2025 PREDICTED Paper 1 Flashcards
(38 cards)
(3)
validity
Valid arguments are those where if the premises are true then the conclusion is necessarily true.
Only deductive arguments are valid
(5)
Desacartes proof of the external world
P1) I have perceptions of an external world with physical objects
P2) My perceptions cannot be caused by my own mind because they are involuntary
C1) So, the cause of my perceptions must be something external to my mind
P3) God exists (see trademark argument above)
P4) If the cause of my perceptions is God and not the physical objects themselves, then God has created me with a tendency to form false beliefs from my perception (because premise 1)
P5) But God is a perfect being by definition (see e.g. Descartes’ ontological argument) and so would not create me with a tendency to form false beliefs from my perceptions
C2) So, I can trust my perceptions
C3) So, given premises 1 and C2) above, I can know that an external world of physical objects exists
(5)
Explain the difference between voluntary and involuntary actions (and non-voluntary) in Artistotle
- Moral responsibility: voluntary, involuntary and non-voluntary actions.
Aristotle argues it is useful to distinguisgh between whether an action is voluntary or not to determine its morality.
voluntary: actions that the agent has knowingly brought about (praise and blameworthy)
involuntary actions: those where the agent had no power over the outcome (pity and pardon)
Example invol: a sailors ship being blown of course and subsequently going the wrong way
Further dictinction: actions arising out of compulsion or ignorance. Arising out of abolute compulsion (the agent had NO control over the outcome) are worthy of pity or pardon. However, such cases are rare because even in cases like jetison cargo the course of action is still ultimately voluntary.
Actions resulting through ignorance eg stepping on someones foot when train jolts are involuntary (pity/pardon) or non-voluntary depending on the agents reaction to the act. If they feel remorse, the action is involuntary, if not its non-voluntary.
Also if a persons voluntary actions (drinking excesssively) lead them to the involuntary action of stepping on someones foot the action is done IN ignorance and so is not blameless.
(3)
Define infallibilism
to be knowldege, a belief must be certain. If we can doubt a belief, then it is not certain so it is not knowledge.
(5)
Berkely attack to primary and secondary qualities distinction
Having argued that secondary qualities are mind-dependent (repeats Locke’s examplease of placing a hot and cold hand in a bowl of tepid water and develops his own argument conerning colour-pink clouds.) Philonous argues that argument from perceptual variation applies just as much to primary qualities. (small to me is big to an ant, motion-cars) so they are also mind dependent, like sec quals.
(5)
criticisms on idealism
solipcism
solipsism is the veiw that only oneself, one’s mind, eixst. Berkeleys three arguments argainst mind -independant objects give us no reason to beleive anything but my own mind exists, including other minds,
(5)
Time lag
- It takes light waves, sound waves or smells tp get from physical objects to our sense organs. (takes 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach earth)
- Therefore, you could argue that you aren’t seeing it direclty.
criticism of idealism
- illusion
As a direct theory of perception, idealism makes no distinction between appearance (perception) and reality.
But this makes it difficult to explain the argument from illusion that is also a problem for direct realism. For example, why does a pencil in water look crooked when it isn’t? If we perceive the pencil as crooked, Berkeley has to say the pencil is crooked – but surely this is false.
criticism of idealism
- hallucination
Berkeley contends, “to be is to be perceived” – are we to say that hallucinations are just as real as ordinary perception? If I perceive a goblin because I took drugs, is it really plausible to say that the goblin is every bit as real as a table or a chair?
(5)
desacartes 1st wave of doubt
illusion
- Desacrtes notes that many of his beliefs are based on sense experience.
- He notes that in the past he has been decieved by his senses- things have looked a way they are not.
- Things in the distance look small when they are large and pencils submerged in water appear crooked when they are not.
- But such examples from from unusual perceptual conditions give us no reason to doubt ALL perceptions such as I am currenlty looking at a piece of paper with writing on it.
- Perceptual illusions are special cases (that we can usually explain)
- So they don’t undermine perception generally.
(5)
descartes 2nd wave of doubt
- Desacrtes doubts whether he knows he is awake.
- Dreams can be obscure and irregular but can also be of mundane things; I could be dreaming that I am writing this sentence right now.
- There is no reliable way to tell if I am awake or asleep.
- This argument attacks all perception
- Desacrtes then claims that even if he were dreaming, and may be imagining particular physical objects, dreams are constructed out of basic ideas and these must correspond to something real
- so truths of geometry seem secure, as do truths of arithmatic such as 2+3=, even if he is dreaming, these seem impossible to doubt.
(3)
euidaimonia
best understood as ‘living well and fairing well’. According to Artistotle, eudaimonia is not subjective and is not a psychological state but an objective quality of somone’s life as a whole. It is the final end for human beings.
(3)
hedonism
The claim that pleasure is happiness and this is the only good.
(5)
Second formulation of the categorical imperative
“Act in such a way that you always treat humanity […] never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.”
example: tricking someone into marrying you.
If you pretend to love someone to marry them and take their money, you treat them as a means to make money.
According to Kant, it’s the deception that is the problem here as it undermines the rational agency of the other party. By withholding your true intentions, you prevent the other party from rationally pursuing their own ends (e.g. to find a loving partner).
(5)
Phronesis
translates as something like ‘practical wisdom’.
Aristotle’s virtue ethics is not like Kant’s deontological ethics where what is good/right can be boiled down to a list of general rules. For Aristotle, what’s good/right will depend on the specific details of the situation. Knowing what virtue requires according to the specific details of the situation requires a practical wisdom, this means:
- Having a general understanding of what is good for human beings (eudaimonia).
