PHILO final

What are Singer’s strong and weak principles?

Strong

• if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it

Weak

• if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it

BOTH only require we prevent what is bad from happening when it costs nothing to stop

What does the End in Itself formulation of Kant’s Categorical Imperative say?

Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end

• you should always treat humanity, in yourself and others, as an end and never merely as a means

• not a means to an end where they cannot consent but as a human being with there own emotions and lives

What does the Universal Law formulation say?

Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become universal law

• identify your maxim

• imagine that this maxim is a universal law, meaning everyone in the same situation acts according to it

• consider whether, in such a world, you would even be able to act as you intend to act

• if so, the action is morally permissible

• if not, the action is categorically impermissible

What is Aristotle’s account of eudaimonia? What’s his argument for it?

eudaimonia is the highest human good, which translates to "flourishing" or "living well" rather than just a feeling of happiness

his argument is that we pursue other things for their own sake, but we also pursue these things for the sake of eudaimonia. But we don’t pursue eudaimonia for any further end.

What is Aristotle’s “doctrine of the mean”?

virtue is the balance between two extremes of excess and deficiency

• right action is relative - the mean is not a fixed point but is relative to the individual and the circumstances

• i.e courage is the virtuous mean between the vices of rashness (excess) and cowardice (deficiency)

What is moral relativism, according to Jesse Prinz?

conflicting moral beliefs may both be true:

• one may be true relative to one group, and the other may be true relative to another group

Why should we think moral relativism is true?

because of the fact that moral beliefs vary widely between different people in different times and places

What is the primary purpose of Descartes’ First Meditation?

the use of radical doubt to question the certainty of all beliefs, beginning with the fallibility of the senses

• senses have deceived in the past (i.e. optical illusions) because of this, they cannot be trustworthy for certain knowledge

• considers the possibility that he could be dreaming right now, making it impossible to distinguish between waking life and a dream

• to doubt simple truths like mathematics, he introduces the idea of a demon who is deceiving him, this deceiver could be tricking him into believing even the most fundamental truths

the purpose is to systematically tear down all his former opinions, no matter how uncertain, to start fresh

What does Descartes conclude in the Second Meditation? What’s the reasoning here?

the "I think, therefore I am," the definition of the self as a "thinking thing," and the "wax argument" to show how the mind understands objects better than the senses

• from the fact that I am thinking, it follows that I exist

• anything I have used to attribute to myself cannot be affirmed, but attributing thinking to the soul cannot be rejected by the skeptical

• a candle that is lit and changes colors, smells, or shape is still the same wax as the wax itself is not the smell or color but the body that is know to be flexible

What is G. E. Moore’s proof of the external world?

a rigorous proof must meet three criteria:

• the premises must be different from the conclusion

• the premises must be known to be true

• the conclusion must logically follow from the premises.

the proof is Moore's response to radical skepticism, which argues that we cannot know anything about the external world

What is Hume’s Copy Principle?

all simple ideas (thoughts, concepts) are derived from and are exact copies of simple impressions

• complex ideas are just combinations of these simple ideas, meaning everything in the mind ultimately traces back to sensory input or internal feeling, acting as a foundational rule for understanding meaning

What are relations of ideas?

are demonstrably true or false

• if true, they can be proven to be true with certainty

• if false, they can be proven false with certainty

What are Matters of fact?

are not known a priori (known independently of experience)

• our knowledge of them comes from experience: perception, memory, testimony

What is epistemic contextualism?

proposes that the standard for what counts as "knowing" something is not fixed but varies depending on the context of the conversation

What is Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God?

a philosophical proof:

• starting from the definition of God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" (God's perfection)

• arguing that a being existing in reality is greater than one existing only in the mind

• thus proving God must exist in reality, otherwise, a greater being (one that does exist in reality) could be conceived, creating a logical contradiction

What is Gaunilo’s parody of Anselm’s ontological argument?

he uses the analogy of a "perfect island" to show the flaw in arguing for God's existence from definition alone

• this logic suggests a perfect island must exist, but we know it's absurd to claim a perfect island exists just because we can imagine it

• used this to show that Anselm's proof, which defines God into existence, might be flawed because it proves false things (like the perfect island)

What is Rowe’s argument for atheism? And his reply on behalf of the theist?

His argument for atheism is that there exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse

His reply on behalf of the theist is that humans lack the perspective to judge whether a specific instance of suffering serves a greater good or prevents a worse evil

What are the two theories of time discussed by Sider?

Dynamic: aligns with our everyday experience where time "flows," and events become past, present, or future

• time is very different from space, and the passage of time is a real phenomenon

Static: time is like space, with past, present, and future all existing equally

• time is like space, and there is no such thing as the passage of time

What are some considerations that support each theory discussed by Sider?

