General Philosophy Background 1 Five traditional subject matters of philosophy Ethics metaphysics reality epistemology knowledge history of philosophy logic 2 Who were Socrates Plato Aristotle Socrates followed Plato and was put to death for his ideas Plato famous philosopher Aristotle virtue ethics 3 What is the difference between lexical ambiguity and Lexical vagueness Lexical ambiguity means like a lemon which has multiple meanings and lexical vagueness is like bald the definition isn t always clear how much hair is considered bald Argumentation 4 What is an argument it is a list of two or more true false sentences One of which is called the conclusion and the rest which are called premises 5 Name and describe all different types of arguements Bad 1 non starter the premises are not plausibly true Ex 1 All squares have four sides 2 All rectangles are squares C All rectangles have four sides Since premises 1 is not plausibly true it is a bad argument 2 circular one or more of the premises are plausibly true only if the conclusion is plausibly true Ex 1 what is written in the bible is true because it is divinely inspired 2 God s existence is affirmed in the bible C God exists Since you can t agree that god exist without premise 1 being true the argument is bad 3 weak does not make the conclusion more plausible after the argument hasty generalization Ex 1 failed the exam on Tuesday 2 Sprained your ankle on Tuesday C Bad things happen to you on Tuesdays Just because they both happened on Tuesday doesn t mean you can just assume that every Tuesday is when bad things happen Good 4 Deductively sound deductively valid arguments with true premises Valid conclusion is indubitable incapable of being doubted given the premises Sound valid true premises Ex 1 all humans are mortals 2 Socrates was human C Socrates was mortal 5 Inductively strong inductively cogent arguments with true premises Cogent conclusion is made more probable than before the arguments but not absolutely indubitable given the premises Ex 1 you bought 75 of the possible lottery outcomes C you will win the lottery You can still doubt that you will win but premises make it plausible 6 Explain the following fallacies and why they are bad arguments 1 Begging the question is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or directly or indirectly assume that the conclusion is true This sort of reasoning typically has the following form a Premises in which the truth of the conclusion is claimed or the truth of the conclusion is assumed either directly or indirectly b Claim C the conclusion is true This sort of reasoning is fallacious because simply assuming that the conclusion is true directly or indirectly in the premises does not constitute evidence for that conclusion Obviously simply assuming a claim is true does not serve as evidence for that claim This is especially clear in particularly blatant cases X is true The evidence for this claim is that X is true example A God must exist B How do you know A Because the Bible says so B Why should I believe the Bible A Because the Bible was written by God 2 Gambler s Fallacy The Gambler s Fallacy is committed when a person assumes that a departure from what occurs on average or in the long term will be corrected in the short term the belief that if deviations from expected behaviors are observed in repeated independent trials of some random process future deviations in the opposite direction are then more likely 1 X has happened 2 X departs from what is expected to occur on average or over the long term 3 Therefore X will come to an end soon 3 Affirming the consequent An argument of this form is invalid i e the conclusion can be false even when statements 1 and 2 are true Since P was never asserted as the only sufficient condition for Q other factors could account for Q while P was false Example If Bill Gates owns Fort Knox then he is rich Bill Gates is rich Therefore Bill Gates owns Fort Knox 7 How does and arguments reconstruction proceed you ll need to present it in a way that someone unfamiliar with the material will understand Often this requires you to say a lot more than the philosopher whose work you are writing about did Keep your ideas separate from the author s Your purpose is to make the author s argument clear not to tell what you think of it Be charitable Give the best version of the argument you can even if you don t agree with the conclusion Define important terms Organize your ideas so that the reader can proceed logically from premises to conclusion step by step Explain each premise Ethics Basic Questions about 8 Define ethics is the branch of philosophy dealing with morality where moral claims are those that state what people should ought to do and or be 9 What is the difference between objective and subjective truths objective moral command don t depend on anyone believing them killing is wrong subjective true for you chocolate is better than vanilla 9a which major ethical theories are objectivist and subjectivist subjectivism cultural relativism what is right and wrong depends on culture ethical subjectivism what is right and wrong varies per person because it depends on a persons beliefs objectivism Divine command theory right and wrong are determined by gods commands deontology what is right is one s duty Consequentialism what is right is maximizing good outcomes virtue ethics what is right is what virtuous people do 10 What is the difference between a descriptive and normative claim descriptive is how the world is reality and normative is how the world should be Cultural Relativism and Ethical Subjectivism 11 What is cultural relativism and the two most common motivations for it and the problems cultural relativism what is right and wrong depends on what people in your culture believe Two motivations is the desire for all people to respect others by being tolerant of all beliefs and behaviors and another motivation is throughout history people have held different ideas about what people should do you should be tolerant of others opinion An intolerant culture is the problem 12 What is problematic about the implications of cultural relativism intolerant to other societies 13 What are the difference between cultural relativism and ethical subjectivism Ethical subjectivism according to is moral truths depend on and are relative to each individuals approval Different from cultural relativism bc it is based on an individual person
View Full Document
Unlocking...