Assignment Task:
Bertrand Russell - Argument from Analogy
1. The relationship between thoughts and actions (behaviors)
2. A machine's behavior vs. a human's behavior - relevant differences
3. What is the goal of the argument from analogy?
4. How is the argument structured?
5. What is solipsism?
Gilbert Ryle - Descartes's Myth
1. What is the official doctrine?
2. What are some consequences of accepting the official doctrine?
3. What problems arise with the official doctrine?
4. What differences exist between the mind and the body, according to the official doctrine?
5. Why does Ryle call the official doctrine the dogma of the Ghost and the machine?
6. What is a category mistake?
7. How does Ryle believe the official doctrine commits a category mistake?
8. What motivated Descartes to separate the mind from the body?
9. Explain the double life theory as a consequence of the official doctrine.
10. Why does Ryle claim idealism and materialism are answers to the wrong question?
11. What are the historical developments led to the creation of the official doctrine?
Peter van Inwagen - The Powers of Rational Beings
1. What do judgements about actions imply?
2. How does van Inwagen define incompatibilism?
3. How does van Inwagen define compatibilism?
4. How does van Inwagen define determinism?
5. How does van Inwagen define free will?
6. What is his argument (which position does he choose, and why)?
7. Why does van Inwagen claim both determinism and indeterminism destroy free will?
Derek Parfit - Personal Identity
1. Explain Parfit's account of the division case (the brain switch), its possible outcomes, and hissolution to this problem.
2. How likely does Parfit think the "problem cases" of identity are to become reality?
3. What is psychological continuity (connectedness)?
4. What is Parfit's solution to issue about identity?
Thomas Nagel - Moral Luck
1. Define moral luck.
2. What does Nagel tell us about control, and its role is assigning moral responsibility?
3. What is the control condition?
4. What is the source of skeptical arguments? How does the problem of moral luck connect to free will?
5. What parallels exist between the phenomenon of epistemological skepticism and moral luck?
6. What are the four kinds of moral luck explained in the essay, and what are some examples (or illustrations) of each?
Jeremy Bentham - The Principle of Utility
1. Why does Bentham claim people are naturally embracive of the principle of utility?
2. What role do the concepts of pleasure and pain play for Bentham's version of utilitarianism?
3. What is the principle of utility, and how does it work?
4. What method does Bentham provide to calculate the utility of actions?
5. How does Bentham say we can understand the communal good?
John Stuart Mill - Utilitarianism
1. How do we know that happiness is valuable, for Mill?
2. What is Mill's response to the claim that utilitarianism is "excessively demanding?"
3. What distinction does Mill draw between motives and intentions? Why is this distinction relevant?
4. What role does happiness play? How is it defined?
5. What is Mill's theory of life?
6. Are we concerned with individual or group utility here?
7. What addition does Mill make to Bentham's view?
8. How do we rank the quality of pleasures?
9. What is the significance (or importance) of pleasure and pain in Mill's system?
Peter Singer - Famine, Affluence, and Morality (The Life You Can Save)
1. What does Singer tell us about reducing suffering?
2. What role do we have as individuals/groups, in the reduction of suffering?
3. What is the drowning child example? What is it meant to represent? What does it show us?
4. What is Singer's basic argument?
5. What objections does he consider about his view, and how does he respond?
6. What is his solution to the problem of global suffering?
7. What is the distinction between charity and duty? What changes is Singer prescribing here?
8. Define the term supererogatory.
9. What moral significance can we attach to distance, according to Singer?
Immanuel Kant - Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
1. What is a good will? Why is it good?
2. What is the lone intrinsic good?
3. How do you explain each formulation of the categorical imperative provided by Kant?
4. What is the significance of rational beings in this system?
5. What does it mean to treat someone merely as a means? As an end in themselves? With dignity?
6. What is autonomy? How do we respect it?
7. What are hypothetical imperatives? How do they contrast with categorical imperatives?
8. What distinction does Kant draw between acting from duty and acting in accordance with duty?
Onora O'Neill - A Kantian Approach to World Hunger
1. What is Kant's supreme principle of morality?
2. What is an example of treating someone as a mere means?
3. What is an example of a beneficent act?
4. What role does justice play here?
5. How is a maxim defined?
6. Why is eradicating famine important to the Kantian?
7. What problems does O'Neill point out with utilitarian approaches to famine relief?
8. What sorts of obligations arise with this view?
Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
1. What does Aristotle say is the best way to attain moral virtue?
2. How can we understand virtues as habits?
3. What is the definition of virtue?
4. What is an example of a virtue?
5. What is the definition of a vice?
6. What is an example of a vice?
7. What role is there in this system for external goods, like money?
8. What is the function of a human being?
9. What is the human good?
10. How can we be virtuous?
11. What is the doctrine of the mean?
Thomas Hill Jr. - Ideals of Human Excellence
1. Explain the significance of the concepts of self-importance, self-acceptance, and humility to Hill's argument.
2. What role does character and virtue play in this argument?
3. What is Hill's new approach to help us judge actions in relation to the environment?
4. What is the "educated response" objection to Hill's position? How does he respond to this objection?
5. What does Hill mean when he says we need to "understand our place in the universe?"
Friedrich Nietzsche - On the Genealogy of Morals
1. What does Nietzsche say about the prevailing moral values of Western civilization?
2. What is the etymology of good and bad, according to Nietzsche?
3. Explain Nietzsche's master and slave morality?
4. How does Nietzsche say one can be strong?
Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan
1. What is Hobbes's conception of the state of nature?
2. What are Hobbes's natural laws (1,2, and 3)?
3. Explain Hobbes's conceptions of justice and injustice.
4. Define felicity for Hobbes
5. Define good for Hobbes
6. Explain Hobbes's "right to all" (right to nature).
7. What does Hobbes's say about objective good or morality in the state of nature?
8. Explain Hobbes's view of morality as rational self-advantage.
9. Explain Hobbes's concept of covenants, equality, and the leviathan.
John Locke - Two Treatise of Government
1. How does Locke define freedom?
2. What is the source of our natural rights, for Locke (where did we get them)?
3. What examples of rights does Locke cite?
4. What is Locke's natural law conception of ethics?
5. How do we acquire property, according to Locke?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The General Will
1. What is Rousseau's conception of the state of nature?
2. What is Rousseau's conception of the social contract?
3. Generally speaking, what is a social contract?
4. Explain Rousseau's conception of human nature.
5. Explain Rousseau's conception of the general will.
John Rawls - A Theory of Justice
1. What is the difference principle?
2. How are our principles of justice chosen, for Rawls?
3. What is the "veil of ignorance?"
4. What is the principle of greatest equal liberty?
5. How would Rawls' separate a just from an unjust society (think of the difference principle)?
6. Explain why Rawls describes justice as fairness. What does this concept mean? What is the original position?