phil 1302 midterm

Hume’s critiques of Descartes/rationalism

• against Descartes

  • uses God to regain the senses

    • can have idea of something without it existing (being + nonbeing as example)

  • skepticism destroys reason

  • reason itself has limits, it is not prime (like rationalists believe)

  • knowledge can be gained through the senses

• against rationalism

  • reason can’t justify certainty about the world

  • knowledge of matters of fact depend on habit/observation, not logical proof (we never perceive causation, only constant conjunction)

Hume’s four “obscure” ideas in metaphysics?

power

force

energy

necessary connection

Explain Hume’s critique of necessary connection in causation. What does he replace it with?

• necessary connection

  • the idea that an effect necessarily follows a cause

  • A → B

• constant conjunction

  • Hume’s replacement

  • we cannot derive the effect simply from observing the cause

  • repetition of observing a pattern leads us to identify a cause-effect

  • connection is felt in the mind

  • goes against Aristotle (believes you can reason from a certain cause to certain effect because they are consistent over time)

- observations do not establish necessity, we cannot observe necessity, it is more like a metaphysical concept

- repetition only gives the illusion of necessity

- we can't attribute powers of necessity because they are not grounded in our observation of the cause

Define miracle and laws of nature. Can testimony of a miracle be believed?

miracle: violation of the laws of nature

laws of nature: established by firm and unalterable experience, can't be broken

• testimony of miracle vs firm and unalterable experience

• experience (admits no exceptions) will always outweigh the report

• there is no testimony sufficient to establish a miracle

What does Hume say about testimony and how it influences belief?

• "a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence"

• uniform experience amounts as a proof, infallible (laws of nature, why testimony of a miracle can never be enough to convince)

• testimony is secondhand knowledge, there is debate over what it can establish

• probability is employed with respect to a particular report of a witness (weigh both the person reporting and the content itself)

Explain how Galileo used Augustine’s hermeneutics to defend heliocentrism. Why was this a theological strategy rather than a scientific one?

• used commentary on Genesis in letter to Grand Duchess arguing that heliocentrism did not conflict with scripture

• not scientific- did not have proof, but was theologically sensitive way to defend own position

• reconciliation of faith and reason

• argument isn’t from science but for diversity of readings in scripture

What interpretive principles did Galileo use to argue that Scripture could accommodate heliocentrism?

• restraint

  • being restrained when defending interpretation of scripture w scientific implications because new information might come out

• harmonization of scriptural interpretation with demonstration

  • interpretation could be falsified by demonstrated truth contradicting it

  • contradiction means you need to adjust interpretation of scripture

• unity of truth

  • possible that some readings are figurative, going from literal to fig can solve problem

  • true premise can only contradict one that is false

• harmonization of scriptural interpretation with faith

  • must be grounded in context of scripture and in harmony with faith

  • certain non-negotiable principles (Trinity, Incarnation) but nothing to rule out either geo/heliocentrism

• Church is the interpretive authority in matters of faith and practical matters

  • articulated by Council of Trent, they decide what is a matter of faith

  • Galileo’s argument here is that geocentrism has nothing to do w faith/ethics; but Church disagrees

Why did the Church reject Galileo’s claim that heliocentrism was outside its authority? How did the Council of Trent shape this conflict?

• church claims authority over faith & practice

• Council of Trent asserts interpretive control

• Galileo says heliocentrism isn’t theological but Church disagrees

Compare Aristotelian demonstration with later Enlightenment views of scientific proof. Why did this matter for Galileo’s case?

• Aristotle: demonstration = certainty

• Galileo lacked strict proof

• Enlightenment shifts toward probability

Explain the role of radical doubt in Descartes’ First Meditation. Why does he reject the senses as a foundation of knowledge?

• needs to get rid of all beliefs bc he isn’t sure which are false; has acquired all he know through sense, do if he doubts senses, can start over

• dream argument, evil genius hypothesis

• rejects existing empirical foundation so he can build new stronger one

  • radical doubt is necessary

How does Descartes establish certainty? Why does this avoids solipsism?

• cogito - i think, i am

• there must be a thinking subject

• prevents endless doubt by providing a certain point, proving his own existence

Describe the wax argument and explain how it supports Cartesian dualism. What does it claim about the nature of perception?

• wax identity not sensory

• known through mind

• supports mind–body distinction

How does Descartes argue for the existence of God in the Third Meditation? Why does this matter for knowledge and the senses?

