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Good Life > midterm > Flashcards

midterm Flashcards

1
Q

who suggested the absurdity of human experience?

A

American Philosopher Thomas Nagel

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2
Q

what does Nagel consider in relation to absurdity of human experience?

A

he considers what absurdity amounts to, a philosophical sense of what the word says. what we think about the world and what we would want the world to be and the reality

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3
Q

what is the experience of absurdity?

A

to think that our experience of the world and what the world is meant to be is the experience of absurdity

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4
Q

what is nagels response to the argument: life is absurd because nothing we do now will matter in a million years

A

Nagel responds: if it doesn’t matter now, it wont matter in a million years, things mattering a million years from now cannot be what makes our ives absurd

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5
Q

what is the meaning of absurdity?

A

we continue to take our ives seriously in the face of doubt the nature of absurdity is when your desires do not match their reality

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6
Q

what is nagels response tot he argument: life is absurd because we are just tiny specks in a big universe

A

Nagel’s response: even if we took up the entire universe, this would not make our lives any less absurd

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7
Q

what is nagels response to the argument: life is absurd because we only exist for a very brief moment in time?

A

Nagel’s response: even if we existed forever this wouldn’t make our lives any less absurd

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8
Q

what is nagels reponse to the argument: life is absurd because we will eventually die

A

Nagel’s response: chains of justification need to end somewhere or else there is an infinite regress

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9
Q

what are some example of clashing in regards to absurdity?

A
  • a criminal made president of a philanthropic association

- someone might give a comlicated speech in support of a motion that has already passed

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10
Q

what are the components of Nagel’s absurdity argument?

A
  • seriousness: we take our lives too seriously
  • doubt: it is impossible to escape doubt about the seriousness with which we take our lives
  • epistemological skepticism: it is a good thing we have this kind of skepticism, it shows as humans we can reconcile doubing our existence and our beliefs and yet we still live our lives
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11
Q

what is a meaningful life according to Susan wolf?

A

a meaningful life is an active life and at least somewhat successfully engaged

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12
Q

what are meaningless lives?

A

useless lives, bankrupt lives

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13
Q

who suggested the adapative theory?

A

Dan Moller. he believed that adaptive processes help us deal with lives hardships such as the loss of a loved one but that these adaptive processes are cause for regret

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14
Q

what is the adaptive theory?

A

a rational theory of self interest. it is reasonable to act in this way because it is in our self interest

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15
Q

how would Moller respond to the argument: resilience might indicate a lack of caring for people in our lives

A

moller would respond: we seem to have similar responses to other events in our lives such as ending a relationship or losing a child

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16
Q

how would Moller respond to the argument: resilience indicates that we do not care about people at all

A

moller would respond: there is enough evidence to suggest that we care deeply about people before they die, so resilience doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of concern

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17
Q

why are adaptive processes cause for regret?

A

the minimal impact that we have on people, after we die, evident in our replaceabiity and their lack of distress is cause for regret

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18
Q

what is defense of adaptive theory?

A

resilience is the middle group between the two extremes; super resiliense and sub resilience

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19
Q

what is Moller’s response to the defence of adaptive theory?

A

any deviation from sub resilience raises difficult and uncomfortable questions

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20
Q

what is Anguish?

A

suggested by Sartre. almost anxiety and dread at the amount of responsibility we have, out of this feeling of anguish we act, sometimes positively

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21
Q

who suggested being-through-others?

A

Frans Fanon

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22
Q

what is being through others?

A

as a black man in a racist society, Fanon will always have at least two frames of reference from which he is forced to view himself:
1 = through the eyes of the colonizer
2 = through the history that he has no access to

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23
Q

what is double consciousness?

A

suggested by Du Bois. happens when a person sees themselves through both the eyes of the oppressor and themselves. asking what am I aware of?

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24
Q

what is consciousness?

A

suggested by Nagel. consciousness is subjective only certain individuals can access this howver it also have an objective third person element to it that other people can access (ex. a martian can understand what the sky is but it may not grasp the romance of a sunset)

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25
Q

who suggested Existence preceding essence?

A

Sartre

26
Q

what is existence preceding essence?

A

essence is what reduces us to being the same and brings us together, the essence of humans as human nature

27
Q

who suggested the experience machine?

A

Robert Nozick, his key question was what matters to us, besides our personal experience of things

28
Q

why wouldn’t we want to plug into the experience machine?

A
  • we want to actually do certain things, not just experience them
  • we want to be certain kinds of people
  • we don’t just want to live in a world created entirely by humans
29
Q

what do we learn from the experience machine?

A
  • more might matter to us than experiences
  • more might matter to us that the kinds of people we become
  • more might matter to us than having an impact on the world
30
Q

what is Nozacks answer to his key question?

A

perhaps what we desire is to live ourselves, in contact with reality

31
Q

what is freedom?

