time” have any bearing on this question? Discuss and argue pro
and con.
D5. Picard claims that there are three criteria
for sentience. What are they? Are all of them actually criteria for sentience? Discuss.
D6. Data can be
disassembled, reprogrammed, and turned off with a switch. What bearing would
those facts have on the claim that Data is sentient, according to Ziff?
Monday
March 24
p. 406-420 q.
131-136, 138-147
p. 428-439 q.
4-16
p. 440, 444-452 q.
22-37
Monday
March 31
p. 484-489
q. 86-92
Monday,
April 7
p. 516-524 q.
122-136
Cham. 1. Virtues are
fairly stable dispositions that, on MacIntyre’s view, are acquired partly through
learning to identify with particular historical traditions and stories.
a. mention three virtues of the Chambonais.
b. How are those
virtues related to the particular stories and traditions shared by these
people? Mention three such stories or traditions and relate them to their
virtues.
c. how do some of the adjectives used to
describe the Chambonais, and their behavior,
reveal virtues?
Cham. 2. Compare and
contrast the moral thinking of the people of Le Chambon with Mill’s ideas about
moral thinking.
Mon. April
14
p. 561-577 q.41-59
Mon. April
21
pp. 592-616 ques.
79-115
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fri.
Mar. 9
290-299 88-98
SPRING
BREAK
Mon.
Mar. 19
299 – 315 99-121
plus
Wed.
Mar. 21
Continue Mondays
work.
Frd.
Mar. 23
316-17
342-348 39-46
Mon.
Mar. 26
Continue with Fri 23rd.
Wed.
Mar. 28
p. 405-408 q.
129-30
p. 415-21 q.
140-46
Fri
Mar 30
Mini
exam
Mon.
April 2
p. 422-23
p. 428-439 q.
4 – 16
Wed.
April 4
Repeat
Monday
Mon.
April 9
p. 444- 50 q.
24-35
Wed.
Apr 11
515 – 519 q.122
– 29
Fri.
Apr. 13
520-26 q.
130-136
Mon.
Apr. 16
p.484-89 q.
85-92
Wed.
Apr. 18
Continued
Fri.
April 20
Cham. 1. Virtues are
fairly stable dispositions that, on MacIntyre’s view, are acquired partly
through learning to identify with particular historical traditions and stories.
a. mention three virtues of the Chambonais.
b. How are those
virtues related to the particular stories and traditions shared by these
people? Mention three such stories or traditions and relate them to their
virtues.
c. how do some of the adjectives used to
describe the Chambonais, and their behavior,
reveal virtues?
Cham. 2. Compare and
contrast the moral thinking of the people of Le Chambon with Mill’s ideas about
moral thinking. With Kant’s.
Mon.
Apr. 23
562-568 q.
41-48
571-576 q.
53-59
Wed.
Apr. 25
609-616 q.
105-115
Fri.
Apr. 27
Review
Mon.
Apr. 30
Review
Ch. 3: 1-9, 11-13,
15, 16, 18.
______________________________________________________________________________________
I. Wonder and a
Little Logic
A.Wonder and
philosophy.
Wonder
Wondering how
Wondering at
Wonderful
A world of wonder
A winter wonderland
Children and wonder
Wondering what sorts
of things can feel. Could plants?
(How could you know?)
B. The Can of
Worms What do you know?
(epistemology).
What sorts of things
are there? Minds? Souls? Gods? (metaphysics)
What sort of thing is
X?
What sort of thing is
a tomato plant?
C. A little logic.
1. Being logical. Means what?
a. logic and
argument. Give an example of an argument
(1.1).
b. deductive arguments;
for example?
Validity: If
So, they are world
soccer champs.
1.
2.
3.
Valid?
c. SOUND deductive
arguments. Is that one? Cook one up.
2. Questions 2,3,4.
3. Criticizing
arguments:
a. counterexamples: q. 5. q. 6.
what is the missing premise in “pro
life”? (Think about that!)
b. confusing necessary and
sufficient conditions; Answer 1.9
RELIGION AND REASON
Terms to know: atheism; agnosticism; theodicy; fideism.
I. THE PROBLEM OF
EVIL:
A. People who believe in God believe
the following:
·
E1. God
exists and is all good and all powerful;
·
E2 An all
good and all powerful being eliminates (or prevents) all evil.
·
E3 There
is evil.
These three
statements appear to be inconsistent! So, you cannot believe all three.
B. How about rejecting E3? But, Look
at Doestoevski’s descriptions!
C. How about E2? It can be denied
that E2 is necessarily true (Rowe’s
view). (What does ‘neccesarily true’
mean?) Examples.
Perhaps E2 could be
rephrased:
E2’ A good, all powerful
(omnipotent)
being prevents any evil
that is not necessary for a
greater good.
E1, E2, and E3’ are NOT
inconsistent.
C. Problem with E3’; there seem to
be many evils such that it is difficult to see what greater good requires them.
Cf. Some of Doestoevsky’s examples.
Perhaps we just cannot know.
An example of an evil that is required for a
greater good.
an example of an evil that is not required for
a greater good(?)
Ivan’s reactions
D. Hick. A soul making theodicy.
1. Moral imperfection
and a dangerous environment are necessary to the development of perfected finite beings (people).
a.
development is necessary for “character.” It cannot be “popped into
existence.” Why not?
Cf. courage,
patience, love.
The argument from evil seeks to
disprove the existence of God.
Are there any
arguments that seek to prove the
existence of God?
Sure. Lots of them.
II. The argument from religious experience.
A. What KIND of experience?
1. Yah right type
2. Mystical type
B. Hindu mysticism and Yoga.
1. Description of Yoga,
p.54
C. Are such experiences reliable?
1. No
a. Depend upon
abnormal bodily state (cf. drug induced visions etc.)
b. Apparent
agreement does not go very far.
D. Yes (Swineburn)
1. What are some general
principles for sorting out reliable from not reliable experiences?
2. The principle of
credulity, PC. (in general, I am
warranted in believing A exists if, for example, I see A.)
3. Perhaps we need to
check experiences in light of what is typical. Uniformity. Mystical experiences
are too odd, untypical.
a.Uniformity
in experience not necessary (why believe my own memories, for instance?)
4. Perhaps the mystic
experiences something but the claim that it is God is an “interpretation”.
a. cannot
draw line between experience and its interpretation. Cf. Swineburn on his wife,
or tea.
b. ordinary
cases where training is required for determining what one is experiencing.
Wine.
III. The argument
from design:
A.Design requires a designer.
1. Paley’s analogy.
2.
3. A new type of design argument: “intelligent
design”.
The
fine tuning argument.
How should we decide
about issues like this? NOT like this:
"”When mainstream science accepts
this, we can put them in science classes," said board member Janet Waugh,
of
What mainstream science accepts?
Cf. Paul Davies
Only twenty-five years ago it was not considered appropriate to consider the physical mechanism of the birth of the universe. I remember a lecture I attended as a graduate student at University College London. This was a couple of years after the discovery in 1965 of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and the implications of that discovery had not yet generally sunk in. A professor was talking about how theorists had computed, based on the existence of this radiation, that there would be about 25 percent helium and 75 percent hydrogen in the universe, and that this had come from an analysis of the nuclear processes that took place in the first few minutes after the big bang. Everyone in the lecture hall fell about laughing, because they thought it was so absurd and audacious to talk about the first three minutes after the big bang, just on the basis of the discovery of this radiation. Now, of course, it is absolutely standard cosmological theory. We feel we understand the first few minutes of the universe very well.
What seems laughable
today may not seem laughable tomorrow.
III. MIGHT IT BE
RATIONAL TO BELIEVE IN GOD EVEN WITHOUT PROOF?
A. Pascal: Yes!
How come?
1. Here is the
situation:
Either God exists (G)
OR not-God exists(not G, i.e. ~G)
a. There can
be no proof or disproof of either G or not G. (why?). So “reason” cannot decide
about either G or not G.
b. but
reason tells you to BET(wager) that G, rather than not G, is true! Why?
Because G is the best
(most rational) bet possible in this situation!
Why not refuse to bet at
all? You can’t. (A forced option). Why not? You are “on the way.” (north pole).
There is too much at stake to just opt out? The consequences of not betting are
exactly the same as the consequences of betting on ~G? Check James.
Assuming you have to wager, why is G
the best bet?
The betting situation:
G is false (~G) G
is true
|
Gain
Loss |
Gain Loss |
|
Gain
Loss |
Gain
Loss |
Bet G
Bet ~ G
B. Enter William James
1. James’ problems with Pascal;
* distorts faith
* many gods
Nonetheless, James
agrees with Pascal that it is still RATIONAL TO BELIEVE IN GOD EVEN WITHOUT PROOF
How come?
2. First, consider some possible
types of beliefs.
Types of beliefs (hypotheses):
* a hypothesis (belief)
can be living or dead. E.g.
* a Hypothesis(belief) can
be forced or not. E.g.
* a Hypothesis can be
momentous or trivial. E.g.
Suppose you are faced with this
option;
either believe in God or don’t (that
is, either accept the “hypothesis” that G or, accept ~G).
Is that option living (are the belief alternatives
alive for you)?
Is it forced?
Is it momentous?
If so, James calls it
a “genuine option.”
Compare to “My son is
alive/dead.”
It is living. It is momentous. It is
forced.
