Rev. Exam #3

~~Ch. 24: Richard Taylor, “The Anattā Doctrine and Personal Identity”~~

1. Present Taylor’s Argument for Buddhistic Physicalism.
2. State the FOUR possibilities regarding what a person is, according to Taylor.
3. Present the Linguistic Argument that a person is not identical to her body. (4 steps)
4. Present Taylor’s reply to the Linguistic Argument.
5. Present the Metaphysical Duplicate Descriptions Argument that a person is not identical to her body. (5 steps)
6. Present the Metaphysical “Matter can’t think” Argument that a person is not identical to her body. (3 steps)
7. Present Taylor’s reply to both Metaphysical Arguments.
8. Explain why Taylor thinks that the following argument is invalid:
    (1) Inanimate, physical objects, e.g. bricks, cannot think.
    (2) Human bodies are physical objects.
    (3) Therefore, human bodies cannot think. Only non-physical minds can.
9. Present Taylor’s (final) Argument for Physicalism. (It starts with the same first premise as the invalid argument above.) (4 steps)
10. Very briefly state what Taylor says Buddha’s anattā doctrine is.

Ch. 23: C. D. Broad, “The Validity of Belief in a Personal God”

1. How does Broad define ‘a personal God’?
2. Does Broad think we can define the term ‘PERSON’?
3. What are Broad’s examples of persons and non-persons?
4. Identify each of the FOUR necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for a SUBSTANCE to be a PERSON
5. Explain Broad’s account of an IDEAL person.
6. Does Broad think it is logically possible to be a mind without immediately (rather than inferentially) knowing oneself to be a mind?
7. Does Broad think there are different degrees of personality? Explain.
8. What does Broad say about “the rudiments of personality” and intelligent domestic animals?
9. Explain Broad’s account of love: X loves Y if and only if.... ?
10. What three senses of ‘God’ does Broad identify?
11. What examples of Gods in the popular sense does Broad give?
12. Is God in the popular sense a person? Explain.
13. Describe Broad’s account of the theological sense of ‘God’ and the Trinity. What attributes does this God have?
14. Explain why Broad thinks the society of Olympus does not constitute a God in the theological sense.
15. Describe Broad’s account of the philosophical sense of ‘God’ and the universe.
16. Compare and contrast Deism, Pantheism (Spinoza), and the Hegelian conceptions of God as presented by Broad.
17. To what does Broad think we ought to confine the word ‘God’?
18. Identify, and then explain, the THREE ways someone might try to justify belief in the existence of a divine person.
19. What criticisms does Broad have of claiming to know that the statement ‘God exists’ is self-evident? What blinds people who claim this, according to Broad?
20. What criticisms does Broad have of claiming to know that the statement ‘God exists’ is true in some supersensible way?
21. What three means of testing our sense-perceptions does Broad describe? Explain his discussion of these.
22. What does Broad say about the Ontological Argument and the Cosmological Argument?
23. Explain Broad’s criticisms (some borrowed from Hume) of the Design Argument; how is polydeism relevant?
24. Why does Broad think there is no good reason to suppose that the metaphysical Reality which manifests itself to mystics is PERSONAL?
25. State the two separate sufficient conditions for a legitimate appeal to authority discussed by Broad. Why doesn’t he think either applies to the belief in a personal God?
26. What does Broad say about polytheism at the very end of his essay?
~~27. Would William Rowe agree or disagree with Broad about the rationality of believing in a personal God? Explain in detail.~~

