philosophy final

Is revenge ever okay? Or is it just a very familiar human temptation? Why?

Revenge is okay and usually a familiar human temptation but only morally permissible when it meets these conditions: 1- desert: the target must be genuinely culpable of the wrong doing, 2- proportionality: the response must fit the wrong, 3- Authority: the avenger has standing and proper motives. and as a moral address.

What answer should Emerick give to the objection that is view about moral solidarity simply asks too much of us – especially of those of us who might already be burdened by the kinds of social injustice about which people disagree?

Emerick should respond that moral solidarity does not ask too much of us because it is context-sensitive and non-demanding: it does not require constant confrontation, moral labor, or self-sacrifice, especially from those already burdened by injustice. To love someone is to care about who they are becoming, but this does not mean always engaging or correcting; engagement may be slow, limited, or even suspended when it becomes harmful. Because injustice often operates through perceptual failure, moral solidarity may involve communication and resistance over time, but it must remain humble, reciprocal, and attentive to one’s own limits. Emerick emphasizes that everyone is vulnerable to perceptual distortion, so moral solidarity is not a one-sided obligation to educate others, but a shared, imperfect practice that permits withdrawal as well as engagement.

What is moral solidarity?

“moral support”

Explain Strabbing’s theory of what forgiveness is and draw attention to one of its controversial
features. Explain why that feature is controversial.

forgiveness is openness to reconciliation, it is controversial because people worry that it places pressure on victims to imagine reconciliation in extreme cases such as rape and it risks moralizing permanent estrangement

Explain how apologies can be used as weapons. How can you know whether you are using an apology as a weapon?

Apologies can be used as weapons when they pressure victims to forgive, silence continued protest, or shift moral burden away from the wrongdoer. You can tell you are weaponizing an apology if you are apologizing to secure forgiveness, moral credit, or reputational repair rather than to acknowledge harm and leave the response entirely to the victim.

What is the thesis of the moral equality of the combatants and why does McMahan reject it?

The main concept of the moral equality of the combatants is that as long as soldiers on both sides of the war follow the rules of war, they are morally equal no matter if one if a side is fighting an unjust war. He denies that and says that moral liability depends on whether a soldier poses a wrongful threat or not, in unjust wars they usually do even if they are not culpable. Though, soldiers on the just side are less liable or not liable at all. McMahan distinguishes liability from culpability.

What is puzzling about the problem of legitimate injustice? Why is this puzzling?

If a law is unjust then the government has no right to force it and citizens have the right to disobey it. That wouldn’t make sense because almost every law would be unjust to someone, and that way we would have no law and everyone would be constantly disobeying every law. Quang distinguishes between legitimacy and justice. He believes that a law can be unjust but still legitimate. A law can be morally wrong but if it’s fair for all citizens then it makes it legitimate but legitimacy fails when the system is severe and systematic.

Explain Schroeder’s concept of discord.

A mismatch of what people count as what’s truly expressive of someone’s self (attributability)

Explain what it means to be silenced. How can you be silenced if you are actually saying things?

Being silenced is not just that what you say is ignored or protested against; it is that your words fail to count as the kind of action you are trying to perform.

Why does Langton think that it might sometimes be permissible or even required to manipulate other people?

Langton argues that strict adherence to Kantian duties can lead to desolation in oppressive environments, because morally appropriate speech is silenced; in such contexts, manipulation may be permissible or even required as a defensive response that allows the oppressed to exercise agency when ordinary moral communication fails.

What is the relationship, according to Langton, between lying and manipulation?

Langton argues that lying and manipulation are morally similar because both normally bypass rational agency, which Kant sees as a failure of respect. However, she claims that this moral condemnation presupposes social conditions in which truthful moral speech can function as action-guiding. In unjust contexts where people are silenced and their sincere speech is not taken up, refusing to lie or manipulate can lead to isolation and vulnerability; what Langton calls desolation, making manipulation or deception sometimes permissible or even necessary.

What are the key differences between love and respect, according to Darwall, and why are those
differences important?

Respect is impartial, non-optional, and owed to all persons in virtue of their moral status; it involves recognizing others’ authority to make claims on us and grounds moral accountability and blame. Love, by contrast, is partial and non-demandable: it responds to a person’s particular value to us and goes beyond duty. These differences matter because respect sets the moral minimum we owe everyone, while love cannot be required and cannot justify violating the constraints imposed by respect.

Why does Darwall think that recognition respect is connected to what Kant means by ‘dignity’?

Recognition respect is recognizing a person’s dignity. Kant understands dignity as the status of being a rational agent capable of setting ends and guiding oneself by reasons. Because of this status, persons have moral authority: they can address claims, demands, and complaints to others. Recognition respect is the attitude of acknowledging that authority. This is why respect is second-personal, it presupposes relations of mutual authority between persons and why treating someone with recognition respect is just treating them in accordance with their dignity.

Explain the differences between recognition respect and appraisal respect, according to Darwall.

