Philosophy 1200 - Philosophy and Society

Study Guide for Exam #1

 

Exam #1 will take place on Thursday, October 2 in class. Bring a bluebook. Also bring (and write your exam in) blue or black ink -- no red ink, no pencil. Exam #1 will be a closed-note and closed-book exam.

What You're Responsible For. The questions will be short-answer-type questions. The study questions below will give you an idea of the sort of questions you can expect. You are responsible for the following topics:

You are responsible for the related readings from our Readings page.

How to Prepare:

Let me emphasize the importance of actually writing out answers to these questions. We often think we understand something -- until we try to put it in writing. Only then do we realize we don't really understand it. If you don't write out your answers, you won't know what you don't know.

Study Questions

Abortion (Marquis) (Weeks 1-2)

  1. What is Marquis' main thesis? Explain what is meant by "prima facie."
  2. Explain in your own words Marquis' general strategy for arguing that abortion is wrong.
  3. Explain why Marquis rejects the view that killing is wrong due to the effect it has on people other than the victim.
  4. According to Marquis, why would it be wrong for me to kill you?
  5. What does Marquis mean by "future like ours"?
  6. We could say that Marquis' account of the wrongness of killing is not "speciesist." Give an example of an account of the wrongness of killing that is speciesist. Explain why Marquis' account is not speciesist.
  7. True or False: Marquis' account of what makes killing wrong implies that euthanasia would always be wrong. Explain your answer.
  8. True or False: Marquis' position on abortion implies that abortion is wrong only once the fetus becomes conscious. Explain your answer.
  9. What is the desire account of the wrongness of killing? What does it imply about abortion?
  10. Explain one of Marquis' objections to the desire account of the wrongness of killing.
  11. Explain the distinction between being a person in the biological sense, being a person in the psychological sense, and being a person in the moral sense. Be prepared to give an example of a being that is a person in any one of these senses, but not the other two, and also in any two of these senses, but not the other one. (Or, if there are no examples for some such combinations, be prepared to explain why.)
  12. What is Paske's personhood account account of the wrongness of killing? Which concept of personhood -- biological or psychological -- is it employing?
  13. What does Paske's personhood account account of the wrongness of killing imply about abortion, and why?
  14. Explain Paske's reason for preferring his personhood account over Marquis' future-like-ours account that has to do with gericide? What do you think of this objection to Marquis' account? (Gericide is the killing of an elderly person.)
  15. Explain Paske's reason for preferring his personhood account over Marquis' future-like-ours account that has to do with the cat-person case. This will require explaining that case in detail. What do you think of this objection to Marquis' account?
  16. Imagine someone in a temporary coma. Presumably, it would be wrong to kill such an individual. Do you think Paske's personhood account can explain this? Explain your answer. Do you think Marquis' future-like-ours account can explain this? Explain your answer.
  17. Suppose a couple decides not to conceive a child. In doing so, they make it so that one fewer person with a future-like-ours exists. Does Marquis' account therefore imply that what they do is wrong? Explain.
  18. Suppose that we have souls (non-physical things in which our thinking and feeling occurs). Suppose that in fact we are these souls rather than our bodies. Suppose further that, as St. Thomas Aquinas believed, these souls come into being several weeks after conception. What would all of this imply about abortion when combined with Marquis' account of why abortion is wrong?

Abortion (Thomson) (Weeks 2-3)

  1. Explain in your own words the anti-abortion argument Thomson discusses at the beginning of her paper (this is the one we called in class the "standard anti-abortion argument"). Be your explanation includes the idea of a "clash of rights."
  2. Explain why it seems plausible that the right to life is more stringent than the right to decide what happens in and to your body.
  3. One way to support one of premises in the "standard anti-abortion argument" is by appeal to the idea that there is no sharp line (or no non-arbitrary point) at which the right to life is acquired. Explain how Thomson would undermine this appeal.
  4. Present a view about when the right to life is acquired that you think is clearly false, and explain why it is false.
  5. Explain Thomson's case of the violinist and how this is supposed to undermine the "standard anti-abortion argument."
  6. Present, in line-by-line format, the argument by analogy that Thomson would give for the conclusion that it's ok for a woman to have an abortion.
  7. According to one objection to Thomson's positive argument (the argument by analogy from above), the case of the violinist and a normal case of unwanted pregnancy fail to be morally on a par because in a normal case of unwanted pregnancy the person attached to the woman is her child, whereas in the case of the violinist, the person attached to you is a stranger to you. Discuss a variant of the case of the violinist that suggests that this difference is indeed morally relevant, and explain why it suggests this.
  8. According to one objection to Thomson's positive argument, the case of the violinist and a normal case of unwanted pregnancy fail to be morally on a par because becoming pregnant is a natural thing, whereas becoming attached to a violinist in the way described is not. Discuss a variant of the pregnancy case that suggests that this difference is NOT morally relevant, and explain why it suggests this.
  9. The responsibility objection (or the voluntary vs. involuntary objection) to Thomson's position on abortion contends that the case of the violinist and a standard case of unwanted pregnancy are not morally on a par. What exactly is the difference between these two cases that the responsibility objection claims is morally relevant?
  10. Be prepared to introduce your own allegedly morally relevant difference between the case of the violinist and a standard case of unwanted pregnancy, and then to show, using the technique of variant cases, whether this difference really is morally relevant.
  11. Beckwith discusses a case in which a man takes all reasonable precautions to avoid becoming a father, but nevertheless does become a father. What does he think this shows about Thomson's position on abortion?

