Philosophy Exam Questions on Ethics and Moral Theory

Unit 1 Exam Questions

PART 1: Instructions: The questions in this part of the exam are on Unit 1 of the course. Complete TWO out of the following THREE questions. 1. Nozick argues that thinking about the experience machine shows that something matters to us other than our experiences. Explain what he means by this, and how the thought experiment is meant to show this. 2. Rawls writes that for the utilitarian how pleasures and pains are “distributed among individuals” does not matter any more than how one person distributes pleasures and pains for herself over time. (Rawls puts this in terms of ‘satisfactions’ but for our purposes, we can think of the point in terms of pleasures and pains.) He writes “The correct distribution in either case is that which yields the maximum fulfillment.” (p. 337) Explain this point from Rawls; what is Rawls saying about utilitarianism here? 3. Recall the example of Pinky from class. (Week 2): Pinky’s rich but sick Aunt Mildred currently has Pinky as her sole beneficiary in her will, but he has heard that she is planning on changing this. While visiting her, Pinky adds poison to his Aunt Mildred’s water intending too kill her and inherit her fortune. Instead, the poison interacts with Aunt Mildred’s medication and cures her of her illness. What does Kant’s Principle of Universalizability say about this case? Explain in detail. (Note: there is not necessarily a single correct answer here; answering this question involves interpreting and applying Kant’s principle, and there might be disagreement on how exactly to do so. Rather than looking for a particular answer, we are looking for how well you understand and apply the principle.) PART 2: Instructions: The questions in this part of the exam are on Unit 2 of the course. Complete TWO out of the following THREE questions. 1. Explain why non-cognitivism, error theory and subjectivism face different difficulties in explaining how moral error is possible. 2. On page 94, Shafer-Landau writes the following “Have you ever seen evil? You may think so. Perhaps only in films, if you’re lucky. But what have you really seen?”. What point is Shafer-Landau illustrating here on behalf of the moral skeptic? Briefly describe one way in which the moral objectivist might reply. 3. What is dogmatism? Why might someone initially think that objectivism is dogmatic? Why does Shafer-Landau think that error theorists and relativists are more likely to be dogmatic than objectivists? PART 3: Instructions: The questions in this part of the exam are on Unit 3 of the course. Complete TWO out of the following THREE questions. 1. Thomson argues that nobody has the right to the use of your body unless you have given him/her such a right. She considers the question: if a woman gets pregnant as a result of voluntary intercourse, does her partial responsibility for the fetus being there amount to giving it a right to the use of her body? What is Thomson’s answer to this question? 2. On page 2 of the Cohen article, He writes, ‘The capacity for moral judgment that distinguishes humans from animals is not a test to be administered to human beings one by one.’ What does Cohen mean, and how does he use this point to argue that animals do not have rights? Norcross argues that this line of reasoning is problematic. Illustrate Norcross’s argument with your own example. 3. Norcross writes: “The chances that the oxygen masks, the lifejackets, or the emergency exits on any given plane will be called on to save any lives in a given week, are far smaller than one in ten thousand. And yet we would be outraged to discover that an airline had knowingly allowed a plane to fly for a week with non-functioning emergency exits, oxygen masks, and lifejackets.” (p. 233) What is Norcross using this example to show? How does this figure into his overall argument?