PHI 104 Midterm Study Set — Hunter College (Fall 2025)

What is philosophy?

The rational investigation of fundamental questions about reality, knowledge, value, reason, and how we should live.

What are the four main branches of philosophy?

Metaphysics (reality), Epistemology (knowledge), Ethics (how we should live), Logic (good reasoning).

What is an argument?

A set of claims in which premises are offered as reasons to support a conclusion.

What is a premise?

A statement that provides support for a conclusion in an argument.

What is a conclusion?

The statement that the premises are intended to support.

What is validity?

An argument is valid if, assuming the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.

What is soundness?

An argument is sound if it is valid and all its premises are actually true.

What is a counterexample to an argument?

A possible case that shows the premises could be true while the conclusion is false, proving invalidity.

What is the difference between descriptive and normative claims?

Descriptive claims state how things are; normative claims state how things should be.

What is a moral claim?

A normative claim that evaluates actions, persons, or policies as right/wrong or good/bad.

What are deontic claims?

Claims about duty/obligation (what is required, permitted, or forbidden).

What are axiological claims?

Claims about value or goodness (good, bad, better, worse).

What is moral reasoning?

Giving reasons for moral judgments and applying principles to cases to reach justified conclusions.

What is a moral principle?

A general normative rule that guides judgments about right and wrong.

What is a moral theory?

A systematic account of what makes actions right or wrong and why.

What is the difference between metaethics and normative ethics?

Metaethics studies the meaning and status of moral claims; normative ethics prescribes standards for action.

What is applied ethics?

The application of moral principles/theories to specific real-world issues (e.g., euthanasia).

What is a fallacy?

A mistake in reasoning that undermines the strength of an argument.

According to David Foster Wallace, what is the core lesson of 'This Is Water'?

Real education is choosing how to think—resisting the default self-centered perspective and exercising conscious, compassionate attention to others.

How does Wallace connect everyday life to moral attention?

Daily routines force choices about how to interpret others; choosing empathy over selfishness is a moral practice.

What is the 'default setting' in Wallace?

Our unchosen, automatic tendency to interpret the world in terms of our own needs and frustrations.

What does Wallace think real freedom is?

Freedom is attention and discipline: choosing what to worship/value, and seeing alternatives beyond the default setting.

What is the main question in Bennett's 'The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn'?

Whether sympathy or abstract moral principles should guide conscience when they conflict.

How does Bennett evaluate Huck Finn's choice to help Jim?

Huck's sympathetic response corrects his 'bad morality' (faulty social principles), leading him to act well despite believing he's wrong.

What contrast does Bennett draw with Himmler?

Himmler's strong principles are morally corrupt; without sympathy, they lead to evil actions followed with a clear conscience.

What is Bennett's lesson about sympathy?

Sympathy is a necessary corrective to immoral or corrupt moral codes; it can challenge and reform conscience.

What is 'bad morality' for Bennett?

A socially inherited set of principles that are morally defective, which sympathy can help detect and resist.

What is an argument according to Morrow (Ch. 1)?

A set of statements with premises intended to provide reasons for a conclusion.

How do you identify an implicit (enthymematic) premise?

Ask what unstated assumption must be true for the conclusion to follow from the stated premises.

What is a moral argument according to Morrow (Ch. 2)?

An argument whose conclusion is a moral claim, typically supported by factual and moral premises.

What criteria make moral arguments strong in Morrow?

Clear terms, true/credible premises, valid/strong structure, and well-supported moral principles.

What is the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions?

Necessary

Required for something to occur.

Sufficient

Enough by itself to bring about something.

Principle of Charity

Interpreting an argument in its strongest, most reasonable form before assessing it.

Ethical Environment

The shared culture of moral ideas, practices, and expectations that shapes behavior and judgment.

Blackburn's Seven Threats to Ethics

Death of God; Relativism; Egoism; Evolutionary Theory; Determinism & Futility; Unreasonable Demands; False Consciousness.

Death of God

If morality requires a divine lawgiver, atheism seems to remove its foundation—raising the question of secular grounding.

Blackburn's Response to the Death of God Threat

Morality can be grounded in human practices, reasons, and sentiments without a divine source.

Moral Relativism

The view that moral truth depends on culture or individual perspective, not universally binding standards.

Problem of Relativism

It undermines cross-cultural moral criticism and can collapse into tolerance of obvious injustices.

Psychological Egoism

The descriptive claim that all human actions are ultimately self-interested.

Ethical Egoism

The normative claim that people ought to act in their own self-interest.

Determinism and Futility

Even with causal laws, moral reflection and holding each other responsible remain meaningful.

Unreasonable Demands Threat

The worry that morality requires too much sacrifice, making ordinary life impossible.

False Consciousness in Ethics

Distorted moral beliefs produced by social forces (e.g., ideology) that mask real interests or injustices.

Chief Good in Nicomachean Ethics

What is the chief good (ultimate end) at which all actions aim?

Chief Good for Aristotle

Eudaimonia—human flourishing: activity of soul in accordance with virtue over a complete life.

Function (Ergon) Argument

The human good is discovered by the human function: rational activity; the good life is excellent rational activity (virtue).

Instrumental vs Intrinsic Goods

Instrumental goods are means to ends (e.g., money); intrinsic goods are valuable in themselves (e.g., virtue, eudaimonia).