3. James claims religious belief is
a genuine option. Suppose he is right. So what?
a. Here is what: When
faced with
* a genuine
option,
(i.e. an option that
is living, forced and momentous),
* which
cannot be decided by reason,
our passional
nature may legitimately be involved in deciding what to believe.
(“passional nature”=df. Our nature as loving, fearing, hoping, desiring, or,
generally, “emotional” beings)
4. Objection from Clifford: you
should only believe in proportion to the evidence. Never let your emotions
contribute to what you believe.
5. James’ reply;
a. everyone,
including Clifford, believes all sorts of things without much or any evidence;
many scientific
beliefs, political beliefs, etc. result from prestige, faith in someone else’s faith, and other non-rational
factors etc.
cf. belief in
telepathy.
b. many
matters are by their very nature undecideable by “reason.”
Examples: she loves me, she loves me
not.
(Why can’t reason decide that, at least in some
cases? Why not just check all the evidence we can find, make valid inferences,
etc. (That is using “reason”)).
c. If in such cases we
are faced with a genuine option, then our passional nature may play a role in
belief formation. (B3a)
6.Religious belief illustrates this
point.
a. religious belief says
the best things
are eternal
b. religious belief says
we are better
off even now if we believe
6a.
7. . Assuming religious beliefs are
a living option for you, then
a. 6b shows that they
are momentous.
Why?
b. is this option
forced? Here is the situation:
AD (avoid being duped)
You can avoid being duped and risk losing an important, vital truth.
OR
VT (vital truth) You can
go for the important vital truth and risk being duped.
So, what is so great
or superior about AD?
AND
c. If you opt for AD
(you refuse to believe), you may put yourself in a position where you never can
collect the evidences for the religious hypothesis.
Analogy:
AD` I can wait until all the
evidence is in that M. is a good woman(or man),
and then decide whether or not to marry M (in which case I may avoid
being duped), but also, I may by my very refusal to get overly involved, put
myself in a position where I cannot get the
relevant evidence
Or
VT` I can ‘opt for M’ without
sufficient evidence, and risk being
duped, but also put myself in a position where I can at least get the best
evidence for M’s goodness.
One thing I CANNOT do;
I cannot refuse to
choose at all. For by adopting AD` I in effect choose to exclude marriage to M.
(Why?)
d. The person for whom religious
belief is a live, momentous option, but refuses to believe, has made a
passional decision in favor of AD. He is motivated by FEAR of being duped into
believing a falsehood (fear is a passion).
e.The believer, on the other hand,
is motivated by a fear of missing out on what might be true, as well as a
desire for something positively valuable (fear and desire are passions).
Therefore, there is
no“being neutral.”
Agnosticism is
Phony
Logically
untenable
The agnostic rule for
truth seeking seems to be itself unreasonable as a policy for dealing with
genuine options. That rule is?.......
HUMAN NATURE
I. DETERMINISM AND
FREE WILL
Questions: p. 116-18
1. Three positions:
A. Determinism (distinguish from
fatalism, predestination). Modern determinism and science. Science looks for
‘LAWS.’ Human beings and the unification of science.
B. Libertarianism (indeterminism,
free will-ism)
C. Compatibilism
(what is “compatible”
with what?)
Position A examined. Determinism:
a. the kinds of “forces” that work
on human beings include ?
b. d’Holbach : humans are “chained”
by law.
i. the ‘will’ is nothing
more than a condition, state, “modification” of, the __________
ii. what explains the
person who refuses to drink?
iii what explains the
action of Mutius Scaevola?
3. Libertarianism (position B)
Reid: in defense of free
will.
a. five points in favor of free will
b. the answer to 3.9
c. limits to freedom: think about
the circumstances that provide excuses.
4.
a. When I am not “externally
constrained” I am free.
b. When my actions proceed “from my
own character” I am free.
c. Problem: “Free action” on the
compatibilist view is not free after all. Illustrate the point.
5. Another position:
A. Frankfurt:
determinism and second order desires. Such desires are a necessary condition
for freedom of the will.
i. examples of second
order desires:
ii. second order volitions and
freedom of the will: only when I will one desire to win out over another, and
succeed, can I be said to have freedom
of the will.
Example:
iii. freedom of action and freedom
of the will: example-I can eat all the ice cream I want (there is plenty
available, no one is preventing me, etc.). So I have freedom of action in this
case. But I might not have freedom of the will. Example:
iv.. Responsibility and free will;
consider the willing addict – freedom of action? Yes. Free will? Yes. Even if
he wanted a different will, he could not have it. But, he is responsible for
having the will he has. He is doing what he wants, and he wants to want to do that.
v. Why does freedom of the will
matter? Because it matters that we be able to want (second order) what we want
(first order) and to make that second order want effective, make it our “will.”
We care about having a harmonious self. We do not want to be in conflict within, with first
order desires saying one thing, second order desires the opposite. I DO care
that I not be driven around by my first order wants or desires. (Unlike other animals and “wantons”).
Summing up: Suppose
Tony shot Delia (twas on a Saturday night). What should we say about Tony and
his action? Did he act freely (could he have done otherwise)? Did he have
freedom of the will when he acted? Can he be held responsible for what he did?
Determinist: T’s
action was the result of environmental and hereditary forces operating on him.
He cannot be held responsible since he could not have done otherwise.
Compatibilist (soft
determinist): Unless T was being compelled in some way (someone kidnapped his
family and said ‘shoot Delia or they will all die”, or unless he was acted upon
by some other force imposed upon him (someone slipped some kind of drug into
his Pepsi) T can be said to have acted freely and can be held responsible for
his act. However, could he have done
otherwise????
Simple indeterminist
or Libertarian: Assuming T was not being coerced, T was himself the source of
his action, probably. He freely chose to shoot Delia. He could have chosen
otherwise. Therefore he is fully responsible.
Frankfurt: The
traditional debate, as illustrated in the previous three positions, is
defective. If T wanted to shoot Delia, and also wanted to marry her (he shot
her when he found her with another guy, say), and nothing would have prevented
him from fulfilling either of those wants, then he may have acted freely when he
shot her, but he may have lacked freedom of the will. How come? Well, suppose he really wanted his desire to
marry her to win out over his desire to shoot her. That was the desire he
identified with. He regarded the desire to shoot her as alien to who he really
was, so when he did it he felt as though it was not really him who was acting.
Instead he felt caught up in a passion which overwhelmed him, so that he could
not have the will he wanted to have. In such a case he lacked freedom of the
will, even though he acted freely. When tried in court, he might well get a
reduced sentence – why?
WEEK IV
Selfhood. The Self as
Active Being
1. The self as
“Spirit” (Kierkegaard)
a. The self is a constant striving
to “relate itself to itself.”
b. The self as given, the self as an
ideal. Cf. “a synthesis of freedom and necessity.”
1.Does it matter to you what kind of
person you are?
2. Are you the kind of person you
want to be now?
3. If the answer to #2 is ‘NO’, what is
holding you back? (bad habits, bad influences from the past or present etc.?)
c. Despair as a “misrelation” in the
relation. Two main types:
i. I weakly refuse to
take up the task (to be all I was meant to be)
ii. I defiantly will to
be as I am. Presupposes revolt against X. What could X be?
d. The universality of despair.
i. Think of the lazy
and complacent. (everything is going fine, etc.)
ii. Think of the constant “unrest” in human
life.
Examples:
d. there is no
“immediate health of spirit”
means?
Week V
1. The Self as Worker
(Marx)
a. Capitalist production and
“alienation.”
i. Factory production –
labor as a “cost.”
ii. Alienation – means?(175-76)
b. How humans differ from other
animals –
i. Humans construct
their lives, they do not just “live.”
ii. man only truly
produces in freedom from need. Self
fulfilling labor.
c. Humans are essentially social,
belong in commun ity. Socialism, communism as the economic arrangement in which
humans realize their essence.
i. wages, private property, and alienation.
d. summing up “alienation”
under capitalism,
people are alienated from
1.
2.
3.
e. summing up the solution.
2. The self as Will
to Power (Nietzsche)
a. “Venerations” and weakness –
examples (181-82)
b. strength, will, freedom.
c. is this “nihilism”?
THE SELF CONNECTED
WITH A LARGER REALITY
1. The Self-God
(Upanishads)
a. Metaphors for the union of the
(supposedly individual) self and the Divine (atman-Bhraman).
i.
ii.
iii.
b. Everything is “God” (pantheism).
Including “you, my son” (at the deepest
level)
2. Ghandi – the Isa
Upanishad
a. the four parts
i. pantheist
union-implies
ii all is from God as
gift to all
iii so, no coveting
iv renounce private claims, acknowledge God in
all, be reborn.
b. Education, “mukti,” service.
c. God everywhere makes everything
sacred, including nature.
3. Chuang-Tzu -
Taoism
a. Acceptance of “nature” and are
place in natural process.
i. how to live? Go with
the flow!
ii. don’t try to make
your surroundings conform to you. Vice versa. Be passive rather than active.
iii. “loosen the rope.”
Don’t be in bondage to “life” in any sense.