• idea of God = infinite perfection

• cause must contain equal reality

• God grounds truth & sense reliability, any issues occur in cognition/are human errors

Why does Hume think we cannot logically infer effects from causes based on a single observation?

• one instance ≠ law

• expectation comes from repetition, connection is a mental habit

• habit creates belief

Compare Aristotle’s view of causation with Hume’s.

• Aristotle: causes contain effects, possible to reason from a particular cause to a particular effect because they are consistent over time

• Hume: effects not inferable from causes

  • connection is felt in the mind

• rejects rational necessity

Explain Hume’s distinction between matters of fact and relations of ideas. Why does this limit the power of reason?

there are two sources of knowledge

• relations of ideas

  • analytic claims that can be justified a priori

  • necessary and independent of experience

  • to deny truth implies contradiction

• matters of fact

  • a posteriori, grounded in experience of the world

  • contingent and arise from experience

  • can be denied without contradiction

limits reason because you need experience to form habit to understand anything related to cause and effect

Critically assess whether Hume’s argument against miracles is internally consistent.

• possible inconsistency , because he overstates the strength of laws of nature; they should be principles because he has just established that you can’t make general rules from observances

Explain Hume’s idea that reason has limits. How does this undermine the rationalist program?

• reason can’t justify causation

• must accept psychological habit (role of mind)

• weakens rationalist certainty

• rationalists whole idea is that reason is prime, so imposing limits undermines

We CAN have rational knowledge of what the effect of a cause will be, it's just that this knowledge is not derived, as you say, a priori -- nor, in general, is it arrived at by way of a chain of reasoning.

What does Kant believe about objects?

• we never know the thing in itself

• objects conform to our cognition

• mind structures experience, it does not passively receive information

What role does reason play in structuring experience? (K)

• nature conforms to reason/mental rules

• reason is the judge, science depends on cognition

• rejects Aristotelian realism/empiricism

Why is empiricism insufficient? (K)

a priori knowledge (especially in mathematics) is possible, and necessary for experience at all

What does Kant claim is the only thing good without qualification?

• good will

• Value lies in intention

• Not outcome-based

Explain Kant’s distinction between acting from duty and acting from inclination. Why does only the former have moral worth?

• need to act from duty, not inclination

• desires can change, you will only be moral some of the time if you follow them and only accidentally

• deontological (according to duty)

• honest shopkeeper: charges low prices because he wants to, not because of obligation, so it is not morally good

Compare Kant’s deontological ethics with Aristotelian virtue ethics. How do their views of moral motivation differ?

• Aristotle: virtue + happiness; human act to move towards their telos which is happiness

• Kant: duty + moral law, behaving ethically can bring about happiness but it should not be undertaken with the goal of being happy

• Motivation vs character focus

Compare Descartes, Hume, and Kant on the source and limits of human knowledge. How does each redefine reason’s role?

• Descartes: rationalism

• Hume: empiricism + skepticism

• Kant: mind structures reality

Trace the shift from Aristotelian realism to Kantian idealism. What philosophical problems motivate this transition?

• Aristotle: experience of world determines mind

• Kant: mind determines experience of world

• response to skepticism

How does the development from Galileo to Kant reshape the relationship between science, reason, and reality?

• science separates from theology

• probability replaces certainty

• role of mind becomes central

3 reasons Copernicus was condemned by the church

1. heliocentrism conflicted with the Church’s geocentrism

2. church’s geocentrism was based on interpretations of scripture

3. church is authority in interpreting scripture

categorical imperative

• part of Kant’s deontological ethics- not hypothetical, only command

  • good in itself, represents action as objectively necessary in itself without reference to another end

• for a maxim to be universalizable/count as a moral law, needs to pass all five formulations

1. act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

2. act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature.

3. act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.

4. the idea of the will of every rational being as a will that legislates universal law.

5. a rational being must always regard himself as a legislator in a kingdom of ends.

Explain each ethics case discussed in class and how Kant and Mill would respond to each.