~~Richard Taylor, “Metaphysics and Meaning”~~

1. What does Taylor say are the two basic impulses to study metaphysics?
2. Explain Taylor’s argument that it would not matter had each of us never existed (The Bummer Argument).
3. What did Schopenhauer say about religion?
4. Explain Taylor’s view of religion, tradition, and meaning. How does he think metaphysics and religion importantly differ?
5. What does Taylor think most people are occupied with? (p.133)
6. Explain Taylor’s view of human history. What is it the result of?
7. Explain Taylor’s view of the nature of meaningfulness. Whose lives are meaningful and why, according to him?
8. Explain Taylor’s Argument for Meaningfulness. Explain his analysis of Sisyphus' task and its relation to meaning.
9. Contrast Taylor’s view of nature with the activity of rational beings and historical time.
10. What was Schopenhauer’s dictum about talent and genius? (p.138)
11. List Taylor’s examples of various creations great and small (p.139).
12. What is the difference between procreation and creation, according to Taylor?
13. Explain Taylor’s criticism of the view that everyone is equally special and that every human life is invested with meaning just by virtue of our common humanity.
14. What does Taylor say people tend to do? (p.140)
15. What part of the Bible does Taylor think is very significant for the position he defend in this chapter? (p.140)
16. What facts does Taylor think are not significant? (p.140)
17. List the exceptional persons Taylor regards as creative geniuses (p.141).
18. Explain Taylor’s view of the relation between the world and the “fruits of creative genius” (p.141).

Ch. 34: Midgley, “Persons and Non-Persons”

1. Explain Midgley’s criticism of Judge Doi’s ruling in the Le Vasseur case.
2. What three things does Midgley cite as examples of nonhuman persons?
3. What is the word ‘person’ in origin mean?
4. State the definition of ‘person’ that Midgley quotes from the Oxford Dictionary.
5. What examples of human non-persons does Midgley cite?
6. What question does Midgley think the question ‘Who is a person?’ not like? What question is it much more like?
7. How is C. S. Lewis’ word hnau used in the novel Midgley mentions?
8. Explain Midgley’s criticism of Kant's view on cruelty to animals.
9. What does Midgley think makes creatures our fellow beings, entitled to basic consideration?
10. What does Midgley say about articulate apes and the Government?
11. What three powers are relevant to higher moral consideration nearer that due to humans?
12. Explain Midgley’s position on the moral claims of intelligent computers.

Mark Caney, “Dolphin Intelligence” (www.dolphin-way.com)

1. What are the average brain sizes of a bottlenose dolphin, a human being, and a chimpanzee?
2. What does EQ stand for? What is the EQ of humans? What is the EQ of dolphins?
3. Describe the research which suggests that bottlenose dolphins are self-aware. Which species of animals have been recorded as being able to recognize themselves in a mirror?
4. Compare how dolphins and chimps respond to television.
5. What do bottlenose dolphins (sometimes) do with marine sponges? Do dolphins pass tool-using skills from one individual to another?
6. What do dolphins do with underwater bubble rings?
7. How well do dolphins perform new behaviors?
8. Who is Kelly and what did she learn to do with rubbish? What does her strategy suggest about her sense of the future and her ability to train humans to do what she wants?

Jonathan Leake, “Scientists say dolphins should be treated as ‘nonhuman persons’”

1. For what reasons do scientists who are familiar with research on dolphins believe that dolphins should be treated as persons?
2. Each year how many whales, dolphins, and porpoises die in amusement parks or are killed for food or are killed by accident when human beings are fishing?
3. Do dolphins have distinct personalities? Do they have a sense of self? Can they think about the future? Can they learn a rudimentary symbol-based language?
4. Can dolphins solve difficult problems? What kind of social structures and emotional sophistication do wild dolphins have? Give an example of a dolphin teaching a trick to other dolphins.
5. Do dolphins co-operate to round up fish to eat?
6. Describe in some detail how the brain cortex of dolphins compare to the brain cortex of human beings.

Ch. 42: Boyd Group “The moral status of non-human primates: Are apes persons?”

1. Historically, how have children, women, slaves, and members of other ethnic groups been conceived relative to adult, land-owning Euro-American men?
2. What is said about the view that all and only members of the species Homo sapiens are persons?
3. Compare and contrast Dennett’s views of persons, intentionality, and linguistic capacity with those of Gómez.
4. Present Gómez’ argument [reconstructed in 5-steps in class] for the position that apes are persons.
5. Contrast Gaita’s view of animals and friendship with that of Smuts. Why does Smuts think that Safi is a person?
6. Explain the difference between moral agents and moral patients. Give examples of each. Explain the relationship between moral agents and moral patients.

