PH103 Short Answer Questions

What is odd about Tolstoy's assumption that if he is unhappy and unlikely ever to be happy again he might as well kill himself?

Why, according to Tolstoy, is ""rational knowledge" unable to provide an answer to his question about the meaning of life?

Life might be "meaningless" in two different ways. Explain.

Camus "cannot conceive that a sceptical metaphysics can be joined to an ethics of renunciation." What does he mean by this, and why does he think so?

What gives rise to the Absurd, according to Nagel?

Nagel identifies a conflict between the value our lives seem to have from the subjective perspective and from the objective perspective. What three different ways of resolving this conflict does he consider? Does he think that any succeeds?

What, according to Frankfurt, is the relation between concern and importance?

Wolfs says that meaningful activity "occurs where subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness." What does she mean?

What is natural evil?

Explain the distinction between a deductive argument and an inductive argument.

What is gratuitous evil?

What is Occam's razor?

Define and explain the Divine Command Theory's (DCT) Theory of the Right

Define and explain the Existential Equivalence Thesis

Define and explain the Euthyphro Dilemma

Define and explain the distinction between a criterion of rightness and a decision procedure

Explain the distinction between moral relativism and moral objectivism

Explain the distinction between a fundamental moral norm and a derivative moral norm

Explain the distinction between moral absolutism and moral non-absolutism

Can the moral relativist accept the claim that, in a given culture, certain fundamental moral norms have changed for the better?

What is the Moral Diversity Thesis?

Explain the problem of formulation that moral relativism faces

Explain the moral reformer problem that moral relativism faces

Does moral relativism entail that we should be tolerant of those in different societies?

Explain the distinction between determinism and indeterminsim

Explain the distinction between determinism and fatalism

Explain the distinction between compatibilism and incompatibilism

What is a verbal dispute?

What is the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP)?

Explain Frankfurt's Jones(4) case. What does he think it shows?

Explain Frankfurt's distinction between first-order desires and the will

Explain Frankfurt's distinction between second-order desires and second-order volitions

What is Agrippa's trilemma? What is it supposed to show?

How do rationalist and empiricist versions of foundationalism differ?

What is the 'Myth of the Given'? Why is it said to be a myth?

Explain the 'conspiracy theorist' objection to coherentism

What is the difference between internalist and externalist theories of justification?

What do process reliabilists hold about justification?

What is the 'new evil demon' objection to reliabilism?

What is the 'bootstrapping', or 'easy knowledge' objection to reliabilism?

What is the difference between reductionism and non-reductionism (ie. anti-reductionism) about testimony?

What was Hume's view of testimony?

What is Fricker's argument against non-reductionism?

What is the difference between global and local reductionism about testimony?

Explain the two types of epistemic injustice

Explain Fricker's perceptual theory of testimony

What is identity power?

What is testimonial justice, and how can it be acquired?

What is an epistemic peer?

Explain Richard Feldman's Uniqueness Thesis

What is Earl Conee's argument against the Uniqueness Thesis?

Explain Richard Feldman's 'modest scepticism'

What is epistemic relativism?

Explain Paul Boghossian's argument in favour of relativism

Explain the 'traditional refutation' of relativism

Explain Paul Boghossian's argument against relativism

Explain the difference between a logical possibility and a logical impossibility

Explain the paradox of omnipotence and its solution

What is a theodicy? What is its general structure?

Explain the distinction between the theodicist and the anti-theodicist. Can an atheist be a theodicist?

Give two objections to the logical account of a good argument

Give two objections to the persuasion account of a good argument

What is the 'ideal conditions' account of a good argument?

What is a good argument, according to Alvin Goldman?

Explain one of Goldman's objections to the view that justification is "a fundamentally social affair"

What is epistemic conrtextualism?

Explain Annis's idea of a "well-motivated challenge"

Why doesn't Annis think we need justification for all our beliefs?

Outline Anthony Quinton's summativist view of group belief

What is a "divergence argument"? Give an example

Explain Gilbert's argument for strong psychological non-summativism

What is strong epistemological non-summativism?

Explain, using an example, the discursive dilemma

What is the difference between the premise-based, and conclusion-based approach?

What is List and Pettit's Impossibility Theorem?

Explain one objection to the premise-based approach