Write ONLY on paper provided by instructor

PHIL 112 A - SECOND MIDTERM

NAME: ____________ March 11, 2004

Room 2-08 12:50 - 2:15 PM

I. Identify briefly in one or two sentences any TEN out of fifteen people (15%):

John Calvin, John Hospers, Isaac Newton, Werner Heisenberg, Henry James, Charles Darwin, Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, William James, Jean-Paul Sartre, B.F. Skinner, Edmund Husserl, Ivan Pavlov, Sigmund Freud, Immanuel Kant.

II. Define in two or three sentences any FIVE out of ten concepts (25%):

Determinism, justice, Golden Rule, Oedipus complex, existentialism, fatalism, Hard Determinism, retributive justice, universal causation, predestination, distributive justice, soft determinism, a (Freudian) complex, indeterminism, Electra complex.

III. Answer FIVE of the following ten questions (60%):

1. Can the 'Golden Rule' provide a sufficient basis for an ethical theory? Explain why or why not.

The Golden Rule in its classical formulation runs as follows: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. First, it allows behavior that is disliked. If, for example, I like to be tickled, does that mean that I am allowed to tickle people who don't like that? People have different likes and dislikes and the 'Golden Rule' does not deal with that.

Second, it does not tell which one action is the right one: it only tells which actions to eliminate: those which I, one person, dislike. It is too negative to serve as a guide for our actions.

2. Discuss Retributivism: what is the basic idea, how is that idea justified. How is punishment determined? Does Retributivism reduce crime?

Retributivism is best known in its Old Testament form: an eye for an eye, which probably meant that the punishment should fit the crime. Aristotle provided the basic idea: society is based on equality, crime upsets the equality, and punishment restores equality. This explains why the punishment should be similar to the crime: if I step on someone's toes, then I state that I am better than (s)he, but then the State comes and steps on my toes, and then we are equal again. Or: a businessperson gets an advantage over the competitors by breaking the law, and then the government fines her or him so that the advantage disappears. But this is not very productive: it is a case of two wrongs making one good, and people would like to have a more positive form of punishment, which then leads to the utilitarian variations on punishment. Retributivist punishment is determined by matching murder with capital punishment or its equivalents, since murder and capital punishment are similar, and then listing punishments and crimes in decreasing order, and then matching them in that order. So, for murder and manslaughter it is relatively easy to determine a ‘fitting’ punishment but for other crimes it gets harder. An important problem for Retributivism is therefore that it is difficult to determine which punishment fits what crime.

Retributivism supposedly deters crimes by scaring criminals, but criminals are not rational and, when committing a crime, they either think they will outsmart the system, or they don't think that far ahead: most criminals have a short attention span. But most important for Retributivism is not to scare potential criminals but to cause closure, i.e. to give the victims a feeling that justice has been done by restoring the equality disturbed by the crime.

3. Explain why Thiroux accepts the principle of the Value of Life as basis for his 'Humanitarian Ethics.'

Thiroux takes the Value of Life as the most basic because without life there is nothing, no human activity, not even Ethics or an Ethics class. The Value of Life is empirically prior, and with that he means that it is an empirically verifiable fact that everything human is based on life: our experience—well, hopefully we’ll never have that experience so it is better to say: ‘introspection’--, alright, introspection teaches us that if there is no life, there is nothing.

4. What is Justice? Is that the same as Goodness? How do conservatives and liberals differ in their ideas of Justice?

Justice is what is the right thing to do for a government, state or any group, for example a business. Is that the same as whateer it is for an individual? Plato thought so: the State is just a large person, he said. Nowadays we think differently. The story of Josef and the Pharaoh in the Old Testament gives a good example: he state should make everybody equal. In Josef’s case he recommended that the state would make everybody equal in food supply. Everybody should be equal because that makes it easier for the state to do its job. It is easier for the state if everybody knows how to read & write, can do arithmetic, drives on the same side of the road, speaks English, and so on.

Conservatives find their spokesperson in John Locke who argued for a minimal role of the state: it should only protect us. We have worked hard at getting our body, life, and property in good shape, we therefore own our life, liberty and property, and have therefore the right to do wit it whatever we want. All the state should do is protect our life liberty and property from others. Not from ourselves: we can do with it what we want.

Thomas Hobbes is the spokesperson for those who want a strong role for the government. First, he notices, there can be no ‘survival of the fittest’ because even the fittest person has vulnerable moments when (s)he has the flue, a hangover, or is drunk. In such cases the most wimpy wimp can kill the most macho macho. So, Hobbes says, there is no natural way to bring order in society, and if there is no order, everybody will kill everybody, whether they are wimps or machos. Question 18 gives an example of Hobbes reasoning in favor of a strong government, but Hobbes thought that the government’s function was to bring order and control people. Liberals also favor a strong government, but unlike Hobbes they favor a government that concentrates on providing services to its citizens. Their spokesperson is John Rawles who argued that everybody should be equal, not only in opportunity—for example, the opportunity to go to college by getting a loan—but also in actuality—for example by low or free tuition.

5. Discuss 'the' American legal philosophy on punishment. Which philosophies contributed to it, and which are its shortcomings?

American legal philosophy is retributivist in its assumption that the punishment should fit the crime, i.e. a more serious crime should be punished by a more harsh punishment. Utilitarianism, for example, does not think punishment should fit the crime. Instead, they think punishment should benefit society, for example by making drunk drivers help in emergency rooms on weekends. But our legal philosophy is also utilitarian in its reward of good behavior by giving various rewards, for example: parole. Actually, utilitarians prefer to teach criminals new ethical standards and new skills but that is in general very expensive and not very successful. Rather than teaching actively, utilitarians settle for teaching passively: teaching good behavior by rewarding it with privileges and parole.