A

an element of sartre’s argument. “ if existence does proceed essence there is no explaining things away by reference to a fixed and given human nature. in other words, there is no determinism, man is free, man is freedom”

32
Q

describe Nothingness

A

part of Sartres existetialism. “ man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfils himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life”

33
Q

who suggested racial objectification?

A

Fanon.

34
Q

what is racial objectification?

A

experience of being an object amidst other objects. the experience of having one’s subjective experience (ex. humanity) removed. being racially objectified removes humanity, people don’t see you as having the same emotions . the experience of having a second skin

35
Q

who suggested collective and personal responsibility?

A

Sarte

36
Q

what is personal responsibility?

A

if existence really does precede essence man is responsible for what he is

37
Q

what is collective responsibility?

A

” when we say a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men”

every decision we make ends up affecting others

38
Q

who suggested the mind-body problem?

A

Nagel. the key question was what is the relationship between the mind and the body

39
Q

who suggested the social construction of race?

A

Franz Fanon.

40
Q

who suggested transformative experiences?

A

L.A. Paul

41
Q

what are transformative experiences?

A

there are different forms: personally transformative and epistemically transformative.
epistemically transformtive= what something is like is revealed by an eperience and thus provides us with new information
personally transformative= experiences that change who we are as a person

42
Q

what is direct action?

A

intorduced by MLK. direct action is a last resort. to get there 4 things must take place first:

  1. fcts were collected to determine whether an injustice existed
  2. negotiation was attempted
  3. self-purification was undertaken
  4. when the above fails, direct action is the result
43
Q

describe self and god from sartres argument of existensialism

A

there are 4 parts:

  1. dread at the non-existence of god
  2. existence precedes essence
  3. condemned to be free( all the decisions we make are ours, there is no higher judgement)
  4. independent creation of values (we create out own values
44
Q

describe part one of Moller’s argument

A
  • people are resilient in face of loss
  • people recover relatively
    fast
  • once a loved one has passed some people grieve for a long time, although this does not seem to be typical, this is disturbing to Moller
45
Q

describe part 2 of Moller’s argument

A
  • adaptive theory

- rational theory of self interest ( its reasonable to not grieve for long as it is in our self interest)

46
Q

what is the experience machine?

A

a machine that could give us whatever desirable pleasures we want, it stimulates the brain to induce the pleasurable experience instead of actually living through the experience.

47
Q

what is reductionism?

A

the idea that mental state can be described in physical terms
an element of Nagels mind body problem

48
Q

what is phenomenology?

A

the study of phenomena, the things that are around us and how they appear to us from our own point of view. part of Nagel’s mind body problem

49
Q

what is decision theory?

A

normative decision theory: how ppl ought to make decisions
descriptive decision theory: how people actually make decisions
L.A. Paul is concerned by normative decision theory

50
Q

what do existentialists do?

A

reject the idea of a god given nature and ask different questions about existence

51
Q

who is considered the father of existentialism?

A

Jean Paul Sartre

52
Q

what is the intelligent design argument?

A

consider that god is something like a clock worker, clocks are complex and do not come to be randomly, each part of the clock has a purpose and works together. sartre rejects this argument and claims that there is no god determining our existence and no human nature

53
Q

what are the aspects of self and existence from sartres existenitalist argument

A
  • personal responsibiity
  • collective resposibility
  • anguish
  • action
  • nothingness
54
Q

what is the conclusion of Nagel’s absurdity argument?

A

the absurd is a way of seeing our true situation as humans, nothing more or less. its realization, does not require dramatics or defiance, instead, a better response would be irony

55
Q

how would wolf answer the question: how can individuals have meaning if life as a while is meaningless?

A

she would respond by saying: our lives can have meaning through the projects we engage in, even though life as a whole will remain meaningless

56
Q

what is a meaningful life to susan wolf?

A

a meaningful life is one that is actively and at least somewhat successfully engaged in a project (s) of positive value

57
Q

who asked what is it like to be a bat?

A

Thomas nagel as a part of his min-body problem. he claimed that even though there are some experiences that we might imagine having in common with a bat, the subjective nature of the experience is something we can not recreate

58
Q

give a brief description of L.A. Paul’s argument

A

her key issue is that many decisions we make in our lives are personally transformative, therefore, we can not figure our what to do based on info from others.

59
Q

describe rationalizing transformative experiences

A

we cannot use the ignorance model because we cannot determine the value of subjective experiences, we can not do this be cause we would need to know what something is like in order to have a subjective value of it and you need to know how you’ll value the experience at the time

60
Q

describe MLK and birmingham jail

A

MLK was arrested for unlawfully protesting, he was released after 8 days. while in jail he writes a letter and responds to the criticims that the birmingham protest was unwise, untimely and unlawful

61
Q

what was MLK’s response to the criticisms

A
  • unwise: he was invited into the town and he has moral reasons for being in the town. also, direct action was the last resort
  • untimely: time is neutral, it’s what you do with it that counts
  • unlawful: says there are two types of laws unjust laws and just laws, claims an unjust law is no law at all and he is in favour of breaking these laws

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