- Being able to apply this general understanding to the specific details of the situation – the time, the place, the people involved, etc.
- Being able to deliberate (i.e. think through) what is the virtuous goal according to these specific details.
- And then acting virtuously according to this deliberation to achieve this virtuous outcome.
As the name suggests, practical wisdom is not the sort of thing you can learn from books – it’s practical. The skill analogy illustrates how virtuous actions become habit over time, leading to virtuous character that enables us to act virtuously in the wide variety of situations we find ourselves.
(5)
Kant ignores consequences
clash of virtues= axe murder, motivations= fathers
There is a strong intuition that consequences (i.e. utilitarianism) are important when it comes to moral decision making.
Many people would have the utilitarian intuition that it’s morally acceptable to steal food in some situations – for example, stealing food to save your starving family’s life. However, Kant says we have a perfect duty never to steal and so you should just let your family starve to death – but this doesn’t seem right.
(5)
Kant: not all universalisable maxims are distinctly moral; not all non-universalisable maxims are
immoral
Kant argues that ignoring a perfect duty leads to a contradiction in conception. As we saw in the stealing example, the very concept of private property couldn’t exist if stealing was universally permissible. But by tweaking the maxim slightly, we can avoid this contradiction in conception and justify stealing.
For example, instead of my maxim being ‘to steal’, I could claim my maxim is ‘to steal from people with nine letters in their name’ or ‘to steal from stores that begin with the letter A’.
Both of these maxims can be universalised without undermining the concept of private property. They would apply rarely enough that there would be no breakdown in the concept of private property.
For Kant, if a maxim can be universalised, it is morally acceptable. But this shows that universalisable maxims are not necessarily good or moral.
reply: the categorical imperative is concerned with the ACTUAL maxim
also the otherway around ‘to be in the top 10% of students’ cant be universalised- because not everyone can be in top 10% but this isn’t morally wrong
(5)
Aristotle clash of virtues
response
We can imagine scenarios where applying two different virtues (e.g. justice and mercy) would suggest two different courses of action.
For example, if you’re a judge and someone has stolen something, you have to choose between the virtue of justice (i.e. punishing the criminal) and the virtue of mercy (i.e. letting the criminal go). You can’t choose to do both things, so whichever choice you make will be unvirtuous in some way.
Aristotle would reply that such conflicts between virtues are impossible. As mentioned in the no clear guidance objection, virtues are not rigid and unbreakable rules and the correct virtue and in what amount depends on the circumstances. Aristotle would say that practical wisdom would mean knowing what each virtue tells you to do and in what amount. So, for example, you could sentence a person according to justice, but show appropriate mercy if there are extenuating circumstances.
(5)
Aristotle: whether a trait must contribute to Eudaimonia in order to be a virtue; the relationship between
the good for the individual and moral good.
- Aristotle characterises virtues as character traits that enable us to act well and, ultimately, achieve eudaimonia (i.e. a good life).
- However, we may reject this by coming up with examples of traits that are virtues but don’t necessarily contribute to a good life.
- For example,(SWANTON) imagine a nurse who spends her entire life saving lives in some remote country. She doesn’t enjoy her work, but her compassionate and caring character motivates her to keep going and saving people’s lives. She’s constantly stressed out from this work, though, and dies at age 30 from a virus caught while carrying out her work.
- Her life LOOKS moally good- she demonstrates many virtues of kindess compassion and courage- but she could not have been said to reach eudaimonia.
- This goes against our intuition that morality can require scarifice and it is sometimes the moral thing to do.
- Swanton argues that we shouldn’t require virtues to contribute to the eudaimonia of a person who has them. There are othe values (final ends)
it seems what is morally good canh come apart from eudaimonia
Aristotle: whether a trait must contribute to Eudaimonia in order to be a virtue; the relationship between
the good for the individual and moral good.
ARISTOTLE RESPONSE
- misunderstands concept of eudaimionia
what is a deduction (3)
An argument whose conclusion is logically entaild by its premises, ie. if the premises are true, the conclusion cannot be false.
eudaimonia/ happiness distinction
- We can talk about being happy in terms of a psychological state in particular (UT influence) pleasure. But eudaimonia is not a state of mind. It characterises an activity- the activity of living. A good life is one that realises the full potential that a human life has.
- Eudaimonia is but subjective but objective; to say someone achieved eudaimonia is to make an objective judgement about their life as a good human life. Whereas it is difficult to know if soemone is truly happy or unhappy.
- Eudaimonia is not something easily changed, does not come and go as happiness does. It is an evaluation of a person’s life as a whole.
- the argument from George Berkeley that we cannot know the nature of mind-independent
objects because mind-dependent ideas cannot be like mind-independent objects.
- Locke claims that primary qualities resemble our experience of them (ie the squareness of a physical object resembles the squareness we see) Berkeley questioned whether this makes sense.
- Basis of the obejction: how can our sense-data which are ‘perceptually fleeting and variable’ be ‘like’ or resemble a physical object that is ‘fixed and constant’
- Furthermore, physical obejcts are not something we experience direclty, we only experience sense data that they cause. How can a mind independent object be like something that is experienced (mind dependent sense data)? What can we mean when we say that the shape of the table ‘resembles’ the shaoe we see? How can squareness in the object resemblethe idea of squareness?
Berkeley concludes that if indirect realism is true, we cant know the nature of mind independent objects.
what is the key distinction between primary and secondary qualities?
Primary qualities also produced sensations in us, but they are qualities that the object has whether or not we perceive it, hence they are mind independent.
Colour, a secondary quality, for example, is a quality that an object can only have in relation to it being seen by someone, hence it is mind dependent
this is the distinction berkeloy attacks, he arues both are mind depende