4. The self and
nature – a non-religious view (
a. Humans are part of nature, not so
different from other animals.
b.
physical similarities, common descent. (no “special creation”)
i. continuous
development, intermediate forms.
c. intellectual similarities.
i. gradation from very
low to very high, with everything in between.
ii. instinct, reasoning,
and conditioning. The pike.
d. emotional similarities.
i. examples – joy
(play), fear, love, pride, shame.
ii. anthropomorphizing –
e. what are the ethical implications
of
Chapter IV
Mind and Body-20th cent. Views.
1. Ryle - Logical behaviorism
a. Descartes, the mind as non-physical, and
behavior.
b. “dispositions” to
behave=thoughts. Illustrate.
c. category mistakes –
illustrate
2. Mind /brain identity
a. Reductionism –
examples
b. reducing the mental
to the physical – “microphysical” brain states.
c. problems –
3. Eliminative
materialism –
a. “Folk psychology” (our ordinary
conceptions of the mental, used to explain human behavior) is a bad theory, and
should be eliminated. To illustrate:
i. I have a theory about
why George is in class. The theory is that he is in class because he thinks he has a better chance of passing
if he attends class.
His behavior is explained by using a folk psychological
concept, i.e. ‘thinks.”
ii. My theory is a BAD
theory. Folk psychology concepts can explain certain things but completely fail
to explain other things, e.g. non-responsiveness to certain aural stimulations
in brain damaged people, or even such a thing as aspect blindness in a normal
person.
iii. Therefore, we should abandon folk
psychology. (cf. abandonment of phologiston chemistry). THAT MEANS that we should give up references
to “beliefs” “thoughts” “hopes”
iv. All that exists is a
physical (material) world that includes such things as neuronal events.
4. Functionalism
A. It is a mistake to IDENTIFY a
mental event with a particular brain event.
1. It is a mistake to
identify a valve lifter with a camshaft.
B. mental states are functional
states.
1. consider the machine
states of a coke machine.
Input – internal
relations of states – output
.50 move from a to state b
.25 coke
2. think of state b as a
“desire” for a quarter. What matters to being in that state is the
relationships between inputs, internal states or program, and outputs. Mental states are functional states in this
sense.
5. Intentionality
A. Brentano – thoughts, beliefs,
feelings, are always “about” something, directed “on” something–
Examples:
1. contrast with
physical things. Examples: a stone.
A tree.
A planet.
2. what follows?
5. Minds and Machines
A. Humans as machines – Huxley
1. “Mind like” activity
in a frog with severed nerves.
2. “Mind like” activity
in a brain damaged human.
3. what can you do
without a “mind” (or, consciousness?)
4. “epiphenomenalism” Consciousness and train smoke.
B. Wittgenstein/Ziff
1. Could the number 17
feel pain?
2. What kinds of things can feel tired, or feel
pain?
a. living things
b. things that cannot be
taken apart, rearranged, reprogrammed etc.
c. Imagine your fellow
worker (an android, unknown to you!) expressing tiredness (Miller time, buddy!)
Ques. What else besides that behavior do you
need to know about before you will say ‘he is tired’?
Ans.
C. Searle: The Chinese Room
1. Any device, like the
“Chinese room” that operates on purely formal input and produces purely formal
output cannot have “intentionality”
a. what does “formal” mean?
b. what does “intentionality” mean?
Give an example.
c. the people in the room do not
understand Chinese. Could the room, the people, the rule books etc. all taken
together understand Chinese?
2. No machine that operates on
purely formal input, and nothing more, has any understanding of anything.
a. Would it matter if the machine
had the same “structure” as a human brain, according to Searle? What is his
example?
3. The belief that devices that operate on
“meaningless” input could understand, believe etc. is encouraged by confusions
about “information processing.”
a. two senses of ‘information processing.’
(Wittgenstein, Searle)
1.
2.
D. Haugeland:
AI and “holism”
1. Understanding (grasping
“meanings”) requires appreciation of “wholes.”
a. holism of intentional
interpretation – illustrate
b. common sense holism-
cf. ‘the box is in the pen’
‘though her blouse
draped stylishly, her pants seemed painted on.”
Got it?
c. situation holism –
The Bond movie.
d. existentialism holism
– example p. 311-12.
Week XI
Theory of Knowledge
(Epistemology)
1. First reactions (316-317)
2. Empiricism – Knowledge and
perception. Locke, Hume.
a. what is perception? The senses –
examples;
b. Searle – confusions about perception.
1. perception is not the “passive reception
of data.”
2. perception and
a. expectations
b. background and training. Examples:
3. Ques. What, besides truth and
belief, is required for knowledge?
Some answers, briefly
sketched:
a. justification
1.
foundationalism
2. coherentism
b. warrant
c. intellectual virtues
4. Knowledge and
intellectual virtues (Zagzebski).
a. Ethical concepts and epistemology
1. Deontological
concepts
Act centered
2. Consequentialist
concepts
Also act
centered
3. Virtues
Character
centered
b. Advantages of a virtues approach.
1. Virtue concepts are “thick”
As opposed to “thin” ethical
concepts. Illustrations:
2. There are no strict
rules for achieving knowledge – compare virtues vs rules in ethics.
Illustrations:
3. Virtue concepts are
“personal.” The place of wisdom (as
opposed to impersonal “rationality” or possession of truth). Illustrations:
a. notice
that while knowledge seems to increase over time, wisdom does not.
b. knowledge
can be misused; can wisdom?
4. cognitive integration-some aspects of
epistemic evaluation refer to such things as ability to balance various
beliefs, conduciveness to understanding of various beliefs, etc.
5. cognitive power (cf.
Dennis and Christopher) cf. q. 115. Are Dennis and Christopher EQUAL in their
knowledge of T (the set of true beliefs they share)?
c. Supposed disanalogies between
intellectual and moral vitues
1. Knowledge is often
thought to be “cool” and require getting rid of feelings. Virtues are “warm”.
Is that right? Do right feelings help produce knowledge, wrong ones block it?
Examples.
a. moral virtues concepts stress importance
of feelings. Q. 119. But they also
stress intelligence.
2. Moral virtues cannot
be taught. Intellectual traits can be taught. Oh?
a. The
really valuable intellectual traits are “caught”, not taught.
d. examples of intellectual vices
and virtues;
1. Some virtues seem to
be a mean between extremes; (intellectual) cowardice vs. (intellectual)
rashness.
2. Training of feelings
necessary for acquiring knowledge.
e. A Definition of Knowledge
Knowledge is a state of
cognitive contact with reality arising out of acts of intellectual virtue.
Problem: are there
not people with intellectual vices
who acquire knowledge through those vices? E.g. noseyness. Or compulsive collection
of facts (uncle Toby).
Response: such people
have intellectual virtues (e.g. careful observation) but also vices. The nosey
person is motivated by desire for the truth (good motive) and by, say, envy
(bad). These are examples of mixed motives.
The social
construction of knowledge.
Opposed to the
STANDARD VIEW, particularly in the sciences.
That is the view that
scientists
i. are motivated only by a desire to
learn the truth
ii. do not bring any biases to their
work, (they are “objective”, not subjective)
iii. have a method that protects
them from bias
iv. build on the work of previous
scientists in order to get better and better accounts of what the world is
really like.
v. scientific change occurs when
older views are overthrown by the evidence against them.
Kuhn rejects the
standard view.
a. Kuhn – Scientific
revolutions are the result of “paradigm” shifts.
What is a
“paradigm?”
a. dominant ways of thinking about what
counts as a problem worth investigating
b. certain standard examples used in
teaching a theory
c. certain favored ways of viewing
the “data”
d.
social factors (politics, power, peer pressure, age of a scientist (old
ones like old theories they developed!?),
e. asking certain kinds of questions
and ignoring others,a way of looking at the data … cf. TOOT) f. particular vocabularies,
g. exaggeration of problems with new
views, discounting of problems with old views,
and other factors, all taken
together, constitute
paradigms.
Two examples.
I. Ptolomaic
astronomy vs Copernican ideas.
i. social pressures - church and scientific community
ii.big problems with new view- e.g
the problem of earth’s rotation on new view, etc. Exaggerate or minimize?
iii. way of looking – how does it
look? Sunset or earthturn? (what a lovely earthturn). Does the earth shine?
Does Mars?
iv. vocabularly. Earth (dirt,
element, fixed object). Sphere.
v. what problems are worth worrying
about? Epicycles? Apparent brightness of Venus?
Copernicus Ptolemey (150 1550 CE CE)
Retrograde
motion-Ptolemaic
Retrograde motion,
Copernican or heliocentric account.
There is no “fact of
the matter” proved by observation.
II. Darwin now(?)
i. social prestige, peer pressure.
ii. Making the data fit the theory,
rather than vice versa (how you see gone bonkers).
e.g. Haeckel’s
fraudulent drawings and modern biology texts.
Ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny
But, Kuhn says,
ii. there is
no theory-free knowledge (cf. again, Searle, gestalt)
its all in
how you see it. How you see it reflects your (social) interests etc.
Conclusion: quotes
from Kuhn
5. Soakal
1. social factors may
influence research, but they are not decisive.
That is true at least
of the “hard” sciences – physics, etc.
2. The fact that science
is “infected” by social factors does not show that no objective truth is ever
attained. Cf. military influences and atomic research.
ETHICS
I. Moral relativism –
two kinds.
a. Sextus – there is
nothing good by “nature” (cf x is cold)
b. Montaigne – “Custom”
is king.
c. the pattern of
argument in Sextus and Montaigne:
i. people have varying moral customs
(beliefs, standards).
