Mklty

Question 1

Prisoners dilemma

Answer 1

Acting in self interest doesn’t always lead to the best consequences

Question 2

The free rider problem

Answer 2

Someone who reaps the benefits of morality but doesn’t bear the cost if acting morally - objection to the view that acting morally is in self interest

Question 3

Rational egoism

Answer 3

Self I interest is getting what you would want if you were completely rational

Question 4

Social contract

Answer 4

Power is invested in an all mighty sovereign who keeps the peace. Give up freedom for security

Question 5

Problem with the social contract

Answer 5

It’s hypothetical not empirical. Authority is established through conquest not consent

Question 6

Freud, counter argument

Answer 6

Obeying is not something we choose to do - its a product of social conditioning

Question 7

Locke tacit consent

Answer 7

If you remain in a society you have already agreed to abide by its rules

Question 8

Hume (counter)

Answer 8

It’s difficult to leave the culture you are born into

Question 9

Psychological egoism

Answer 9

All action is motivated by self interest

Question 10

Ethical egoism

Answer 10

It is rational and right to peruse your interests

Question 11

Benefits of social contract (peace)

Answer 11

Peace = industry = prosperity = happiness

Question 12

Enlightened self interest

Answer 12

Give up your immediate desires in favour of long term goals

Question 13

Kant - morality means acting against natural inclinations to be selfish

Answer 13

Deontological duties to others is the basis of moral action. If everyone acts this way they should get human rights

Question 14

Criticisms of Kant (5)

Answer 14

What are our motives for acting morally?
Conflict of duties - Sartre
Murderer at the door - against common sense
Hume intentions are not empirical so impossible to know - shopkeeper
Consequences are more important than intentions (utilitarianism)

Question 15

Plato virtue ethics

Answer 15

Desires are irrational and mistake pleasure for good. Selfish wants change and aren’t always good.
Good is rational and leads to you achieving long term goals.

Question 16

What’s eudiamonia (achieved through virtue ethics)?

Answer 16

Happiness through being the most successful version of you

Question 17

Criticisms of Plato (3)

Answer 17

Nietzsche - Plato says those who know it will follow the good. What about clever/bad people?
Virtue sometimes leads to misery.
Aristotle - the good is not absolute and universal but relative to the kind of person you are

Question 18

Descartes skeptical method

Answer 18

Experience cannot be the foundation of all our ideas because the senses are faliable. We could be being manipulated by an evil genius or dreaming.

Question 19

Descartes - not tab ras

Answer 19

I have a clear and distinct idea of myself. I think therefore I am. We cannot deny the predicate without falling into contradiction - we are not born tab ras. For the clear/distinct concept of the self is prior to and necessary for experience itself

Question 20

Descartes - trademark

Answer 20

Uses this to demonstrate his perceptions are reliable. He has a clear/distinct idea of god. It is innate a priori and necessarily true. Concept of god cannot come from the mind because something greater cannot come from something lesser

Question 21

The Cartesian circle

Answer 21

Clear/distinct ideas cannot be fallible as god is no deceiver, yet this is based on the fact that god exists to make clear/distinct ideas necessarily true

Question 22

How Locke says we imagine god

Answer 22

We have experience of father/authority figures and simply imagine an ultimate version

Question 23

Hume - origin of ideas

Answer 23

All ideas can be traced back to simple impressions. Perceptions and sensations/feelings. Simple ideas are less vivid copies of impressions. (Compound, transpose, augment, negate, dimminish)

Question 24

Hume’s criticism of himself

Answer 24

Missing shade of blue

Question 25

Berkeley - absurd

Answer 25

To be is to be perceived

Piraha Indians in and out of experience

Question 26

What is moral judgement based on?

Answer 26

Sentiment not reason

Question 27

GE Moore ethical non naturalism

Answer 27

There are no moral facts in nature that can be verified true or false, therefore morality is not empirical

Question 28

Criticism - cultural relativism

Answer 28

All cultures have different ideas/values which are historically specific

Question 29

Plato - mathematical principles exist independently of us

Answer 29

The meno - slave boy deduces Pythagoras. Principles exist in physical objects using the innate power of reason

Question 30

Criticism - Locke

Answer 30

Why can’t children and idiots reason if the knowledge of deduction is innate?

Question 31

Hume’s fork - reasons of idea

Answer 31

Analytic a priori propositions
Necessarily true/false
Tautological
A>B B>C then A>C

Question 32

Hume’s fork - matters of fact

Answer 32

Verified true/false through empirical evidence
Synthetic a posteriori propositions
Continently true
Tells us something new about the world
The sun is 92.9 million miles away from the earth

Question 33

Kant categories of understandin

Answer 33

Time, space, causation, quantity are the conditions of possibility for experience itself. They sort our intuitions making sense data meaningful. “Concepts without intuitions are empty but intuitions without concepts are blind”

Question 34

Chomsky universal grammar

Answer 34

We are born with the innate capacity to acquire a language
All children learn language the same way
Children can produce original sentences from a poverty of stimulus

Question 35

Sapir whorf hypothesis

Answer 35

We are born a blank slate and what we can think is determined by the language we speak