Nicholas Wade, “Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior”

1. According to primatologist Frans de Waal, in what can the roots of morality be seen?
2. In what does human morality begin, according to de Waal?
3. State the four kinds of behavior that are the basis of sociality.
4. How does de Waal define morality? Who possesses morality and who doesn't, according to de Waal?
5. According to de Waal, how is a sense of community related to morality? On his view what provided this sense of community in evolution?
6. REVIEW YOUR QUIZLET ON THIS ESSAY.

~~Ch. 36: Rorty, “Persons and Personae”~~

1. What does Rorty say a society’s conception of agency is closely linked to?
2. What is the “philosophical dream” Rorty describes?
3. Identify Rorty’s seven distinct but sometimes overlapping concepts of what a person is. Cite examples of the members and contrast class of each of those seven concepts and, where appropriate, their sub-concepts.
4. Describe the two possible conclusions Rorty draws from her explication of the seven concepts.
5. What does Rorty think hangs on the choice between these two conclusions (in 4)?
6. What kind of appeals are the appeals to the various conceptions of the person? Hint: a single adjective.

Ch. 39: Hanfling, “Machines as Persons?”

1. What problem does Hanfling see in asking whether machines could think or be persons?
2. What problem does Hanfling see in asking whether robots could be people?
3. What makes the difference between a person and a nonperson, according to Hanfling?
4. Explain what “artifactism” is, according to Hanfling.
5. Present Hanfling’s Wittgensteinian Argument against Artifactism.

Stephen Mulhall, “Picturing the Human (Body and Soul): A Reading of Blade Runner” and the film Blade Runner

1. Are Nexus 6 Replicants artificial-persons? Defend your view in an essay. ~~Specify the different senses of ‘person’ discussed by Rorty that apply~~.
2. If Nexus 6 Replicants are NOT a-persons, is Deckard morally justified in “retiring” them? Explain your judgment.
3. If Nexus 6 Replicants ARE persons, is Deckard morally justified in “retiring” them? Explain your judgment.
4. Rachael (the Nexus 6 Replicant portrayed by Sean Young) seems to engage the sympathy and respect of Deckard. If so, then is Deckard right to consider Rachael an a-person?
5. Why does Roy (the Nexus 6 Replicant portrayed by Rutger Hauer) save Deckard’s life? Is Roy’s act merciful? If so, is this a good reason to consider Roy to be a person?
6. Are Leon, Pris, and Roy friends? Is friendship only possible among persons?
7. Evaluate Tyrell and Roy on moral grounds. Who is more admirable and who is more despicable? Explain your judgment.
8. What question does Mulhall (M) say the film Blade Runner is explicitly concerned with (obsessed with)?
9. What does M say is the GOAL of the film Blade Runner?
10. What understanding of the relationship between the human mind (or soul) and the human body does M say Blade Runner rejects?
11. What does M say about the emotional maturity of Replicants and of Bryant?
12. What makes M think that acknowledging the humanity of another is important? How does this play out with Deckard and Rachael?
13. Describe M’s account (drawn from what Tyrell says in the film) of how one lives one’s life authentically. What are the THREE ingredients of authentic living?
14. Explain M’s account of how authenticity and mortality are related in Blade Runner. Present the 8-step argument (in the handout distributed in class) contrasting Deckard’s attitude toward death with Roy’s attitude toward death during the scene near the end of the film in which Roy chases Deckard through the Bradbury building.
15. What does Roy think follows from someone not being able to play?
16. What does M say acknowledging someone else’s death involves?
17. In the second section of Mulhall’s essay (What Becomes of People on Film?) what does M say BR is a film about?
18. Describe at least FOUR different things in the film that M says are used as a, or represent a kind of, CAMERA.

last modified 16 April 2012