THEREFORE
ii. there are no objectively right
moral customs (beliefs, standards).
Ques. Does ii follow from i?
d. Mackie – ii does
not follow deductively from i. But i does give inductive support to ii.
1. Moral
disagreements are not like disagreements in the sciences, for example. In what way?
II. Against
Relativism (Rachels)
a.
relativist ideas are expressed in a variety of ways: (add your own)
b. the “cultural
differences argument” is unsound. An
argument from analogy: state it!
c. Some
(bad)consequences of taking cultural relativism (CR) seriously.
1. If CR
is true, we could never condemn the practices of a different society. So, is that so bad?
Examples:
2. If CR
is true, we can determine what is right or wrong just by consulting our social
rules. Examples:
So what?
3. If CR
is true, there can be no such thing as moral progress. Why not?
So what?
d. Cultural
relativists overestimate the moral differences between cultures. Examples;
For further examples, see Phil 110 page, link to “moral relativism,
tolerance etc.”
Tolerance-
Multiculturalism –
Accepting differences –
e. All cultures (societies) have some moral beliefs in common.
Examples:
How come?
III. Egoism and
altruism
a. Hobbes – egoism
1. Pity –
rooted in?
2. Charity –
rooted in?
3.
Tautological egoism
4.
Psychological egoism
Ques. How should one
respond to a.3? a.4?
b.
1. self love
is a “general affection” – a desire for ?
2. love of
others (altruism) is a particular affection
a.
examples of particular affections.
3. the
“hedonistic paradox”
4.
confusions about the relations between self love and happiness, egoism,
selfishness.
a.
“benevolence” (love of others) may actually increase happiness in benevolent
person.
Notice: 2 and 1 are “made for each
other.” 3 is made for 2. 4 for 3. All are to be understood in relation to one
another.
IV. Virtues and traditions (MacIntyre).
a. Virtues and the good for a whole
life (the nature of a virtue).
b. human action embedded in story or narrative q. 85
1. learning to live
virtuously through learning stories.
c. “quests” as searches for the good
of a “whole life.”
d. virtues, communal stories, and
community.
e. virtues, “practices” and
traditions.
f. illustration: the people of Le
Chambon. Notice the adjectives used to
describe these people. Notice how they describe themselves.
Relevant concepts:
1. virtue
2. a “whole life”
3. a whole life and
narrative
4. learning to live
(well or badly, virtuously or viciously) from examples, including those given
in communally shared stories, traditions.
Notice:
2 and 1 are “made for each other.” 3 is made for 2. 4 for 3. All are to be
understood in relation to one another.
Planned Parenthood vs. Casey 1992
These matters involving the most intimate and personal
choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity
and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence,
of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about
these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed
under compulsion of the state.
V. Utilitarianism
(Mill)
a. actions are right in proportion
as they tend to promote ----?
1. “consequentialism”
2. kinds of pleasures
(pains)
b. “higher pleasures” How decide which are higher?
c. rejection of virtue theory – what
ultimately matters is actions
d. rule utilitarianism
Consider
this. There are two types of liberty: one precritical, emotive, whimsical,
proper to children; the other critical, sober, deliberate, responsible, proper
to adults. Alexis de Tocqueville called attention to this alternative early in Democracy
in America, and at Cambridge Lord Acton put it this way:
Social
implications?
There
cannot be a free society among citizens who habitually lie, who malinger, who
cheat, who do not meet their responsibilities, who cannot be counted on, who
shirk difficulties, who flout the law-or who prefer to live as serfs or slaves,
content in their dependency, so long as they are fed and entertained.
POLTICAL PHILOSOPHY
I Justice
1. Rawls: Justice = ?
a. Social contract
b. the original position
and the veil of ignorance.
c. the principles that
emerge are?
2. Justice as entitlement-Nozick
a. distribution is
irrelevant
b. what matters is HOW
someone comes to possess wealth.
1. Justice
in acquisition
2. Justice
in transfer.
c. historical principles
of justice vs. end-result principles.
1. Rawls’
veil of ignorance violates historical principles. How?
3. Justice and Community (Sandel)
a. individualist
conceptions
1. a
person belongs to a community only for what he can get out of it (Hobbesian
egoism).
2. A person
feels something for the community itself (Rawls’ “sentimentalism”)
b. a 1 and a2 ignore
that fact that “individuals” are who they are by virtue of the communities that
have shaped them.
People are bound by
community norms because they are only who they are in community.
II Limits of State
Coercion
Six principles (p.
592-93) for determining when the government can or cannot interfere with the
lives of citizens.
1. Harm principle
2. offense principle.
3. legal paternalism
4. legal moralism.
5. extreme
paternalism
6. welfare principle.
1. Mill – the harm principle.
a. the tyranny of the majority (even
if not expressed in law) must be prevented.
b. the govt should interfere in
individuals’ lives only to prevent harm to others
1. examples of where it
goes beyond that –
2. Problem?
3. Individualism.
“pursue your own good in your own way” p. 605 (cf. Sandel, etc., relativism,
etc.)
4. cf. q. 101
2. Offense to others
(Feinberg)
a. the offense principle = it is the
legitimate business of govt. to prevent offensive conduct (whether it is
“harmful” or not).
b. any offensive conduct?
c. Offenses can be classified
according to
magnitude
avoidability
volenti
element
kinds
of sensibilities
d. offensive nuisances – 1. affronts to the senses. 2. The mere
occurrence of X (something that offends me) is not necessarily offensive. 3.
Thought wrong because it produces the offended reaction, not vice versa.
e. profound offenses – compare to nuisances.
f. problems with the identity of
X. cf. copulating on the bus. Is X ‘copulating on the bus’ or just
‘copulating’?
g. cf. Mill, q. 98.
Likes and dislikes, emotion and morality, etc.
Quizzes, Spring 2008
Quiz 1(1/23)
1. The argument from
evil is an argument purportedly proving that there is no God.
2. Rowe argues that
belief in God
a. involves a logical inconsistency.
b. requires that the believer ignore
very strong inductive evidence against the existence of God
c. is conclusively (logically) refuted
by the meaningless sufferings of animals
d. all of these.
3. Ivan Karamazov claims that looking for
explanations of terrible evils tends to make us less aware of the fact of evil.
Quiz 2 (1/25)
1. Ivan Karamazov’s references
to a “harmony” are to a harmony between
a. What some human planned to happen
and what we experience
b. What God plans and the evil we
experience
c. What sounds good in music and
what is good.
d. all of these
2. A theodicy is an
attempt to justify the ways of a good God, given the evil in the world.
Quiz 3 (1/30)
1. When I hear my
wife’s voice on the phone, I have good reason to believe I am talking to my
wife, that she actually exists, even though I cannot say how I identify those
sounds as her voice. According to Swineburn, the mystic
a. has the same kind of reason for
believing God exists
b. must be able to say how he knows
that he has been in contact with God, rather than hallucinating
c. is as entitled to the principle
of credulity as I am when on the phone
d. all of these
e. a and c.
2. According to
James, the religious “option” is or can be
a. forced
b. momentous
c. living
d. all of these.
3. Intelligent design
theories claim that there are features of the world that are best explained by
postulating that those features were produced by [an] intelligence.
QZ 4(Feb. 1)
1. The fine tuning
argument focuses on adaptive features in particular organisms.
2. According to
James, it is wrong, always, to
a. believe on insufficient evidence
b. allow emotions to be involved in
belief formation
c. believe at the risk of being
wrong, rather than refuse to believe in order to avoid error
d. all of these
e. none of these.
Qz V (2/6)
1. Modern determinism
is largely the result of scientific ways of thinking.
2. d’Holbach
a. was a determinist
b. believed that supposed cases of
the exercise of “will power” are not what they appear to be
c. argued that a person who follows
their own desires is free
d. all of these
e. a and b.
3. If I can do what I
want to do, then I must have free will.
Qz VI (2/8)
1. According to Reid,
if I do not have free will, then I might as well deliberate about other
people’s actions as my own.
2. Compatibilists
hold that determinism and freedom of the will are compatible with one another.
3. I am free (and
responsible), according to compatibilists, just in case
(a) I am not
constrained by external forces
(b) I am doing what I
want to do
(c) There is no explanation
of my actions in terms of physical causes (brain states, etc.)
(d) a and b.
QZ 9 (2/25)
1. Many eastern
religions (India, China etc.) stress the union of all individuals in the whole,
which may be supreme being (or God).
2. Darwin argued that
there are no fundamental differences
a. between the emotions of humans and the emotions of higher animals
b. between the ways lower animals and humans learn
c. between the way humans run and lizards run
d. all of these
e. a and b.
3. One question that
often arises in thinking about the mind is this: could mental events be nothing
more than brain events.
QZ 11 (3/17)
1. Huxley conjectures
that the frog in the experiments that he mentions is a “mere insensible
machine” since it
a. lacks common sense
b. behaves
purposefully even though its spinal cord is severed
c. acts in a
mechanical fashion
d. none of these.
2. Ziff argued that a
robot could not feel tired since it is a machine and no machine can feel
anything.
3. Searle’s “Chinese room”
is a thought experiment intended to show that no mere “program” could
understand a language.
