Phil Exam 1

Front 1

Describe the main issues and questions in metaphysics

Back 1

The study or theory of reality. What is real? Is reality some kind of “thing?” Is it one or is it many? Can it be grasped with the five senses or is it supernatural or transcendent. Transcendent reality lies beyond the physical world.Supernaturalist (they do it in the 1st and narrow sense, they seek to know reality but believe in a supernatural reality).vs. materialists (1st sense they raise the question of reality but not in narrow they don’t believe in transedent they only believe in matter.

Front 2

Describe the main issues and questions in the area of epistemology.

Back 2

The study or theory of knowledge.What is knowledge?” What does it mean “to know”? How is knowledge acquired? What do the senses contribute to knowledge? What does reason contribute? Can we really be certain of anything? What is truth?

Front 3

Describe the approach taken to philosophy in any one of the following areas: speculative philosophy.

Back 3

The speculative philosopher raises and tries to answer the most ultimate and far ranging questions of all (what is reality? what is the ultimate good? what is the total meaning of things?) and to make sense of reality and experience as a whole.

Hint 3

In the beginning, Plato had, in fact, described the philosopher as a “spectator of time and eternity,” and many philosophers since (such as Aristotle, St. Thomas, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel) saw their philosophical task as a sort of cosmic one.

Front 4

Describe the contents of one the subareas of philosophy; philosophy of religion, law or education.

Back 4

a) Analysis of the concept of religion to determine what, if anything, distinguishes religion from other beliefs and activities such as moral codes, customs, superstition, or early attempts at science.

Hint 4

(e) Religious and mystical experience as claimed to be direct encounters with the divine. (f) The possibility of miracles and the circumstances in which any occurrence could justifiably be called miraculous in this sense. (g) The epistemological value and status of the concept of faith.

Front 5

Describe the central elements which define classical utilitarianism

Back 5

“The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals ‘utility’ or the ‘great-happiness principle’ holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.”

Hint 5

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Front 6

. Describe Mill’s qualitative distinction between “higher and lower pleasures” and explain how he justifies this distinction.

Back 6

The higher pleasures are those that involve some exercise of the distinctively human capacity for certain mental activities. These include the aesthetic experiences of viewing art, listening to music, or producing art, and performing music. Reading good literature, poetry, solving problems that require some mental effort, working in the sciences, and philosophy and perhaps playing chess and similar games are other examples. Mill also places spiritual experiences here though he says little about the nature of such experiences.

Hint 6

The lower pleasures are generally associated with bodily stimuli such as the pleasures of food, wine, sexual gratification, and perhaps sports activities. These are not exhaustive lists and the distinction, as with most distinctions, may feature borderline cases, activities that are pleasurable but difficult to rank as higher or lower.

Front 7

Describe the place of rules in Mill’s utilitarianism.

Back 7

Ethical rules such as promise keeping, truth telling, and abstaining from harming others without provocation, are extremely valuable as instruments for maintaining human happiness.

Hint 7

We do not need to test every action directly against the principle of utility to know whether it is ethically justified. So, ethical rules are rules of thumb, or guideposts, which we should follow most of the time and in so doing we will contribute to the overall happiness of those around us.

Front 8

Describe the “epistemological” objection to utilitarianism

Back 8

Some critics propose the objection that utilitarianism’s focus on consequences creates epistemological difficulties because we must calculate the consequences of our actions as far into the future as we can or as necessary. Long term consequences are difficult to predict and there are always consequences that are unintended and unforeseeable.

Hint 8

At what point, if any, does the influence of an action on someone else's interest become so indirect, so remote, and so slight as to cease to affect that interest in a morally relevant sense? We ordinarily tell others to mind their own business when we feel them to be meddling in our affairs, and when we receive unwanted advice we reproach our would be benefactors by reminding them that our actions do not concern them. But like the teaspoon of water which, when dropped into the ocean eventually spreads through all parts of the ocean equally, every individual action can be said eventually, if only indirectly, remotely, and slightly, to affect every last person's interests. Hence it is not sufficient, in determining the morality of an action, to consider only whether an action affects an interest; one must consider also the directness, the quality, and the extent of the action's impact on the other's interest.

Front 9

Describe the “repugnant conclusion” objection to utilitarianism.

Back 9

Two of the famous versions of the repugnant conclusion argument are the (a) commandant case and (b) the sheriff in a small town case.

Hint 9

This methodology involves treating our basic ethical intuitions regarding what is right or wrong as data, so to speak, which normative ethical theories must accommodate, rather than conflict with. In addition, our normative ethical theories are expected to explain why these intuitions are valid in a fashion at least somewhat similar to the way in which scientific theories are expected to explain observations or “facts” in the natural world.

Front 10

Describe the philosophical approach to the study of ethics.

Back 10

What kind of justification can we give for ethics and ethical practices? Is ethics real and should we strive to acquire ethics? An issue is that the consequence of ethics is that moral judgement is not absolute, but it relative to a culture and its practices.

Hint 10

One view called “emotivism” which holds that moral statements such as “Cheating is morally wrong” are neither true or false and should be viewed as “non-cognitive” expressions of emotion. As such they are on par with sentences like “Go Falcons” or “Boo Saints.”

Front 11

philosophical approach to the study of ethics/Normative ethics

Back 11

Making moral judgments and establishing moral standards.Normative ethical theories fall into three basic categories: deontological, consequentialist, and virtue ethics. Gives general guidelines on how we ought to act, what things are morally good and what things in life ought to be pursued. Giving practical criteria for ethical decision-making.

Front 12

philosophical approach to the study of ethics /. Applied ethics

Back 12

the application of normative theories of right and wrong and theories of value to specific issues such as abortion, euthanasia, human rights, animal rights, and a host of others.

Hint 12

Environmental ethics (we should be mindful of the generations after us and take care of the trees, military ethics (we fight for a reason but don’t go beyond the reason and mistreat soldiers or kill innocent civilians), biomedical ethics (is it right to do stem cell research, we should use animals as infrequent as possible for lab studies and experiments, because animals experience pain and pleasure.