Study Guide

Summer Midterm Exam/Quiz/Text

STUDY GROUPS ENCOURAGED

ALL READINGS, HANDOUTS, LINKS ON THE SYL. AND IN-CLASS DISCUSSION IS TESTABLE.

The most important skill of this class is the ability to present arguments in logically valid form and critique them as sound and unsound.

Arguments:

1. What is an argument?
2. What is it for an argument to be valid?
3. What is it for an argument to be sound?
4. What is a “simple moral argument”, according to Feldman? What are the common patterns?
5. What is a counterexample? How do you develop a counterexample to a general moral principle or premise? (What is a general moral principle or premise?)
6. The word “morally right” is ambiguous and so we don’t use it. What terms do we use instead?
7. What is it to “beg the question”?

Ch. 1.

1. Know the cases of Baby Teresa, Jodie and Mary and Tracy. Know the arguments given on the various positions on the cases and be able to present them in valid form. Note: arguments have premises and conclusions, so if you merely state some kind of “position” on the case, that’s insufficient.
2. What is it to harm someone?
3. What is it to use someone “as a means” (or a mere means)?
4. Explain Rachels’ “Minimum Conception of Morality.”

Ch. 2.

1. What is the moral theory “cultural relativism”? Be able to give at least two arguments in valid form against “cultural relativism” and explain whether they are sound or not.
2. What is female genital mutilation? What are some arguments given for it’s permissibility and some arguments that it is wrong? Which, if any, of these arguments are sound?

Ch. 3.

1. What are “Simple Subjectivism” and “Emotivism”? Give an argument against each, in valid form, and explain whether these arguments are sound or not and why.
2. Be able to present at least five arguments (from the handout and class discussion and the book) for the immorality of homosexuality in logically valid form, including arguments about (a) what’s natural/unnatural and (b) what’s universalizable. Explain whether these arguments are sound or not and why.

Ch. 4.

1. What, according to Rachels, is the relationship between morality and the Bible and God’s existence? What are his arguments here (so what are his conclusions, what are his reasons)?
2. Abortion:
1. Some arguments about abortion that came up in class were “question begging.” State at least two of these arguments and why they were question begging.
2. Be able to present at least five arguments (from the handout and class discussion and the book) for the conclusion that abortion is typically morally impermissible in logically valid form. Explain whether they are sound or not. These will include issues of (i) being biologically human, (ii) being a person (what is it to be a person? How did we attempt to determine this in class?), (iii) potential personhood, and the other premises from the sheet.