Qz 12 (3/19)
1. Haugeland argues
that
(a) the grasp of meanings requires
relating parts to wholes
(b)understanding a sentence like
“the box is in the pen” may require a grasp of the whole “situation” in which
it is uttered
(c) understanding terms like
“sheepish” requires that one has actually been a sheep
(d) a and b.
2. The kinds of
linguistic competence that a programmed computer lacks are only the kinds that
people like Einstein and Shakespeare have, not the kinds ordinary folk
have.
3. Lycan argues that
a computer might have thoughts and beliefs if it was “raised” in a sufficiently
complex physical and social environment.
Qz. 13 (3/26)
1. Kuhn argues that
there is steady progress in science, so that our knowledge of what the world is
really like increases day by day.
2. The triumph of
Copernican (heliocentric) over Ptolomaic (geocentric) astronomy was entirely
due to the discovery of new evidence against the Ptolomaic view.
3. Soakal claimed
that
a. the physical
sciences are obviously “socially constructed”
b. the social
sciences involve a lot of social construction
c. the fact that
scientific work serves various social (e.g. political) purposes does not in
itself detract from the objective truth of science
d. all of these
e. b and c.
QZ 14 (3/31)
1. . According to
Hobbes, charitable acts are motivated by a desire for power over people.
2. Some relativists think
that differences in moral beliefs prove relativism.
3. Rachels argues
that relativism does not conflict with any of our ordinary intuitions about
such things as moral progress, etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Quizzes, Spring 2006
Quiz 1
1. The argument from
evil
(a) is an argument against theism
(b) assumes that a perfectly good
etc. God would not permit any evil to exist
(c) assumes God is smart
(d) all of these
(e) a and b.
Qz II
1. Compatibilists
claim that since determinism is true there can be no sense in which humans are
free to choose.
2. d’Holbach
a. was a determinist
b. believed that cases of the
exercise of “will power” are not what they appear to be
c. argued that a person who follows
their own desires is free
d. all of these
e. a and b.
Qz III
1. According to Marx,
the fact that workers do not own the product of their own labor causes them to
be
a. unemployed
b. alienated
c. proud of what they have produced
d. all of these.
“The self is a relation that relates itself to
itself.”
2. The preceding
quote
a. is from Kierkegaard
b. amounts to the claim that human
beings typically strive to merge their actual selves with some ideal self that
attracts them
c. implies that human “self hood” is
an achievement, not something that happens automatically
d. all of these.
3. Marx argued that
under capitalism workers are alienated from the produce of their work.
QZ IV
1. Many eastern
religions (
2.
a. between the emotions of humans and of higher animals
b. between the ways lower animals and humans learn
c. between the way humans run and lizards run
d. all of these
e. a and b.
3. Nietzsche thought
religion was OK so long as the believer was sincere and really committed.
QZ. V (Fri. Mar. 3)
1. Huxley conjectures
that the frog in the experiments that he mentions is a “mere insensible
machine” since it
a. lacks common sense
b. behaves
purposefully even though its spinal cord is severed
c. acts in a
mechanical fashion
d. none of these.
2. Ziff argued that a
robot could not feel tired since it is a machine and no machine can feel
anything.
3. Searle’s “Chinese
room” is a thought experiment intended to show that no mere “program” could
understand a language.
QZ VI (March 10)
1. Haugeland argues that
(a) the grasp of
meanings requires relating parts to wholes
(b)understanding a
sentence like “the box is in the pen” may require a grasp of the whole
“situation” in which it is uttered
(c) understanding
terms like “sheepish” requires that one has actually been a sheep
(d) a and b.
2. Haugeland is claiming that a necessary condition for understanding a
language is the ability to grasp “wholes” rather than just “bits” of
“information.”
Qz. VII (Mar. 20)
1. The TOOT in Searle’s essay illustrates how what we perceive depends upon
a. our background
b. the condition of
our retinas
c. the distance of
perceived objects
d. all of these.
2. The following are examples of intellectual virtues:
(a) patience
(b) a tendency to
always doubt testimony
(c) dogmatism
(d) all of these.
3. It is obvious that Mr. Truetemp
a. knows what he
knows about the temperature because he is intellectually virtuous
b. understands how
he came to have the knowledge he has
c. is to be admired
and praised for his very accurate knowledge
d. none of these.
QZ VIII(Mon. Mar. 27)
1. Kuhn argues that there is steady progress in science, so that our
knowledge of what the world is really like increases day by day.
2. A scientific paradigm is constituted by such things as
a. entrenched ways
of interpreting data
b. socially
approved sets of theories and beliefs
c. paramilitary
approaches to problems
d. all of these
e. a and b.
3. According to Soakal social constructionism in the hard sciences is
mostly nonsense.
QZ 9 (Wed. April 5).
1. According to Butler, the view that humans are always motivated by
egoistic or selfish impulses is probably due to
a. the mistaken
assumption that self-love is a particular affection
b. confusing acting
selfishly, with acting in a way that interests me or matters to me.
c. the belief that
humans are always selfish
d. all of these
e. a and b.
2. According to MacIntyre, it is crucially important that life be
unified in some way.
3. According to
a. self love
b. liking to play
tennis
c. enjoying
conversation with my roommate
d. all of these
e. b and c.
QZ 10 (Fri. April 7)
1. A virtue is a character trait that persists through time.
2. According to MacIntyre, the acquisition of virtues is made possible
by such things as
a. family stories
that model those virtues
b. stories that
show how past, present and future are connected in a whole life
c. a cultural
tendency to divide life into stages
d. a and b.
Qz 11 (Wed. April 19)
1. Mill considers happiness to consist in pleasure, with all pleasures
being equal.
2. According to Mill, we should always
calculate the consequences of any
contemplated action.
3. Rawls argues that
a. justice is a
matter of fairness
b. fairness
requires being unbiased
c. justice requires
being unbiased
d. all of these.
QZ 12. (Mon. April
24)
1. Nozick argues that
justice is a
a.fair distribution of benefits and
burdens
b. a matter of how wealth is
acquired and/or transferred
c. the result of government actions
that redistribute wealth
d. all of these.
2. Sandel argues that
a person’s identity is a function of their communal relations and history.
3. Mill argued that people
should be free to do whatever they want so long as no harm to others results.
Questions for Exam I Phil. 120
1. Define the following: determinism; indeterminism; soft
determinism or compatibilism.
2. The soft determinist claims that as long as I act from my own desires and
intentions, my actions are free. How does the determinist reply to this claim?
3.
4.
5. Explain the following: “the self is a relation which
relates itself to itself.” In your explanation mention the notion of what
is “necessary in the self” and “possibility.”
6. What does Kierkegaard mean by “despair?”
7. Define the following: alienation; homo faber; capitalist.
8. How, according to Marx, does labor under capitalism alienate the worker from
(a) the product of his work (b) his work itself (c) other workers (d)
capitalists?
9. Why, according to Nietzsche, do “venerations” get in the way of
self-assertion?
10. What does the Taoist mean by “loosening the rope.”?
11. What is meant by the expression ‘you are that’ in the Upanishads?
12.
13.
14. What is problematic in Darwin’s claim that a “dog can
feel shame, as opposed to fear?”
15. How does Darwin’s account of the way a pike learns supposedly support his
view that there is no fundamental difference between humans and other animals?
16. Explain Marx’s claim that under capitalism the laborer “in his human
functions feels himself to be nothing more than an animal.”
17. Illustrate how, according to
18. Define the following: premise; conclusion; inductive argument; valid deductive argument; reduction to absurdity; refutation by counterexample.
I. MINDS, MACHINES, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)
a. Huxley – animals, and people, can perform many complex actions even
when not fully conscious (when brain damaged, when spinal cord is severed,
etc.). THEREFORE, it is plausible to assume that consciousness is an insignificant
feature of humans. Humans are basically machines.
b. Wittgenstein and Ziff – both argue that ‘a machine could not think’ is not an empirical claim. We do not know it is true via an empirical study of machines. It is more like ‘the number 17 could not feel tired.’ We know this is true because of our grasp of concepts, of how we use words. Ziff points out that we could not seriously claim that something which is clearly a machine, could feel tired (for example). KNOW HIS ARGUMENTS FOR THAT CLAIM!
c. Searle – Focuses on intentionality of the mental. Thoughts, beliefs, etc. (and also the sentences or utterances we use to express them) are about something, directed upon an object. His thought here is close to Brentano. The “Chinese room” argument shows that a Turing machine, a device which processes input according to some program and produces appropriate output, could not have intentionality. If its output consisted of written or spoken words, it could not know what those words were about or what they meant. That would be so even if the machine passed the “Turing test” i.e. we could not distinguish its behavior from that of a native speaker of a language. KNOW SEARLE’S ARGUMENTS FOR THIS CLAIM!
d. Lycan – agrees with Searle that merely instantiating a program (processing input, producing output etc) is not sufficient for thought or belief. But, a machine or robot that has a structure that mimicked that of the human brain might have thoughts. A difference in the kind of stuff used to build the robot should not make a difference to the possibility of thought. What is required is a complex thing which interacts with the environment in complex ways that are similar to the ways we interact.
e. Haugeland – he wants to show the limitations of AI, by showing that
no machine could handle language the way humans do. Linguistic knowledge
is “holistic.” In order to understand individual words I must understand how
they fit in sentences. In order to understand that, I must have a pretty good
grasp of how sentences fit into larger “wholes” such as stories or essays.
