Meaning of Life Midterm

Question 1

List the 8 modes of meaning that Nozick discusses in his piece on philosophy and the meaning of life.

Answer 1

1) meaning as external causal relationship
- any person’s life means something big and impressive
2) meaning as referential or semantic relationship
- words in ordinary language have meanings and refer to things by use and convention
3) meaning as intention or purpose
- actions do not uniquely fix one’s life plan, the intentions lying behind one’s actions, why they act as they do
4) meaning as a lesson
- transparently exemplifying a particular life plan can provide a positive lesson to others
5) meaning as subjective / importance
- values, desires, wants
6) as objective meaningfulness
7) intrinsic objective meaningfulness
8) total resultant meaning

Question 2

What worry does Nozick raise with the view that the meaning of life includes all causal relations that a life has to other things

Answer 2

“Everything thus connected in the web of events becomes equally important” (no more or less meaning)

Question 3

What is a stipulative definition? Does Nozick think it can provide the relevant sense of meaning for the meaning of life?

Answer 3

Stipulative: where we simply stipulate a meaning, we give a word its meaning
Nozick: thinks it’s ridiculous example (some words come to have a use in society or in some generation might start off as stipulation)

Question 4

Explain Nozick third mode of meaningfulness of a life (intention or purpose). What is it for a life to exemplify as property in Nozick’s sense?

Answer 4

1) if gods purpose in creating us is to semantically refer to himself (creating in the image of god)
2) you’re intending your life to have certain properties (What gives your life purpose)
3) comparison
4) exemplify a life plan (secretly / publicly)

Nozick: if the property is a weighty part of the life plan he is engaged in putting effort in

Question 5

With the help of examples, explain the distinction between something being intrinsically valuable and something instrumentally valuable. Is it possible to be both?

Answer 5

intrinsic: pleasure, knowledge, virtue, justice
instrumentally: good for achieving a goal (tools)

You can have both (education)

Question 6

Who are the main characters in Plato’s dialogue “Euthyphro”?

Answer 6

Socrates and Euthyphro

Question 7

What is the central idea that is being analyzed in the Euthyphro?

Answer 7

acts are pious because the gods love them but that the gods love them because they are pious
- acts are pious because they are pious

Question 8

When Socrates asks Euthyphro “what is piety” Euthyphro first answers that it is what he is doing, such as prosecuting those who commit crimes or injustices. Why is Socrates dissatisfied with this answer?

Answer 8

They reject is because it’s not the definition of piety just an example of piety, not providing the essential characteristic that makes something pious

Question 9

Why is Socrates dissatisfied with Euthyphro’s second answer, that the pious acts are those that are loved by gods? What is the third answer that Euthyphro gives to avoid the problem raised with his second answer?

Answer 9

Second (unsatisfied): since some gods may hate some acts that other god’s love, this will make some of the same acts both pious and impious

third: the pious action is what all god’s love; the impious action is what all the gods hate

Question 10

What is DCT, as we have defined? Is atheism consistent with DCT?

Answer 10

• something is good just because God approves it
• atheism is consistent with DCT

Question 11

Explain the Euthyphro Dilemma for DCT?

Answer 11

1) actions are judged as good or bad by a standard that God commands
2) determined by something independent you give up DCT
3) anything can be commanded
4) god sets according to DCT

Question 12

What reply to the Euthyphro dilemma does Nozick discuss as a possible way out for the DCT?

Answer 12

gods’ approval is not arbitrary; having C, and itself, are good in virtue of that approval
- insisting there’s an explanation

Question 13

One objection raised with DCT is that it trivializes Gods goodness

Answer 13

DCT places value on our world, based upon gods’ approval, leaves god in a situation unable to view even himself as having value
- unable to see his own approving’s as independent valuable

Question 14

Can someone who is theist and who believes that we ought to follow gods’ commands consistently reject DCT?

Answer 14

Yes, but is parallel with atheism

Question 15

What is the difference between the concepts of moral value, aesthetic value, and personal value?