• trolley problem

  • Kant: can’t kill one to save five because that is using someone as a means; could attempt to make minimizing harm your maxim/minimize the extent to which you treat as person as a means; can’t do outcomes assessment

  • Mill: kill one to save five to maximize happiness; question of whether or not the one is more important, someone you have a responsibility to, etc

• organ donor

  • Kant: don’t do anything, violates 3rd

  • Mill: should kill them, but obviously seems morally wrong; choosing to not kill the one relies on a non simple nose-counting scenario

• Nazi at the door

  • Kant: lying is forbidden, kingdom of ends

  • Mill: you should lie to save those hidden, look at outcomes

• entire point is that it’s very hard for Kant to deal with applied ethics cases; however, can’t always try and maximize happiness because (as in organ donor case) demonstrates the problem of nose counting, care ethics, who you have greater responsibility to

• Kant may fail in “dirty hands” cases (Nazi example)

• Mill may justify troubling actions (organ harvesting)

• in both can technically weasel out (create highly specific maxim, edit story to make greatest happiness more than counting, but both of those violate the true spirit of each philosopher)

Explain Mill’s distinction between higher and lower pleasures. What criteria determine this distinction? Is Mill justified in claiming the distinction is obvious?

• the higher pleasures are intellectual/aesthetic while the lower ones are bodily/sensory

  • differs from Bentham- counted

• Mill’s attempt to avoid era-contextual (Victorian) criticism of being hedonistic

• human happiness is summum bonum (better Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied)

• one problem this brings up to me would be determining happiness between two groups in very different circumstances, like one well-off and one very poor, if the difference would say enable the wealthy one to go to university while the poor one to buy food, does that mean the other one is more valuable, truly? this seems wrong

  • risks elitism and prioritizing intellectual forms of life over all others

  • also methodological issue, because if util. is based in observable pleasure/pain, how is this measured?

• avoids hedonism but issues remain over who decides what is “better”/determines value

How does Mill reconcile the principle of utility with concepts of justice and desert? Does his theory allow exceptions to equality?

• justice is not independent of utility; rules of justice (like honouring contracts, respecting rights) are essential to maximizing happiness

  • stable expectations, trust, and security are necessary conditions for a functioning society

• concept of desert (what individuals deserve) linked to this framework because people deserve reward/punishment insofar as this promotes the general good

  • punishing wrongdoing reinforces social norms + reduces harm = good

• tensions arise w equality

  • in principle, utility demands impartial consideration of all affected parties

  • what happens when certain circumstances demand different considerations?

  • allowing partiality seems to undermine effectiveness of utility, so how is this reconciled?

Evaluate the problem of “nose counting” in utilitarianism. How can it respond to the issue of minority suffering?

• under util, seems that majority happiness outweighs minority unhappiness, and can therefore be used to justify injustice

• Mill: distinction between happiness (so already more than just counting on some level), incorporation of justice and rights into framework, talks about long-term consequences

• but the tension remains unresolved, theory therefore struggles to provide absolute protections for individuals

  • visible in the play

What do we owe to others according to Kant and Mill? How does each philosopher justify moral obligation?

Kant: principle based, duty, reason, moral law

Mill: outcome based, happiness, social and internal sanctions

Distinguish between antecedent and consequent skepticism in Hume.

• antecedent skepticism: universal doubt of all opinions and faculties, before all study, incurable Cartesian doubt

  • if sensible qualities are perceptions of the mind, primary qualities must be as well.. depriving matter of all intelligible qualities annihilates it

• consequent skepticism: moderate, follows science and inquiry, necessary for philosophy; begins w self evident principles and advances carefully, senses can be relied upon but must be corrected by reason and considerations

Explain why Kant was so radically different than Descartes and Hume

• both D+H deal with thoughts, concepts, the mind, the ways in which humans think and their objects of cognition

• until Kant, the general principle was realism: the idea that the external world is real and independent, and even when you abstract a form, there is a coherence/correspondence

Why does Kant argue that objects conform to cognition rather than cognition to objects?

• you never know das ding an sich because you don’t have the ability to have a 3rd person perspective of both you and the object of your cognition; no “view from nowhere”

• the individual is part of the frame and shapes reality

• differs from Plato: no Form to point to, cannot get at independent object at all

• you cannot escape your own cognition

Why does Kant establish the existence and intelligibility of a priori knowledge?

• according to Aristotelian empiricism, a priori concepts would be impossible (they are true regardless of experience); this causes Kant to worry about loss of objectivity

• Kant brings in the notion of experience

  • so rather than concepts conforming to the object, the objects are cognized and conform to the concept

  • experience of object means the thing-in-itself drops out

• giving up on empiricism and replacing it with the idea that objects conform fixes the problem and allows a priori concepts (math, certain principles of ethics) to exist

• subjective experience is not derived from/consequent to the object, but it falls under the a priori rules of cognition (not derived, but presupposed when encountering what you think is the external world)

• nature of experience→ Kantian structure of reason

• grounding ethics in reason means that they do not have to be tied to a particular definition of a human; as reason is applicable to all humans, this allows his ethics to be universal

Use the false promise example to explain Kant’s moral reasoning.