Recognition respect consists in acknowledging someone as a person, a rational agent capable of setting ends and guiding themselves by reason and it is owed equally to all persons. Because it recognizes a person’s moral authority, recognition respect is demandable: people may make claims, complaints, and hold others accountable for failures of respect. Appraisal respect, by contrast, is an evaluative attitude that depends on a person’s character, achievements, or traits relative to one’s values; it is optional, comparative, and not something anyone is entitled to demand.

Why is it important to interpret other people charitably, if we want to make genuine progress on difficult problems?

Interpreting others charitably is important because genuine progress on difficult problems requires understanding how their position could appear rational from their point of view. Charity prevents us from dismissing disagreement as mere error or bad faith and helps identify the real points of disagreement rather than talking past one another. By taking others to be reasonable agents responding to what they see as good reasons, we can find shared ground, triangulate what is at stake, and make meaningful progress rather than entrenching conflict.

What is triangulation?

Triangulation is finding the common concern beneath opposing positions so disagreement can become productive rather than entrenched.

Use an example in order to explain what Korsgaard thinks is involved in genuinely reciprocal friendship.

For Korsgaard, a genuinely reciprocal friendship is one in which both people treat each other as rational agents whose reasons have authority, and they are willing to hold one another responsible on that basis. An example helps make this clear.

Imagine two friends, Alex and Sam, who have agreed to support each other during a difficult semester. Alex repeatedly cancels plans at the last minute. In a merely strategic or non-reciprocal relationship, Sam might simply adjust expectations, stop relying on Alex, manage disappointment privately, or manipulate Alex’s behavior. But in a genuinely reciprocal friendship, Sam instead addresses Alex directly, saying something like: “You committed to being there for me, and when you cancel, it affects me. I need a reason or a change.” By doing this, Sam treats Alex as someone who can answer for their actions, not as someone to be managed.

Crucially, Alex must also accept this standing in return. If Alex responds by apologizing, explaining, or revising their behavior, they acknowledge Sam’s authority to make this demand. For Korsgaard, this mutual willingness to justify oneself, to be held accountable, and to revise one’s actions in light of the other’s reasons is what makes a friendship genuinely reciprocal. In this way, friendship becomes a small-scale realization of the Kingdom of Ends, where each person’s reasons count as reasons for the other.

what is charitability?

To view someone in a charitable way is to assume that they are reasonable, not confused or malicious, and are responding to what they take to be good reasons.

Explain the idea of attributive responsibility, using your own example or examples.

attributive responsibility is about whether a framework or that idea of that person fits who they are and identify with. Imagine Jamie snaps angrily at a friend during an extremely stressful week.
If this is completely out of character, the friend might say: “That wasn’t really Jamie”

Here, the outburst is not attributed to Jamie’s true self, so Jamie is not fully attributively responsible for it, even though the action still happened.

Can someone hurt your feelings by accident? Why or why not?

Yes they can because hurt feelings does not intend ill will, someone can “accidentally hurt your feelings but not have meant for it to come off in that sense. Hurt feelings track perceived failures of regard. It signals a lack of recognition or care.

Who wrote Hurt feelings?

Shoemaker

Explain why it can help to make progress on a difficult problem to triangulate on what is at stake
between people who disagree.

Triangulation helps make progress on difficult problems because it identifies what is at stake for each side and locates a shared underlying concern they are both responding to. By understanding how each position can be rational from the other’s point of view, triangulation prevents people from talking past one another and allows disagreement to be reframed in a way that makes progress possible without requiring compromise.

What do quality of will theories of moral responsibility say?

They say that moral responsibility depends on what an action reveals about an agent’s concern for them.

Explain the contrast between the participant stance and the objective stance.

The participant stance is that we see each other as responsible agents it involves moral responsibilities and reactive attitudes such as resentment, gratitude, and forgiveness. The Objective stance in contrast is only towards agents who are not morally responsible and not appropriate targets of blame. ex; children, and the severely ill.

Explain the difference between echo chambers and epistemic bubbles.

Epistemic bubbles are informational environments where relevant perspectives or evidence are simply missing, often unintentionally; they can usually be escaped by exposure to new information. Echo chambers, by contrast, actively manipulate trust by discrediting outside sources and framing dissent as evidence of corruption or bad faith. Because echo chambers undermine trust in outsiders, they are much harder to escape and typically require rebuilding trust with agents outside the chamber, not merely acquiring new information.

Why does Kelly think that it can be rational to end up with different beliefs even though we have the same evidence, just because we acquired that evidence in different orders?

because he believes that the first evidence we receive plays a framework setting role. The evidence we get after that, builds onto the first evidence. If the second evidence we receive is ambiguous, then our first belief from the first evidence will strengthen rather than change because of its framework nature.

Explain how a well-constructed argument can help us to break more difficult questions down into smaller, less difficult problems.

By being able to solve the argument and manage it in steps.