HUM Final Exam - Philosophers Flashcards
“The right action is the action that produces the greatest balance of pleasure (or happiness) over pain (or suffering)”
- evaluates pleasures according to duration, intensity, and quality to see what action should be prioritized.
- Happiness is the only thing we desire for itself, as an end, therefore it should be what we prioritize the most
Mill, Utilitarianism
- radical skepticism: contrasts relations of ideas vs. matters of fact
- declares we have no reason to have confidence in any inductive conclusion because it is based on a cycle of inductive reasoning that assumes the future will be like the past
- Passions are the root of human motivation, not reason. Reason is used to serve the passions.
David Hume
Keywords: ‘utility, happiness, pleasure’
- flowing, logical prose. Founded on the empirical basis of knowledge.
Mill, Utilitarianism
Inductive vs. deductive, first person, language of ‘seeming’ and ‘appearing’
David Hume
- right to life does not equal right to body
- lots of moral obligation
Thompson, “In Defense of Abortion”
- Violinist: you are not morally obligated to stay plugged into the violinist
- “The right to life consists in the right not to be killed unjustly”
- Person seeds/burglar
Thompson, “In Defense of Abortion”
- Social inequality is artificial, not natural: the first part of his text differentiates between ‘natural’ and ‘social’ inequality. The latter of which depends on conventions/institutions authorized by man’s consent and participation.
- Outside of social conventions, we love only ourselves (self-preservation) and, to a lesser extent, all other humans (pity/sympathy)
Rousseau
- References to nature, artificiality, pity, human nature
- Comparisons between Europe and the Carib peoples of the new world
- Historical approach to understanding human development, which dwells on the origins of language, family, and property.
- Length sentences with numerous clauses
Rousseau
- Approaches the subject of suffering and famine from the perspective of ‘practical ethics’
- concerns himself with pragmatic applications of philosophy rather than abstract theorizing
Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”
- Discussion of starvation in Bengal, as well as the interconnectivity of our modern world.
- Analogy of a drowning child whom is both convenient and moral to save
- straightforward writing style
Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”
- inquires on what he is, and in doing so, rejects all material concerns: it is possible that one is dreaming, is being deceived by an evil demon, or is simply misled by fallible senses.
- a priori v. a posteriori
- If our minds exist independently of our fallible senses, then they can be used to infer the existence of God
Descartes, Mediations on the First Philosophy
- syllogistic, mathematical proofs that logically proceed from A to B
- Discussion of senses, God, deception, and though
Descartes, Mediations on the First Philosophy
- you have to define terms before you can talk about them
- people are inherently competitive
- People enter contracts in which they transfer their rights for the sake of other things. This is a voluntary act.
- Contradictory discussions of God, but the ‘seed’ of Religion is in man.
- Subjects owe their sovereigns obedience
Hobbes, Leviathan
- The words ‘commonwealth’, ‘right’, and ‘contract’
- Weird spellings of words, especially extra e’s at the end of words – e.g. “ware”, “adde”, “Joyn together”
Hobbes, Leviathan
- Moral duty is practical (not theoretical), objective (not subjective) and categorical (not hypothetical)
- Categorical imperative: only take actions you would want to be universal law.
- Do not use other people as means to your ends.
- Moral law is binding, its source is within you, and every rational being can legislate universal law.
Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
