Tuesday, October 29, 2013

week of October 28:  On Monday of next week, you have your second test!!!!!!! Please post your questions or queries as well as your answers to other's queries here!!

You should be able to answer these study questions:

            Definitions:


natural evil, moral evil, “good 1”, “good 2”, “evil 1”, “evil 2”, “free will definition 1”, “free will definition 2”, moral agent, moral patient, intrinsic good, extrinsic good, categorical imperative, hypothetical imperative

Longer questions:
    1. State and explain the atheist’s argument. What is it trying to prove?
      1. Are all of the premises true? Explain.
      2. Do they lead to the conclusion? Explain.
      3. Is the argument sound? Explain.
    2. State and explain the argument posed as the Problem of Evil.
      1. What conflict underlies this argument?
      2. Why is there a conflict?
      3. What are the three GENERAL ways one might resolve the conflict?
      4. What is the argument trying to prove?
      5. What are three specific ways to deny that there is any evil in the world? Explain and evaluate each of these.
      6. What are specific ways to deny that there is any conflict between belief in God and belief that evil exists? Explain and evaluate these.
    3. State and explain Pascal’s wager. What is Pascal trying to prove? What is his wager matrix? Draw and explain it.
      1. For each of the following objections: I. Explain it. II. Explain Lycan and Schlesinger’s reply to it. III. Evaluate L and S’s replies.
        1. My beliefs are not under my control.
        2. God would not reward a wagerer.
        3. The probability of theism being correct is not 50%.
        4. If I bet on theism, and there is no God, then my life is based on a lie.
        5. The Martyrdom Objection (Redraw the matrix to explain this objection)
        6. The Many God Objection
    4. State, explain, and evaluate the Anthropic argument.
    5. State, explain, and evaluate the Atheist’s argument.


CULTURAL RELATIVISM (CR):
  1. Describe some examples of how cultures vary.
  2. Explain the viewpoints/main tenets of CR.
  3. Explain and evaluate the Cultural Differences argument.
  4. Explain thoroughly the problems with CR.
  5. What can CR teach us?

HEDONISTIC UTILITARIANISM
  1. What is HU? What does it count as intrinsically good? To whom does it apply?
  2. How does an HU go about doing a right act? Explain with an example.
  3. Explain all of the problems with HU.

KANTIANISM
  1. Explain Kant’s Supreme Categorical Imperative.
  2. How does Kant judge the rightness of an act?
  3. What four maxims does Kant use as examples?
  4. Explain in full the problems with Kantian moral theory.






15 comments:

  1. in our notes the atheist argument is not sound the premises are questionable. Can someone elaborate on this? why isn't it sound?

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    1. It talks about how our lack of evidence to Gods existance doesnt prove he doesn't exist. Which in my opinion, not to be put on a test but my opinion is that it should also be true about stuff such as unicorns or Bigfoot. We have no evidence that they exist, but that doesn't mean they don't. Another opinion of mine is, in fact all evidence that god does exist is just opinion itself and should not bs taken seriously.

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  2. Yes I also don't understand the atheist argument?? Help?

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    1. The argument said that just because there are not good arguments for the existence of God, then it follows that there is no (perfect) God. It fails, because the lack of evidence for something is not evidence for its opposite.

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  3. I write down word for word on whats written about these topics and my notes are lacking as well in regards as to Atheist and Anthropic arguments. Anyone have info on the Anthropic argument as well?

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  4. Anthropic Argument
    P1 We are the result of a long series of highly complex biological phenomenons.
    P2 The occurance of these phenomenons by chance alone is so impossible as to be mathematically impossible.
    P3 We are a result of either chance or design.
    C We are a result of desin.

    Problem -- P2 is not proven.

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    1. sorry, that was supposed to be in reply to shauns's question.

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    2. That's all I have for notes as well; Indiagoss. I'm trying to find enough info to cover the possible test question of--> f: State, explain, and evaluate the Anthropic argument.

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    3. I don't really know, Laura Lemos care to shed some light?
      I thought that you would memorize it and just explain from your common knowledge. Don't know for sure though.

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    4. The only other thing I have in my notes is that the reason P2 is the problem is because the occurrence of phenomena by chance is not impossible (i.e. it is possible for biological phenomena to occur by chance).

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  5. Laura is correct. The problem is that it NOT impossible, although it may not be highly probable, that the world is the way it is just by chance and not by design.

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  7. I'm with you, I've been looking at the Atheist argument for the past 2 hours.. haven't quite gotten that one down yet.. this one is a little more thought and time consuming to dissect!

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    1. Apparently I had not updated (refreshed) my BlogSpot page before commenting! Thanks the help was much appreciated you guys!

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  8. Well that was a brutal test, hope everyone did well. Good luck everyone

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