Certain difficulties with language translation programs show that computers or
robots or androids cannot relate parts to wholes in the ways necessary for
linguistic understanding. He distinguishes four different “holisms.” KNOW
WHAT THEY ARE. BE ABLE TO ILLUSTRATE EACH.
EPISTEMOLOGY
Epistemology is the study of knowledge, what it is, how we get it.
It is completely obvious that when I know that, for example, the sun is
shining (call ‘the sun is shining’ ‘S’ for short) then it is the case
that
1. I believe S
2. S is true.
However, I could believe S because it was reported to me by a very unreliable
source, or because I dreamed it and didn’t realize it was a dream, or for all
sorts of other bizarre reasons. Even though such sources of my belief
that S are unreliable, they might in this instance be right, since maybe the
sun IS shining. But do I KNOW it? Most people would say NO, since I am not
JUSTIFIED in believing it. I ought not to believe things told me by unreliable
people, for example. So it seems natural to add a third element in the
definition of knowledge; I know S just in case both 1 and 2 hold, and
furthermore
3. I am justified in believing S.
This analysis or definition of knowledge is called the JTB analysis. Knowledge
is Justified True Belief.
Much of the history of epistemology has consisted in an attempt to show
that we can, (or cannot, in the case of skepticism) be justified in at least
some of our beliefs, and, to show how we can be justified (or, why we cannot).
One of the most common ways of justifying a belief is by claiming to have seen or, more generally, perceived, something. Thus I would be justified in believing S if I had actually just seen, or am seeing, that the Sun is out.
This section begins with a discussion of perception. It turns out that perception is more complicated than we ordinarily think.
a. Searle on perception – Empiricists like Locke have supposed that
when I perceive a tree, for example, I do not directly perceive the tree;
rather, I perceive an “idea” of the tree in my mind, an idea which is
supposedly caused, normally, by the tree causally interacting with my
nervous system. They hold this view primarily because of
SCEPTICISM. Sceptics have pointed out that I can have exactly the same
experiences when a tree is present and when it is not. I could be
hallucinating, or dreaming, for instance. They also use other arguments. KNOW
THEM! These arguments have led empiricists to look for something that true or
“veridical” perceptions, on the one hand, and hallucinations etc.on the
other, have in common. They have supposed that what they have in common is the
same mental content, the same “idea”, and thus in both cases what is perceived
is that idea. I thus never directly perceive a tree, even when there is one
right in front of me!
Searle refuses to let sceptical arguments lead him to the idea that I
never directly perceive a tree. On his view, when I see a tree I directly
perceive the tree. On those rare occasions when I seem to see a tree, but
there isn’t one, I simply have a peculiar experience which is like that of
seeing a tree, but even then I am not seeing an “idea” of a tree. I am just
having an experience similar to the one I have when actually seeing a tree.
Perception, Searle insists, is intentional. It is directed upon
something. Perceptions have conditions of satisfaction, just like beliefs and
statements do. When I am perceiving a tree and there is a tree in front of me,
then one of the conditions of satisfaction for that perception is fulfilled.
When I am hallucinating a tree then one of the conditions of satisfaction for
that experience is missing. Similarly, if I have a belief that there is a tree
in front of me, one of the conditions of satisfaction is that there be a tree
in front of me.
There is this difference between beliefs and perceptions; one of
the conditions of satisfaction for my perceptions is that they be caused by
their content. If my perception that there is a tree is caused by there being a
tree, then one of the conditions is met. But if it was caused by a drug, say,
then even if there is a tree in front of me, it would not be the case that I
see the tree (I am too busy hallucinating to see much of anything). That
is however NOT the case with beliefs. It is not one of the conditions of
satisfaction of my belief that there is a tree there that that belief be
caused by a tree being there.
WHY NOT? Give an example.
An important point made by Searle is that perception is not simply a passive
reception of data, but is active and involves background and expectations. The
TOOT example, and the gestalt drawings, illustrate that point. WHAT I see
usually depends upon my background, other things I know or have experienced,
what I am expecting, and so forth.
Thus, an illiterate person COULD NOT see the TOOT drawing as an English word.
WHY NOT?
Terms to know, Concepts to Define
Alienation (Marx)
*Relativism
* Intentionality
Identity theory
Logical behaviorism
Determinism
Simple indeterminism
Compatibilism (soft determinism)
AI research
*Consequentialism
Utilitarianism
Virtue Ethics
Ecological philosophy
*Holism
Ecological
Common sense
Semantic
Situational
Existential
* Foundationalism
Internalism in epistemology
Externalism in epistemology
Virtue epistemology
Criteria of personal identity
Sentience
Anthropomorphism
*Folk Psychology
Eliminative materialism
Scepticism
Turing Machine test
Communalism
Harm principle
Principle of offense
Libertarianism
Egalitarianism
True(a) or False (b)
Phil. 120, Test 1
True(a) or False (b)
1.Identity theorists in the
philosophy of mind hold that mental events are identical with specific brain
events.
2. Ryle argued that mental
“states” are actually complex dispositions to behave in various ways.
3. Compatibilists claim that human actions are free since they are uncaused.
4. Second order desires are desires that
are of secondary importance to a person.
5. Some thinkers have argued that since there is evil in this world, and it was
created by an all good God, it must be the case that those evils are necessary
conditions for goods that could not exist any other way.
6.Darwin argued that there is no sharp qualitative
difference between humans and other animals.
7.To anthropomorphize is to attribute animal qualities to humans.
8.Nietzsche thought that most people are weak and need to belong to a “herd” in
order to feel strong.
9. The notion of “information” coming through
the eyes (for example) breeds confusion, according to Wittgenstein and Searle.
10 An android could actually
feel tired after lifting a feather.
11. Kierkegaard thinks that a person is in despair only if they feel despairing,
12. The Hindu view of the unity of man with God encourages extreme individualism.
13. A good example of Taoist advice might be, ‘go with the flow, man.’
14. James argued that religious belief is only rational when it is based on sufficient evidence.
15. Marx is interested in communism primarily as the solution to the problem of alienation.
16. The argument from design is an argument meant to show that there must be a God.
17. On
18. Reid points out that one reason for thinking that determinism is false is that if it were true, it would be pointless to deliberate before acting, but of course it is not pointless.
19. A mind/body dualist would
agree with the identity theory.
20. The “free will defense” is one kind of “greater goods” theodicy.
Multiple Choice
(choose the best answer)
21. James argues that it is just as reasonable to commit to religious beliefs and risk being wrong as it is to
(A) reject religion out of fear of being wrong and risk losing an important truth
(B) commit to another person and risk being wrong about him or her
(C) risk being right
(D) all of these
(E) A and B.
2. Atheism naturally goes together with
(A)theism
(B)materialism
(C)bromidism
(D)all of these.
23. Kierkegaard and Marx differ on the source of human misery since
(A) Marx is an individualist
(B) Kierkegaard denies that changes in social or economic arrangements will produce “health of spirit”
(C) Kierkegaard thinks that improved working conditions will resolve human anxieties
(D) all of the above.
24. When I assert “If A then B (e.g. A=’a thought is occurring’ and.B=’a brain event is taking place’)” I am claiming that
(A) A is a necessary condition for B
(B) B is a necessary condition for A
(C) B is a sufficient condition for A
(D)None of these.
25. When we think about such issues as the nature of the mind, of feeling and thinking, and about what sorts of things could have feelings or be happy, our thinking may profitably, and naturally, involve us
(A) in trying to imagine various possibilities, such as the possibility that plants might feel
(B) in bringing together metaphysical, epistemological and ethical issues
(C) in a philosophical “can of worms”
(D) all of the above.
Study the following numbered quotes, and answer the
questions about each
which follow.
#I "The self is
a relation which relates itself to itself..."
26. What Kierkegaard is claiming in this statement is that
(A)to be a self is to be actively involved in pursuing some ideal or
improved way of being
(B)the finite particular "self' which I actually am at any moment is
constantly reaching out to some imagined self (trying to "be like so and
so", for instance).
(C)selves are related to themselves like brother to sister
(D)A and B.
27. The view of the self suggested by this quote is
(A)incompatible with the notion that a human is a machine
(B)incompatible with the notion that people are simply the product of
heredity and environment
(C)incompatible with the claim that immediate health of spirit is
possible
(D)all of these.
II " Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the scholastics of the
Middle Ages referred to as the intentional (and also mental) inexistence of the
object, and what we, although with not quite unambiguous expressions, would
call relation to a content, direction upon an object (which is not here to be
understood as a reality) or immanent objectivity. …This intentional inexistence
is exclusively characteristic of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon
manifests anything similar. Consequently, we can define mental phenomena by
saying that they are such phenomena as include an object intentionally within
themselves.
28.This quote is from
(A) Fodor
(B)Searle
(C)Brentano
(D)none of these
29.The author of this quote is trying to show that
(A) mental phenomena have something physical phenomena lack
(B) thoughts, beliefs, desires, etc. are always about something or directed upon some object
(C) it is possible for thoughts etc. to be directed upon non-existent as well as existent “things
(D) all of these.
#III "one could
imagine a delight and a power of self determining, and a freedom of will
whereby a spirit could bid farewell to every belief, to every wish for
certainty, accustomed as it would be to support itself on slender cords and
possibilities, and to dance even on the verge of abysses. Such a spirit would
be the free spirit par excellence.
