Midterm Philo 100 March 13, 2002
Answer Key
Short Essay
1. What is an argument?
An argument is a set of sentences divided into premises and a conclusion. Premises are assumptions which are held to support the conclusion, i.e. to provide reasons for thinking the conclusion is true.
2. Define ‘validity’.
An argument is valid if and only if it not possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false.
3. Suppose someone claimed that her charity towards a starving person was really selfish, because she gave money to aid the starving in order to relieve her own discomfort at their plight. How would Feinberg respond?
Feinberg would claim that her discomfort at the plight of the starving requires that she have a prior concern for them. That concern is unselfish, and plays a crucial role in motivating her action. Hence her charity cannot be entirely selfish.
4. Define the idea of a first order ethical precept and give an example.
A first order ethical precept is a claim in an ethical theory which claims that something is of intrinsic moral value. Such claims can be defended as true, but they cannot be explained by appeal to underlying moral values. E.g., Utilitarians hold that human happiness is of intrinsic moral value. This claim can be defended insofar as the theory of which it is a part explains of our prior moral commitments and judgments, but it cannot itself be explained by appeal to any underlying moral features.
5. Distinguish meta-ethical subjectivism (nihilism) from ethical (normative) subjectivism.
Nihilism denies that moral claims, such as ‘Murder is wrong’ assert anything about the world. Nihilism holds that moral claims rather express attitudes, so ‘Murder is wrong’ really means the same thing as ‘Boo to Murder’. For nihilism, then, there are no moral facts. Ethical subjectivism on the other hand claims that there are moral facts, and moreover claims that what these facts are is determined by what someone believes about them. So if I believe ‘Murder is wrong’ is true, then it is, and what makes it true is that I believe it.
6. Distinguish consequentialist from deontic ethical theories. On deontic theories one directly assesses the moral status of actions by asking whether or not an action accords with or violates the relevant first order precept(s), or general principles that follow from the precept(s). On consequentialist theories, one directly assesses the moral status of the states of affairs produced by an action, and only indirectly assess the moral status of an action by asking whether or not the action produced sufficiently good states of affairs.
7. What is the difference between psychological egoism and ethical egoism?
Psychological egoism is a claim about how people in fact act (i.e., they always act in their own self-interests). It makes no claim at all about how people should act. Ethical egoism, on the other hand, claims that, however people actually act, they ought always act in their own self interests (i.e. they have no duties to others, but they do have a duty to act in their own interests). So psychological egoism is an empirical claim about how people actually act, while ethical egoism is a moral claim about how people ought to act.
8. What is mistaken about the idea that ethical egoism is correct because the best way to pursue the good of all is to act selfishly?
This argument presumes that we have a duty to act for the good of all. But ethical egoism claims that we have no duties to others, but a duty always to act in our own self-interest. Hence, ethical egoism contradicts an assumption made by the argument. If the premises of the argument are right, then while it might be that we ought always act selfishly, it cannot be that the reason for this is that ethical egoism is true.
9. What is the principle of sufficient reason?
The principle of sufficient reason claims that there is a reason for everything, i.e. everything has an explanation. In particular, PSRA: every object has an explanation, and PSRB: every positive fact has an explanation.
10. What is the difference between an efficient and a final cause?
An efficient cause is just a cause in our everyday sense of the word. The tension on the spring in a watch causes the hands to move, pressing the brake pedal on a car causes it to slow, and so on. A final cause is a purpose served by an efficient cause—the final cause of the spring is telling time, since this is the purpose of having a watch in the first place.
Long Essay Questions
1. What is Anselm’s Ontological Argument for God’s existence?
Anselm argues that God must by definition exist; the very idea of God not existing is logically incoherent. To show this Anselm first defines God as the greatest, i.e. most perfect, imaginable being, or, more succinctly, the greatest possible being. He then claims that God is possible, i.e. he might actually exist. Finally, he claims that existence is a perfection, i.e. a great making property, so that a thing which is merely possible but not actual is not as great as it would be if it were actual. Anselm thinks it follows that God must actually exist. To see why, he offers a reductio of that claim, which might be put as follows. Suppose God didn’t actually exist. Then he would be merely possible (since he is at least possible). Hence, he might have been greater than he is (since existence is a great making property). But then, since God would have been greater had he existed and this is possible, God, the non-actual but possible being, would not be the greates possible being. But that can’t be, since God is by definition the greatest possible being. So to avoid the contradiction, it must be that God actually exists.