• Objects persist through time by having temporal parts, much like a person has spatial parts

• To make sense of time's flow, Sider suggests time itself might move relative to another, higher dimension of time

• many time debates are superficial quarrels between different reductive approaches. The real issue is whether time is reducible to something else or if temporal predication (like "is present") is fundamentally unique

• ultimately views fundamental reality as structure. Our intuitive "flow" of time might be a feature of our perspective or a consequence of these deeper structures, not the fundamental truth about time itself

Explain Lewis’s distinction between “external time” and “personal time.”

external time is the objective, shared time of the universe, the "real" time everyone else experiences while personal time is the time measured by the time traveler's own body, memories, and watch

What is the grandfather paradox? How does Lewis resolve it?

It asks - if you time travel and kill your grandfather before your parent was conceived, you'd never be born, so you couldn't have traveled back to kill him. Creating a logical loop

Lewis resolves this by arguing that the time traveler can try to kill their grandfather, but will always fail due to circumstantial reasons

What are the two theories of personal identity over time that Williams considers?

Mind Theory posits that personal identity persists over time due to the continuity of psychological states, such as memories, consciousness, beliefs, and character traits.

Body Theory argues that personal identity is fundamentally tied to the continuity of the physical human body in space and time. It holds that a person at one time is the same person at a later time if and only if they possess the same, continuous body.

How do the first-person and third-person presentations of Williams’ thought experiment support those theories?

the first-person view (imagining as the person) favors the Body Theory, while the third-person view (observing others) supports the Mind Theory, flipping the usual expectation that mind-based perspectives support psychological identity

What is Lewis’s argument for the psychophysical identity theory?

mental events (i.e., the gain or loss of a mental property) are the same as or identical to physical events (i.e., the gain or loss of a physical property)

According to Lewis, what is the defining characteristic of an experience?

the "given" or immediate sensory data and the "conceptual" or the mind's act of interpretation

What theories of mental phenomena does Lewis’s analysis of experience rule out? Why?

Behaviorism: the view that mental states are identical to behavioral dispositions (e.g., "pain is the tendency to say 'ouch' and withdraw"). Lewis found this too rigid, unable to handle exceptions like a stoic in pain or a paralyzed person who feels pain but can't act on it.

Dualism: Theories positing a non-physical mind substance. Lewis's argument, based on the causal closure of the physical world, concludes that mental states, by being causally effective, must themselves be physical.

What is Nagel’s chief criticism of physicalist or reductionist accounts of mental phenomena?

subjective experience (what it's like to be something) possesses an inherent, first-person perspective that objective, third-person physical accounts fundamentally miss

What does Nagel think the definitive characteristic of conscious experience is?

is its subjective character, which means "there is something it is like" to be that organism

How does Nagel understand the subjective and objective standpoints?

sees subjective and objective standpoints as competing but essential perspectives on reality

• subjectivity rooted in personal experience ("what it's like to be me")

• objectivity as a detached, impartial "view from nowhere" that sees facts independent of any viewpoint

Why does Nagel think that it seems impossible to provide a physical account of conscious experience?

conscious experience has a unique "subjective character"—it's something it is like to be a particular organism, inherently tied to a single, first-person point of view

Why, exactly, is it so hard to know what it is like to be a bat?

Even if humans were able to metamorphose gradually into bats, their brains would not have been wired as a bat's from birth; therefore, they would only be able to experience the life and behaviors of a bat, rather than the mindset. Such is the difference between subjective and objective points of view.

What is Jackson’s argument against physicalism?

The argument posits a scientist named Mary who learns all the physical facts about color vision but has never actually experienced seeing color. The core of the argument is:

• Premise 1: Before her release from her black-and-white room, Mary knows all the physical facts about color and color vision

• Premise 2: Upon experiencing the color red for the first time after her release, she learns something new—what it is like to see red

• Conclusion: Therefore, there are truths (facts about subjective experience) that are not physical truths

If there are non-physical facts, then physicalism—the doctrine that all facts are physical facts—is false. This argument challenges physicalism by suggesting that conscious experience (qualia) cannot be fully explained by physical science alone.

What is Lewis’s reply to Jackson’s argument?

the Ability Hypothesis: Mary doesn't learn new facts when she leaves the black-and-white room; instead, she gains new abilities to imagine, recognize, and remember the experience of seeing color, which physicalism can explain. Lewis argues that what Mary gains isn't new information but new skills (like recognizing red), not a new type of knowledge that challenges physicalism