Moral and Intellectual Virtues

Moral virtues (courage, temperance) are acquired by habituation; intellectual virtues (wisdom) by teaching and time.

Doctrine of the Mean

Each moral virtue is a mean between excess and deficiency relative to us, determined by reason.

Example of the Mean

Courage is the mean between rashness (excess) and cowardice (deficiency).

Acquisition of Virtues

By doing virtuous actions repeatedly; we become just by doing just acts.

Importance of Habituation

Habit trains our desires to follow reason, forming stable character (hexis).

Role of Pleasure and Pain in Virtue

They are signs of character: the virtuous take pleasure in right action and feel pain at vice.

Voluntary Actions for Aristotle

Actions arising from internal principle with knowledge of particulars, making us responsible.

Practical Wisdom (Phronesis)

The intellectual virtue that discerns the right means to the right ends in concrete situations.

Akrasia (Incontinence)

Weakness of will: knowing the better yet doing the worse due to untrained desires.

Franklin's Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection

It uses habits and self-scrutiny to cultivate traits (virtues), aligning with Aristotle's emphasis on habituation.

Franklin's Listed Virtues

Temperance; Silence; Order; Resolution; Frugality (others include Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquillity, Chastity, Humility).

Franklin's Method for Moral Improvement

A daily chart to track practice of specific virtues and systematic focus on one at a time while maintaining the rest.

Kant's central claim about moral worth

Only actions done from duty for the sake of the moral law have genuine moral worth.

The good will

The only thing good without qualification: a will determined by duty and respect for the moral law.

Difference between acting in accordance with duty and from duty

In accordance: doing the right thing for non-moral reasons; From duty: acting because it is morally required.

Categorical Imperative (general statement)

Act only on maxims you can will to be universal laws.

Formula of Universal Law (FUL)

Test a maxim by asking if universalizing it would produce a contradiction in conception or will.

Contradiction in conception

A universalized maxim would be self-defeating (e.g., lying promises undermine the practice of promising).

Contradiction in the will

You cannot will the maxim universally because it would thwart ends you must will (e.g., never helping others).

Formula of Humanity

Treat humanity, in yourself and others, always as an end and never merely as a means.

Perfect duties (Kant)

Strict duties that admit no exceptions (e.g., no lying, no suicide from self-love).

Imperfect duties (Kant)

Wide duties allowing flexibility in how/when to act (e.g., develop talents, help others).

Consequences not the basis of morality for Kant

Consequences are beyond control; morality concerns the will's motive and universalizability.

Autonomy in Kant's ethics

Self-legislation: rational agents give the moral law to themselves and obey it freely.

Respect and the moral law for Kant

Respect is the feeling produced by recognition of the law's authority over the will.

Maxim

A subjective principle of action stating what you intend to do and why.

Principle of Utility (Bentham)

Approve or disapprove actions according to their tendency to increase or decrease the happiness of all affected.

Bentham's hedonism

Pleasure and absence of pain are the only intrinsic goods.

Seven factors in Bentham's hedonic calculus

Intensity, Duration, Certainty, Propinquity (nearness), Fecundity, Purity, Extent.

Common objection to Bentham's hedonism

It reduces value to quantity of pleasure, ignoring quality and rights/justice concerns.

Bentham view on rights-talk ("natural rights")

Skeptically; rights are creations of law and utility, not metaphysical absolutes.

Mill's utilitarianism vs. Bentham's

Mill distinguishes higher (intellectual) and lower (bodily) pleasures, adding a qualitative dimension.

Mill's Greatest Happiness Principle

Actions are right as they promote happiness (pleasure and absence of pain), wrong as they produce the reverse.

Mill's "competent judges"

People experienced in both kinds of pleasures who reliably prefer the higher ones.

Mill's claim "better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied"

Quality of pleasure matters; rational and moral capacities have higher value.

Proof of utilitarianism in Mill

Each desires their own happiness; general happiness is desirable as the aggregate of what individuals desire.

Demandingness objection to utilitarianism

It may require excessive self-sacrifice for the greater good.

Rule-utilitarian response to objections

By endorsing rules that generally maximize happiness and protect justice/rights, avoiding extreme calculations case-by-case.

Integrity objection (Williams) to utilitarianism

Utility can force betrayal of personal projects or values, undermining moral integrity.

Utilitarianism view on impartiality

Everyone's happiness counts equally; no one's good has privileged status.

Central focus of Care Ethics (Collins)

Morality is grounded in caring relationships, responsiveness to needs, and the realities of dependence and vulnerability.

Care Ethics

A moral theory emphasizing the importance of care and relationships in ethical decision-making.

Caring for

Direct, practical care.

Caring about

General concern or attitude without direct action.

Impartiality in Care Ethics

It questions strict impartiality, allowing justified partiality in relationships (e.g., special duties to family).

Emotions in Care Ethics

Emotions like empathy and concern are sources of moral knowledge and motivation, not mere biases.

Traditions informing Care Ethics

Feminist philosophy, Confucian ethics (filial piety/roles), Ubuntu (communal personhood).

Critique of Kantianism by Care Ethics

Kant's universal, impersonal duties can neglect context, relationships, and emotional understanding.

Critique of Utilitarianism by Care Ethics

Aggregate calculations can overlook concrete needs and the moral weight of particular relationships.

Metaphysics

The branch of philosophy studying the nature of reality (what exists, kinds of being, causation).