2. Which argument against ethical egoism does Rachels find most convincing, and how does it go, and what is his response?
Rachels claims there is a meta-ethical principle which any cogent ethical theory must satisfy. This principle says that if an ethical theory draws a distinction between two classes of people and says that the interests of one class must be taken more seriously than the interests of the other, then there had better be some morally relevant difference between those two classes which justifies our different treatment of them. Ethical egoism does draw a distinction between two classes of persons: each person is enjoined to distinguish between him- or herself on the one hand, and everybody else on the other. So unless there is for each individual some morally relevant difference between the two classes, as she draws those lines, ethical egoism will violate our meta-ethical principle. But there can be no such difference: the difference can not lie, for example, in brains, or beauty, or being nice: if Igor is nicer than Boris, and niceness justifies treating people differently, then it is OK for Igor to treat himself differently from Boris maybe. But then it would not be OK for Boris to treat himself better than Igor—Igor is nicer and so deserves better treatment. But ethical egoism must enjoin Boris to do just this. So ethical egoism must violate our meta-ethical principle, and consequently must be mistaken.
3. Why does Shafer-Landau think one can be an ethical objectivist without thinking that God exists?
Roughly, Shafer-Landau says that if ethics is objective, this cannot be because God exists. The reasoning is this. Suppose God legislates the moral rules. Either he has reasons for so doing, i.e. these rules are the right rules, or he does so only on whimsy. If the latter, then the rules are merely subjective—God’s endorsement of them provides prudential reasons for following them, but cannot establish violations of them as objectively immoral. On the other hand, if the rules are the right rules, they are objective, but are also independent of God’s endorsement—they would be the right rules whether God endorsed the or not, or even whether God existed or not. So if the rules are objective, this is independent of whether or not God endorses them.
Since there are all sorts of objective evaluative rules which are so independent of God, in domains like logic and mathematics, we should regard it as a real possibility that the ethical rules are like this, objectively right, independently of God’s endorsement of them.
4. What is the paradox of hedonism, and how does Feinberg use it to argue against psychological egoism?
The paradox of hedonism is that the only way to effectively pursue one’s own happiness to effectively pursue some goal which is not defined in terms of happiness—e.g. being a successful politician, or the worlds greatest boxer, or whatever. Sometimes in pursuit of such goals we meet with success, and sometimes happiness comes along for the ride. But to go out looking for happiness, without concern for anything else, is a sure way not to find happiness. For what then could make one happy? If it is ‘securing X’ that makes one happy, then there must have been some prior desire for X, and so a goal different from merely being happy. If X just is happiness, the problem simply rearrises.
Feinberg claims that this is a problem for a specific version of psychological egoism, called psychological hedonistic egoism, according to which all actions are selfish because all actions are aimed to secure the happiness of the person acting. That cannot be right, says Feinberg, because the paradox of hedonism shows us that minimally some actions must be aimed to produce happiness by securing X, where X is some goal other than happiness itself. But there is no reason X cannot be a goal which is other-regarding, i.e. some goal concerned with doing well by others, say, feeding the starving, or curing the sick, or removing vicious dictators, or freeing the world from terrorism. Since those motives need not be, and maybe cannot be, entirely selfish, but are motives for actions, psychological hedonistic egoism must be mistaken.
5. What is Aquinas’s 5th way for proving God’s existence?
Aquinas notes that nature is purposive in that material objects always conform their behavior to laws of nature. Purposive behavior requires awareness: either the object itself must be aware, or it must be direct by some other agent who is aware. Most material objects are not aware (i.e. nature is not itself aware). So there must be something which is aware and that directs the behavior of material objects, of nature; this awareness is what Aquinas calls God in the fifth way.
Extra Credit Question
The argument is invalid. To see this, simply note that complex adaptations need not have evolved—they might have been created by God, or aliens, or what have you. Or they might have developed by orthogenesis, or some other process not countenanced by evolutionary theory. Technically, the argument is a fallacy of affirming the consequent. It has the form: If P then Q, Q therefore P. The premises are true if Q is true and P false, and under that condition the conclusion is false.