30.This quote is quite obviously from
(A)James
(B)Nietzsche
(C) Ryle
(D)all of these.
31.The point of the remarks in #III is that
(A) in order to achieve true freedom a person must give up all reliance
on “certainties” of all kinds
(B) in order to achieve true freedom of will one must will on ones own,
without relying on any help from systems of belief (religious, ethical,
scientific etc.)
(C) even heavy people should be able to support themselves on slender
cords
(D) A and B.
#IV "As a result,
therefore, man (the worker) no longer feels himself to be freely active in any
but his animal functions-eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his
dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer
feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and
what is human becomes animal.
32.The author of #IV
(A)is complaining about the effects of capitalist modes of production
upon the workers
(B)is Karl Marx
(C)thinks humans can turn into dogs and cats
(D)A and B
33. What is being claimed in #IV is part of an argument
which tries to show that
(A)people only feel human when they are doing the least human things
(B)we cannot achieve human fulfillment by having fun on weekends
(C)our human functions are specifically our functions as workers or
producers, not our functions as eaters, procreators, etc.
(D)all of these
(E)none of these
#V"There can, I
think, be no doubt that a dog feels shame, as distinct from fear..."
34.If what is claimed in #V is true then
(A)a dog might feel ashamed of something it did last year
(B)a dog might feel ashamed of something it did even though it was not
caught or
blamed for doing it
(C)a dog might feel ashamed of being glad that another dog got run over
(D)a dog is a very different sort of critter than we all, with good
reason, suppose it to be (E)all of these
35.#V is part of
(A) a feeble attempt by Darwin to show that humans are not all that
different in their emotions from dogs and other animals
(B)a feeble attempt by Marx to show that dogs are capitalists
(C)a feeble attempt by Nerkegaard to show that aesthetes are dogs
(D)a feeble attempt by a dog to show how human it is.
VI
“The living Self itself, though, does not
die. Everything that exists has as its soul that which is the finest essence.
It is Reality. It is the Self, and you are that, my son.”
36. This quote is
a. from the Upanishads.
b. teaches the immortality of individual souls.
c. teaches that individuals are one with Reality, which is God or Brahman.
d. all of these.
e. both a and c.
37. The ideas expressed in this quote are
a. typical of western individualism.
b. typical of eastern or mystical “holism.”
c.
typical of
d. none of these.
#VII "The consciousness of brutes would
appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral
product of its working, and to be as completely without any power of modifying
that working as the steam‑whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive
engine is without influence upon its machinery.
Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical
changes, not a cause of such changes.
38.The author of #V is
(A)downplaying the importance of "consciousness" in animals
(B)claiming that locomotives are brutes
(C) claiming that conscious has no causal effect upon the "mechanism" of the body
(D)all of these
(E)A and C
39.The author of #V is probably
(A)Huxley
(B) a determinist
(C) unsympathetic to religious ideas
(D) all of these
QZ I QZ 7
1. E 1.
A
2.
A
QZ 2. 3. D
1. F
2.
1.
F
2.
E
Qz 3 3.
T
1. B
2. D QZ
9
3. T 1.
E
2.
T
3.
E
QZ 4.
1. T QZ
10
2. E 1.
T
3. F 2.
D
QZ 5 QZ
11
1.
F
1. B 2.
F
2. T 3.
D
3. T
Qz
12
QZ 6. 1.
B
1. D 2.
T
2. T 3.
T
|
1. t |
17. f 29. d 30. b 32. d 33. d 34. e 35. a
|
True(a) or False(b)
1. Searle argues that computerized robots could not be in
intentional states.
2. Epistemology is the study of knowledge.
3. Since Data can carry on a conversation in English, it is obvious that
he understands the meaning of English words.
4. Data could be programmed to act tired after lifting a feather.
5. According to Zagzebki’s virtues approach to epistemology, all that matters
for knowledge is that beliefs be justified.
6. Mill argued that some actions are intrinsically wrong, no matter what the consequences.
7. Rawls argues that justice requires the complete elimination of any
bias.
8. Searle points out that the Chinese room actually knows Chinese
9. A virtue is like a vice in this respect; both are character traits..
10. According to MacIntyre, the development of good character requires a cohesive community..
11. The claim that a machine could feel is, according to Ziff, absurd.
12. Folk psychology is the psychology we all use from day to day, in which we employ ordinary notions of belief, emotion etc.
13. If (like Truetemp) I possess information that P, then clearly I know that P.
14. To believe something or desire something is to be in an intentional state.
15. To forget something is to be in an intentional state.
16. Functionalists argue that mental states are identical with specific brain states or events.
17. Kierkegaard tried to show how a life that is lived in pursuit of inadequate or shoddy ideals is a life of despair.
18. Hard determinists hold that all human actions are the result of factors, such as heredity and environment, over which individuals have no control.
19. According to Feinberg, governments should have the power to prevent some offensive behavior.
20. Marx agrees with egalitarians like Rawls that taxes should be used to redistribute wealth.
Multiple choice.
21. Searle’s account of perception emphasizes that a perceiver
(a) is a passive recipient of data
(b) brings a background of knowledge and expectations to perception
(c) is only directly aware of ideas in the mind
(d) all of these
22.
(A)
comparing human and animal emotions
(B) comparing
the hair on monkeys to the hair on philosophers
(C)
comparing human and animal behaviour
(D)all
of these
(E)
A and C
23. The Chambonais provide a good illustration
of
(A)
the relevance of action centered accounts of morality to real life
(B)
the relevance of agent centered accounts of morality to real life
(C)
the relevance of Aristotelian ideas about virtue and character to real life
(D)
b and c
24. A libertarian
would argue that affirmative action laws
(A)
are obviously good since they tend to make people more equal
(B)
might be justified if they rectify past injustices in acquisition
(C)
are good if they bring about the greatest good of the greatest number
(D) all of these.
25. Huxley tried to show through experimental
evidence and observation that
(A)purposive
activities can take place without consciousness
(B)both
humans and other animals function very much like machines
(C)consciousness
is merely a byproduct of physical states (brain states, for instance)
(D)all of these.
26. The fact that there are some differences between peoples or cultures about what is morally right and what is wrong
(a) proves relativism
(b) is compatible with there being absolute moral truths knowable by all
(c) could be explained in terms of differences in non-moral beliefs
(d) b and c.
27. “Folk psychology” is
(a) the kind of psychology used exclusively by old folk
(b) the kind of “psychology” nearly everyone uses in explaining and predicting behavior.
(c) a refined psychological theory which first appeared in the 20th century
(d) all of these.
I. Learning to speak, and learning to
sing, are processes by which the vocal mechanism is set to new tunes. A song
which has been learned has its molecular equivalent, which potentially
represents it in the brain, just as a musical box, wound up, potentially
represents an overture. Touch the stop and the overture begins; send a
molecular impulse along the proper afferent nerve and the singer begins his
song.
28. The author of this quote is trying to show that
(a) humans are basically machines
(b) that “knowing” a tune is nothing more having a brain in a certain
state
(c) that humans are no different than music boxes
(d) a and b.
29. According to I in coming to learn a tune, what happens is that the brain
gets set up or configured in such a way that
(a) under certain prompts my vocal chords etc. will start to move in such
a way as to produce the tune
(b) that configuration amounts to a representation in some sense of the
tune itself
(c) I will need to be wound up to sing
(d) A and B.
II What sorts of beliefs might a
thermostat have? Well, it records input (temperature changes), processes that
input, and provides output (reading on a dial, plus activation of an air
conditioner or heater). So, when the temperature goes up by a certain amount,
it’s reaction could be said to amount to the “belief” that “it is too hot in
here.”
Anyone who thinks strong Al has a chance as a theory of the mind ought to
ponder the implications of that remark. We are asked to accept it as a
discovery of strong Al that the hunk of metal on the wall that we use to
regulate the temperature has beliefs in exactly the same sense that we, our
spouses, and our children have beliefs,
30. #II is or includes
(a) an attack on strong AI
(b) a description of what some advocates of strong AI believe
(c) a description of a thermostat as a Turing machine
(d) all of these
31. The author of #II
(a) obviously believes that thermostats have beliefs
(b) wants to deny that the mere implementation of a program is sufficient for
having beliefs
(c) is John Searle
(d) b and c.
III Again: defenders of Utility often find themselves called upon to reply to
such objections as this – that there is not time, previous to action, for
calculating and weighing the effects of any line of conduct on the general
happiness. This is exactly as if any one were to say that it is impossible to
guide our conduct by Christianity, because there is not time, on every occasion
on which any thing has to be done, to read through the Old and New Testaments.
The answer to the objection is, that there has been ample time; namely, the
whole past duration of the human species. During all that time, mankind have
been learning by experience the tendencies of actions, on which experience all
the prudence as well as all the morality of life are dependent.
32. The author of III is arguing that
(a) when
I try to decide what is the right thing to do, I must always calculate the
consequences of my actions as best I can
(b) it is
no objection to utilitarianism that sometimes we do not have time to calculate
the consequences of our actions
(c)
sometimes when we decide what to do we legitimately rely on the experiences of
other people in order to settle on the act with the best consequences
(d) b and
c.
33. The author of III is
(a)
J.S. Mill
(b)
James Rachels
(c)
a consequentialist
(d)
Kant
(e)
a and c.