Treatment of Animals (Week 4)

  1. Present, in line-by-line format, Norcross' Argument by Analogy.
  2. Give the rationale for each of the premises in Norcross' Argument by Analogy. Doing so will require, among other things, explaining the details of the case of Fred.
  3. According to one objection to Norcross' Argument, purchasing and consuming factory-raised meat is not morally on a par with Fred's behavior because Fred directly causes the suffering of his puppies but meat-eaters don't directly cause the suffering of the cows, pigs, chickens, etc. that they eat. Describe a variant of the Fred case that suggests that this difference is in fact NOT morally relevant, and explain exactly why it suggests this.
  4. According to one objection to Norcross' Argument, purchasing and consuming factory-raised meat is not morally on a par with Fred's behavior because raising animals for food is a very natural and long-standing human practice, but torturing puppies for cocoamone is not. Evaluate this objection (i.e., tell me whether you think it is good; if you think it is good, explain why, and if you think it is no good, explain why it fails).
  5. What is the causal impotence objection to Norcross' Argument?
  6. Describe in detail what you take the be Norcross' strongest response to the causal impotence objection.
  7. Be prepared to introduce your own allegedly morally relevant difference between the case of Fred and purchasing and consuming factory-raised meat, and then to show, using the technique of variant cases, whether this difference really is morally relevant.
  8. What is the concept of moral status? That is, what is it for a thing to have moral status. (I'm not here asking you to tell me what you think the correct theory of moral status is, rather I'm asking you to identify the notion that such a theory is about.)
  9. Give an example of something that uncontroversially has full moral status, and an example of something that pretty clearly has no moral status.
  10. State Speciesism (as a theory of moral status), and give a counterexample to it (this requires not only explaining the example, but also explaining why it is a problem for Speciesism).
  11. State Rationalism, and explain what Cohen would mean by the term 'rational' in Rationalism.
  12. Explain the "problem of marginal cases" for Rationalism. Do you think this really is a problem of Rationalism? Explain.
  13. State and explain the theory we called Rationalist Speciesism. Which philosopher that we studied endorses this theory? For each of the objections that you presented against the previous two theories of moral status, explain in detail why Rationalist Speciesism avoids it.
  14. Explain either one of Norcross' objections to Rationalist Speciesism or one of the objections to Rationalist Speciesism that we discussed in class.
  15. If Rationalist Speciesism is not a defensible theory, then it may be impossible to find a morally relevant difference between some mentally disabled humans and some non-human mammals. If this is true, and if Cohen continues to think that we ought to use these mammals in experiments, what else is Cohen committed to concerning some mentally disabled humans?

Parent Licensing (Week 5)

  1. What is LaFollette's Thesis? What do we mean if we say that it is "true in theory"? What do we mean if we say that it is "true in practice as well."
  2. Explain LaFollette's general account of licensing. Then explain how we would justify this account. What general type of reasoning is being used here?
  3. State LaFollette's main argument for this thesis.
  4. Explain a practical objection to LaFollette's main argument and then explain what LaFollette would (or should) say in response. Who do you think is right here -- the objector or LaFollette? Explain.
  5. Explain a theoretical objection to LaFollette's main argument and then explain what LaFollette would (or should) say in response. Who do you think is right here -- the objector or LaFollette? Explain.
  6. State the Argument by Analogy inspired by LaFollette.
  7. Some people believe that there is a right to create and raise children (i.e., a right to be a biological parent). Explain how an advocate of this view would object to LaFollette's main argument. Explain how an advocate of this view would object to the Argument by Analogy Inspired by LaFollette.
  8. Explain the alternative general account of licensing that an advocate of the view that there is a right to be a biological parent would be likely to offer. Explain the independent justification for this account that we discussed in class. Explain how all of this is suppose to make trouble for LaFollette's view about parent licensing.
  9. State, explain, and then evaluate LaFollette's objection to the claim that our biological children are our property.
  10. Be prepared to introduce your own allegedly morally relevant difference between adoptive and biological that might explain why licensing is appropriate for adoptive parenting but not for biological parenting. Also be prepared to evaluate whether this difference really is morally relevant and really does cast doubt on the argument from analogy.

home