• ex: I make a promise I do not intend to keep.

• illustrates the line that ethical reasoning should follow (normative), shows that unethical maxims cannot be universalized

• if all humans made false promises (no exceptions, in fact it is obligatory now), the entire concept of a promise is destroyed

• the maxim (if unethical) destroys itself once made a universal law

• the role of the law is to obligate you; universalization test reveals how humans privilege own interests in a way that short-circuits the proper functioning of reason/rational reflection

Why does Kant reject consequences as a basis for morality?

• they are unreliable, morally irrelevant to intention, and incapable of grounding universal moral law

  • if based on outcomes, moral rules would be flexible, context-dependent, open to exceptions whenever better results are expected— defeats entire purpose of needing universal and necessary moral law (categorical imperative)

  • risks justifying morally problematic actions (lying, harming)

• morality must evaluate what the agent can control, which is their will and the principle (maxim) they act on

• an action only has genuine moral worth if it is done because it is right, not because it leads to good results

What is the “greatest happiness principle,” and how is it applied?

• the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people

• tends to be a place where Kantians push back, because of questions over who counts in “people” and what happens if you are in the minority

• Mill says this works against objection of expedience, because not just about individual but the need to consider the greater number; harmonizing individual with community

What is the sanction for utility?

• the motivating factor/cause for action that we otherwise might not perform is internal

  • internal sanctions: conscience, guilt, satisfaction; conscience should be cultivated to make wrongdoing painful for agent, then will avoid pain

  • external: law, social disapproval, punishment

What is Mill’s “proof” of utilitarianism?

• happiness is desirable and all humans want it, it is intrinsically valuable and wanted for its own sake

• desirability of happiness universally is the proof

Is Dr. Stockmann better understood as a Kantian or a utilitarian? Defend your answer.

• best understood as a Kantian

  • acts from duty to truth with no regard for consequences

  • refuses to lie even when it would mean avoiding harm and pain

  • doesn’t weigh outcomes, and in this way also illustrates the problems w Kantianism- there should be a middle ground, he loses everything

• play can also be read as a critique of utilitarianism

• majority can be wrong and oppressive

  • public opinion can be manipulated, truth suppressed, harmonization of individual becomes forceful

  • majority rule becomes about power, no regard for truth/justice

What is Nietzsche’s critique of Socrates and Plato?

• representative of decay, uses logic and reason as a weapon, his morality of betterment is a misunderstanding and leads to decadence

• attacks Platonic ideal of world beyond sensory/material because idolization of concepts/Ideas diminishes actual life

  • the senses do not lie, but reason does, the apparent world is the only world

• offers Dionysus as alternative/corrective

  • spiritualization of sensuality- passions should be embraced, not destroyed

  • beauty should be weaponized instead of reason

  • restrictions on passions are anti-human nature (anti natural morality), healthy morality is ruled by an instinct for life + embrace of the Dionysian want for beauty as opposed to asceticism/restriction

four theses

1. another kind of world is indemonstrable

2. marks given to “true being” are nothing, constructed illusion

3. makes no sense to tell stories about another world

4. the division of the world into true / apparent is a symptom of decline

What are the “four great errors,” and why are they significant?

four mistakes of human reason regarding causal relationships that are the basis of all moral and religious propositions

1. confusing cause and effect
   - virtue is the effect of happiness, not a condition for it

2. false causality
   - we invent causes (like the “will” or “soul”) to explain actions.
   - moral + religious statements are in error bc they attribute human behavior to the existence of human will, spirit, and ego
   - N. finds factual reality of these questionable- there are no spiritual causes for human behavior

3. imaginary causes
   - we prefer familiar explanations instead of confronting uncertainty
   - human aversion to unexplained may cause people to accept ideas based solely on their emotional appeal rather than on their factual accuracy
   - cause ascriptions become more and more prevalent until they develop into systems of thought which exclude other explanations (business, romantic love, and Christianity)

4. free will
   - invention of free will is rooted in human drive to punish and judge
   - we should be considered in a state of innocent becoming (rather than already being)
   - the doctrine of will has been invented essentially for the purpose of punishment, that is of finding guilty
   - nothing can be imposed on humanity bc that presupposes something on the outside of the whole, which there is not
   - men were thought of as 'free' so that they could become guilty

seeks to deny the concept of "human accountability" which is an invention of religious figures to hold power over mankind

pushes toward a new view grounded in instinct, life, and becoming (back to idea of Dionysian)