IV. Thus it appears that there is no peculiar
contrariety between self-love and benevolence, no greater competition between
these than between any other particular affections and self-love.
34.
(a) assumes that self-love is not a
particular affection
(b) depends upon the idea that
benevolence is a particular affection
(c) depends upon the idea that self love is a general
concern for my own well being which can only be fulfilled by a wise indulgence
in particular affections
(d) all of these
(e) none of these.
35. If
Butler is right, then
(a) Hobbes is wrong
(b) a lot of people are confused, since many people think
that if I act in my own interest, or out of self-love, I cannot be acting out
of love for others
(c) some people simply enjoy helping
others
(d) all of these.
V. An excessively proud person, who refuses to take seriously
challenges to his own beliefs, might just for that reason be more likely to
have true beliefs, if in fact he is an intellectually powerful person who tends
to get to the truth when he goes his own way. But intellectual pride looks like
a vice, not a virtue.
36. Zagzebski is here considering
(a) an objection
to her definition of knowledge in terms of intellectual virtues
(b) the view that
it is always best to be proud
(c) the view that
knowledge is possible for a person with intellectual vices
(d) a and c.
37. The view under discussion in V is
(a) virtues
epistemology
(b) externalist
epistemology
(c) coherentism
(d) none of
these.
VI. The study of the mind starts with
such facts as that humans have beliefs, while thermostats, telephones, and
adding machines don’t. If you get a theory that denies this point, you have
produced a counterexample to the theory and the theory is false. One gets the
impression that people in Al who write this sort of thing think they can get
away with it because they don’t really take it seriously, and they don’t think
anyone else will either. I propose, for a moment at least, to take it
seriously. Think hard for one minute about what would be necessary to establish
that that hunk of metal on the wall over there had real beliefs, beliefs with
direction of fit, propositional content, and conditions of satisfaction;
beliefs that had the possibility of being strong beliefs or weak beliefs;
nervous, anxious, or secure beliefs; dogmatic, rational, or superstitious
beliefs; blind faiths or hesitant cogitations; any kind of beliefs. The
thermostat is not a candidate. Neither is stomach, liver, adding machine, or
telephone. However, since we are taking the idea seriously, notice that its
truth would be fatal to strong Al’s claim to be a science of the mind. For now
the mind is everywhere. What we wanted to know is what distinguishes the mind
from thermostats and livers. And if McCarthy were right, strong AI wouldn’t
have a hope of telling us that.
38. The author of VI is attacking the view that
(a) a thermostat
could have beliefs
(b) that having a belief is
nothing more than receiving input, processing it, and producing output
(c) stomachs could have beliefs
(d) all of the above.
39. The topic under discussion in VI is
(a) Artificial
Intelligence
(b) the
attribution of intelligence to machines
(c) stomach
anatomy
(d) all of these
(e) a and b.
VII. If the relation that relates
itself to itself has been composed by another, then the relation is no doubt
the third, but this relation, the third, is yet again a relation and relates
itself to that which composed the whole relation. The human self is such a
derived, composed relation, a relation that relates itself to itself and in
relating itself to itself relates itself to another.
40. The
author of VII is
(a) presenting a certain conception
of what it is to be a genuine self
(b) suggesting that genuine
self-hood requires a relation to a creator
(c) assuming that being a self requires relating who I am
at any moment to some ideal which I have not yet achieved, or, maintaining
myself in such an ideal
(d) all of these
41. The
author of VII is
(a) Karl Marx
(b) Baron d’Holbach
(c) Kierkegaard
(d) Mill
#VIII "The only part of the conduct of any
one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the
part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute.
Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
42. If #VIII is both true and worth mentioning
then it would seem that
(a)
there should not be seat belt laws
(b)
there should not be a lot of difficulty in determining what concerns only
myself and has no effect upon others
(c)
if a fetus is just part of a woman’s body then she should be able to kill it if
she likes
(d)
all of the above.
#IX actions
are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend
to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the
absence of pain. . . . It
is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact, that
some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others.
43. The author of #IX
(A)
is a consequentialist
(B)
thinks the pleasures maximized by morally right actions include “higher (more
valuable)pleasures”
(C)
gives no convincing morally neutral test for determining which pleasures are
“higher”
(D)
is the same as the author of VIII
(E)
all of the above
#X
The only conception of action that accords with our data is
one according to which men -- and perhaps some other things -- are sometimes,
but of course not always, self-determining beings; that is, beings which are
sometimes the causes of their own behavior. In the case of an action that is
free, it must be such that it is caused by the agent who performs it, but such
that no antecedent conditions were sufficient for his performing just that action.
In the case of an action that is both free and rational, it must be such that
the agent who performed it did so for some reason, but this reason cannot have
been the cause of it.
Now this conception fits what men take themselves to be;
namely, beings who act, or who are agents, rather than things that are merely
acted upon, and whose behavior is simply the causal consequence of conditions
which they have not wrought. When I believe that I have done something, I
believe that it was I who caused it to be done, I who made something happen,
and not merely something within me, such as one of my own subjective states,
which is not identical with myself. If I believe that something not identical
with myself was the cause of my behavior-some event wholly external to myself,
for instance, or even one internal to myself, such as a nerve impulse,
volition, or what-not-then I cannot regard that behavior as being an act of
mine, unless I further believe that I was the cause of that external or
internal event. My pulse, for example, is caused and regulated by certain
conditions existing within me, and not by myself. I do not, accordingly, regard
this activity of my body as my action, and would be no more tempted to do so if
I became suddenly conscious within myself of those conditions or impulses that
produce it.
44.
#X is
(a)
a clear expression of determinism
(b)
a clear rejection of determinism
(c)
a rejection of simple indeterminism
(d)
b and c..
45. The author of X
(a) believes soft determinism or
compatiblism does not account for our intuitions about what it is to act freely
(b) believes the notion that an action
is free if it is caused by my own desires and impulses does not accord with our
intuitions about free actions
(c) believes genuine actions must arise
from myself, where “myself” is not identified with any particular internal
state, or states, of mine
(d) cannot give a description of that
agent-self which his theory postulates.
(e) all of these.
#XI
.I
shall now state in a provisional form the two principles
of justice that I believe would be chosen in the original position....
The
first statement of the two principles reads as follows.
First:
each person is to have an equal right to
the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.
Second:
social and economic inequalities are to
be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's
advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all....
[The Difference Principle]
46.
The author of #XI
(A) holds that there should be no
inequalities
(B) is an egalitarian
(C) reasons like a utilitarian
(D) none of these
47.
Examples of social and economic inequalities which might arguably be
expected to be to everyone’s advantage include
(A) the high compensation which
medical doctors receive
(B) the very high compensation many
professional athletes receive
(C) the low (relative to
(D) All of these
(E) A and C.
XII Entitlement Theory. The subject of justice in holdings
consists of three major topics. The first is the original acquisition of
holdings, the appropriation of unheld things. . . .We shall refer to the
complicated truth about this topic, which we shall not formulate here, as the
principle of justice in acquisition. The second topic concerns the transfer of
holdings from one person to another. By what processes may a person transfer
holdings to another? How may a person acquire a holding from another who holds
it? Under this topic come general descriptions of voluntary exchange, and gift
and (on the other hand) fraud, as well as reference to particular conventional
details fixed upon in a given society. The complicated truth about this subject
(with placeholders for conventional details) we shall call the principle of
justice in transfer. . . .If the world were wholly
just, the following inductive definition would exhaustively cover the subject
of justice in holdings.
1. A person who acquires a holding in accordance
with the principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding.
2. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with
the principle of justice in transfer, from someone else entitled to the
holding, is entitled to the holding.
3. No one is entitled to a holding except by
(repeated) applications of 1 and 2.
48. The views expressed in XII
(a) are typical of
libertarians
(b) consistent with the
belief in a minimal state
(c) consistent with the
belief in a welfare state
(d) all of these
(e) a and b.
49. XII is referring to the idea(s) that
(a)
if I have justly acquired something through my own labor, no one can justly
take it away from me without my consent
(b)
if I have justly acquired something by being given a gift by someone who had
justly acquired that thing, no one should be able to take it away from me
(c) inheritance taxes,
medicaid taxes, etc. are unjust
(d) all of these.
#XIII The
senses of the social man are other senses than those of the non-social man.
Only through the objectively unfolded richness of man’s essential being is the
richness of subjective human sensibility (a musical ear, an eye for beauty of
form-in short, senses capable of human gratifications, senses confirming
themselves as essential powers of man) either cultivated or brought into being.
50. If what is being argued in this quote is correct, then
(A) how I see things depends upon other people
(B) my capacity to enjoy the arts depends upon my “socialization” in a broad sense
(C) achievement of a truly human (humanized) life requires a social development which is deeply humane
(D) all of these.
51. The argument advanced in #VII has something in common with
(A) MacIntyre’s account of human life as a function of living traditions
(B) Aristotle’s notion that humans are political animals
(C) Dennet’s notion that beliefs can be shared
(D) none of these
(E) A and B.
.
Key Sample Exam II
|
16. f |
23.d 29. d 30. d 31. d 32. d 33. e 34.d 35. d 36. d 37. a 38. d 39. e 40. d 41. c 42. d 43. e 44. d 45. e 46. b 47. a 48. e 49. d |
|
|
50. d 51. e |