1 An argument is valid if and only if the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion TRUE 2 An argument is sound if and only if the premises are probably true FALSE 3 The point of a philosophy paper is to tell your reader how you feel about a topic FALSE 4 According to Ryle Descartes s view is best classified as an Identity Theory of mind FALSE 5 Peter van Inwagen thinks that compatibilism is the correct view of Free Will FALSE 6 Thomas Nagel thinks that moral luck doesn t have anything to do with our practices of morally praising and blaming each other FALSE 7 A Utilitarian believes that the primary moral concern we have is to fulfill our duties to one another TRUE 8 According to Onora O Neill we ought to help those in extreme poverty because they are suffering and suffering is bad TRUE 9 According to Hursthouse virtue ethics cannot provide action guidance FALSE 10 According to Aldo Leopold human alteration of ecosystems tends to increase the complexity of those ecosystems FALSE 11 Explain the difference between an a priori claim and an a posteriori claim Latin terms that are especially useful in describing the way in which we are able to come to know certain propositions Propositions known a priori are those that can be known completely independent of experience Ex knowledge of triangles Propositions known a posteriori are those that require experience of the world to come to know Ex whether or not it is raining P 13 12 What are the two assumptions that Gettier needs to make before he can make his argument 1 Gettier uses the word justified to mean the possibility for a person to be justified in believing a proposition that is in fact false S s believing that P is a necessary condition of S s knowing that P 2 For any proposition P if S is justified in believing P and P entails Q then S is justified in believing Q Because S deduces Q from P and accepts Q as a result of this deduction P 134 13 Explain how Descartes gets to his famous claim cogito ergo sum Descartes continues his search for certainty and to discard as false anything that is open to the slightest doubt He recalls Archimedes famous saying that he could shift the entire earth given one immovable point similarly he hopes to achieve great things if he can be certain of just one thing Recalling the previous meditation he supposes that what he sees does not exist that his memory is faulty that he has no senses and no body that extension movement and place are mistaken notions Perhaps he remarks the only certain thing remaining is that there is no certainty Then he wonders is not he not something He has conceded that he has no senses and no body but does that mean he cannot exist either He has also noted that the physical world does not exist which might also seem to imply his nonexistence And yet to have these doubts he must exist For an evil demon to mislead him in all these insidious ways he must exist in order to be misled There must be an I that can doubt be deceived and so on He formulates the famous cogito argument saying So after considering everything very thoroughly I must finally conclude that this proposition I am I exist is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind 14 What two elements does Zagzebski claim the traditional account of knowledge has to keep separate but which lead to the account being Gettierizable Zagzebski claims that the traditional account of knowledge has to keep justification and the acquisition of truth completely independent of each other However the case is still Getterizable in that there will never be an imperfect position from which to obtain the truth As long as the truth is never assured by the conditions which make the state justified there will be situations in which a false belief is justified P 72 73BB 15 What is Eliminative Materialism Eliminative materialism is the radical claim that our ordinary common sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common sense do not actually exist Descartes famously challenged much of what we take for granted but he insisted that for the most part we can be confident about the content of our own minds Eliminative materialists go further than Descartes on this point since they challenge the existence of various mental states that Descartes took for granted P 277 280 16 Why according to Brie Gertler can t scientific findings can t prove the truth of the identity thesis Science operates on induction Any inductive claim does not guarantee the truth 17 What according to Ryle is the Official Doctrine Every human being has is both a body and a mind His body and his mind are ordinarily harnessed together but after the death of his body his mind can continue to exist and function Since minds are not in space a person therefore lives two collateral histories one public body and one private mind Though a person may have uncertainties about concurrent and adjacent episodes in the physical world he can have none about at least part of what is momentarily occupying his mind What has physical existence is a function of matter what has a mental existence is a function of consciousness A person has direct knowledge of the best imaginable kind of the workings of their own mind According to the Official Doctrine direct access to the workings of a mind are the privilege of oneself inevitably occult to everyone else Even if a person believes that to other human bodies there are harnessed other minds not unlike his own he cannot claim to be able to discover their individual characteristics or the particular things that they undergo and do P 250 252 18 What is the difference between incompatibilism and compatibilism Incompatibilists hold that free will and determinism are incompatible while compatibilists hold that they are indeed compatible P 387 19 Why does Peter Singer think there s something wrong about buying a new iPhone We are not providing for an important need like preventing someone from starving We ought to give the money away to charity rather than spend it on something unnecessary P 498 20 What is the difference between a perfect duty and an imperfect duty Perfect duties are strict duties that admit of no exceptions Imperfect duties are more lax in which you do admit of exceptions Imperfect duties are still duties but you have some choice about how you go about fulfilling them 21 What is the objective purport of ethical claims The objective