Answer 15

moral: values that pertain only to a person’s acts or character (right vs wrong)

aesthetic: value that an object possesses in virtue of its capacity to pleasure (expensive items) (beauty vs ugly)

personal: a set of beliefs that differentiate between good and bad in your culture (good vs bad for ones being)

Question 16

What is cultural relativism about value? what is the problem often raised against this view

Answer 16

What is it for something to be intrinsically good for some person is that its culture approved of it. ( don’t rush to judge another culture)

Question 17

What is subjective relativism about value? problem raised against this view.

Answer 17

what is intrinsically good for someone just because they approve it for its own sake (incapable of being in error)

Question 18

What is hedonism about value?

Answer 18

theory of value according to which pleasure and only pleasure is intrinsically good or bad for its own sake, pain is intrinsically bad.
- Anything good other than pleasure is instrumentality good
- good means to pleasure or avoidance of pain

Question 19

what kind of hedonism does philosopher Jermery Bentham accept? what is the pleasure machine thought experiment and why is it a problem for Betham’s hedonism?

Answer 19

pleasure is a kind of sensation, and all pleasures and pains vary in intensity and duration
- you experience pleasure all the time and doesn’t give you complex experiences

Question 20

Describe Nozicks experience machine. What does Nozick use this thought experiment to show? What reasons does Nozick give for not plugging into the experience machine?

Answer 20

challenges all forms of hedonism and indeed all experiential theories of value

1) want certain things and not just the experience doing them

2) want to be a certain kind of person (suicide going in)

3) want to be connected to something authentic, seems you would have real relationships, but you wont

Question 21

Why is the desire satisfaction theory or subjective relativism seem to make better sense of our reactions to the experience machine than hedonism?

Answer 21

desire satisfaction: getting what you want not always to pleasure

subjective: there’s value only if you want there to be value

Question 22

what problem does philosopher john Rawls raise with the desire satisfaction theory?

Answer 22

such views are becoming too subjective (grass counter)

Question 23

what is the social theory of value preferred by the African philosophy of Ubuntu? Is the social theory of value the same as culture relativism?

Answer 23

all value depends essentially on one’s connection to other people (what’s missing in the experience machine)

Question 24

What is the problem that Chalmers raises with the social theory of value?

Answer 24

offers plausible diagnosis of what many people find missing in the experience machine

Question 25

what is the objective list theory of value

Answer 25

1) pleasure
2) knowledge
3) friendship
4) free will
5) achievement
6) desire satisfaction

Question 26

What is the cultural differences argument against objectivism about value? What are the two main ways to critique or object to the cultural difference’s argument?

Answer 26

1) different cultures accept different views about what has intrinsic value
2) there is no objective truth about what is intrinsically valuable and what isn’t

1) does 2 follows from 1
2) it is important to distinguish the claims about what has intrinsic value from claims about whether we know what has intrinsic value

Question 27

Is it possible to object to a particular argument for a position, and yet still defend the position?

Answer 27

yes

Question 28

Is it possible for different theories of the nature of value to agree on what is in fact has value in this world? Is it possible for DCT and cultural relativists to agree on what has value in this world?

Answer 28

they can agree based on certain cultural and societal norms 1

Question 29

What are the 3 differences between the experience machine and the reality machine? Why does Chalmers not think these are good reasons to reject the reality machine?

Answer 29

1) don’t know you’re in the experience machine, you know you’re in reality
2) experience pre programs, reality does not
3) don’t share interacts in experience, reality you do

reality machine you know its VR based on reality, illusion is still present

Question 30

What are ways that present day and near-term VR are limited in comparison to the reality machine?

Answer 30

• limited connections
• authenticity

Question 31

What does Chalmers think are the ultimate sources of value?

Answer 31

• inclined to think all value arises, one way or another from consciousness
• consciousness has value and relations to consciousness add value

Question 32

which of the following is not true

Answer 32

according to DCT, God commands or approves of good things because they are good

Question 33

the experience machine thought experiment is used by Robert Nozick to

Answer 33

object to experientialism in all its forms