6. Discuss a form of 'Hard Determinism,' for example Skinner's Behaviorism, and explain what 'freedom' means in such philosophies

Skinner claims we have no freedom of action whatsoever. All our life we have been conditioned by our educators--parents, siblings, and teachers--so that now, when we are in a certain situation, we can only act in one way. All through our life, Skinner claims, our educators made us feel good when we did something they approve of by, for example, taking us to movies, smiling, patting. When we did something they disapproved of, they would roll over the floor, wail, tear their hair, for example. Now, even though all our educators are retired in Florida, whenever we do something they disapprove of, our blood pressure goes up, we start sweating, our mouth feels dry and we feel miserable all around. We may not realize that we have been conditioned, Skinner claims, because there are so many causes determining our behavior that we don't see any causes. We think, for example, that we come to class because we decide to do so, but Skinner claims that our parents, grandparents and teachers have rewarded coming to class and punished absences for so many years that we feel that we are doing something wrong if we cut class. The problem with Skinner's theory is it cannot be verified experimentally. Also, we feel intuitively that we are free in our actions. Such a feeling is an 'internal sense proposition:' a statement like: "I have a headache," or "I am bored" about which we cannot be wrong and about which we are the authority. But Skinner claims we have no freedom and all we can do is relax and enjoy the inevitable.

7. Discuss whether we are still responsible when we are forced to do something against our will.

This is the problem of ‘coercion,’ and Aristotle, for one, thought we are not responsible. Nowadays philosophers, and your boss too, think differently. When a natural disaster forces us to act in a certain way, we are still responsible. For example, I am late for work or a meeting because of a flood or traffic jam caused by an accident. My boss will then say that I should have listened to the traffic reports on the radio, left early, have chosen a less dangerous route, should have moved to a better neighborhood or all of the above. The basic idea is the same we find in making a budget: we introduce a line item: “Unforeseen.” We have to be prepared for the unforeseen. This may not seem fair but life is not fair, and we are damned if we do but also if we don’t. As we know, it is in the interest of the government to have all its citizens to be as similar as possible, so if the risks are very high, the government may want to spread the risks and in those cases we are not responsible for the damage caused by a flood, earthquake, or landslide. But the basic principle is that we have to be prepared, even though the government may decide to spread the risk.

When it is not a natural disaster but a criminal that forces us to do something, the same reasoning applies. We have to be prepared by installing a burglar alarm, car safety features, moving to a safer neighborhood, choosing a safer route to work. But the criminal is, of course, also responsible. In cases of a traffic jam or a flood, only I am responsible for being late. But if there is a robbery on my way to work, my boss would be in her right if she said I should have been prepared. In Iowa, of course, bosses don’t say that because they are nice. And if the criminal threat is sufficiently serious, the government may spread the risk and, for example, charge everybody extra for better airport security.

8. Explain why Thiroux considers the principle of Goodness as basic for an ethical theory.

Thiroux considers the principle of Goodness or Rightness as basic, because—as he puts it--it is logically prior to any ethical theory, meaning that when we start discussing good and evil, we must assume, logically, that there are such phenomena, and that people want to do good. If we did not assume that Goodness is the basis of our actions, then any ethical discussion is pointless. The logical conclusion of such an assumption would be that we cancel the class, get a refund, and go home. Hence, our being and discussing in class logically presupposes that there is such a thing as a good action.

9. Discuss Utilitarianism as a theory of punishment.

Utilitarianism in general favors a punishment that has not the negative aspects of Retributivism: a negative event, that is, the crime, is followed by another negative event, punishment. That is a waste. Rather, Utilitarians propose, the negative event should be followed by something that makes most people happy. This is rather vague; in practice this has meant re-educating criminals since there is a clear correlation between level of education and crime. This education can be active: teaching criminals new ethical standards, skills or knowledge. It can also be passive: rewarding criminals for good behavior with privileges, shortened sentences, and parole. The problem is that people grow less teachable with age. Teenagers learn best, though often they lack in motivation and are easily distracted. But even people in their twenties sometimes have a hard time learning new things, though there is much variation by individual and subject. In general, though, criminals are less teachable because they are past the best learning age, and very probably because they drifted into crime because they already had difficulty learning. The Utilitarian approach to punishment therefore is too idealistic, though their idea of rewarding good behavior with parole has been generally accepted.

10. Discuss the Lot argument.

The Lot Argument derives from the Old Testament story of Lot, who, eventually, was promised by God that (S)He would spare Sodom and Gomorrah if Lot could find there as few as 10 good people. Hence, 10 good people outweigh the hundreds of thousand wicked inhabitants or, in general, the Good outweighs the Bad. For example: once you get your DMACC degree you forget the many boring courses you had to take, or: your degree outweighs all the bad hours spent on doing boring things. The problem here is: how much Bad should there be before it starts outweighing the Good?

11. Discuss whether Existentialism states that we have a Free Will.

Existentialism acknowledges that part of our behavior may be determined, and that we cannot change that part. But no matter how strong the factors are that cause our behavior, we always have some areas where we can exert our freedom, if only by thinking about or looking at something different. Even Sisyphus, who could do nothing else but roll a boulder uphill only to have it slip from his hands at the very top, even he had the freedom to think and look at whatever he wanted. That, some people may object, is not much, but Existentialist say that that is all that matters. What we are forced to do by Nurture and Nature is unimportant, because that would happen anyhow. But the area where we can exercise our free will is the most important part of our life, even if it is small, because that is the area where we can make a difference, no matter how small.

12. Discuss the Law of Unintended Consequences. Is it ever a strong argument?

The Law of Unintended Consequences, which the story "The Monkey's Paw" so vividly illustrates, states that, contrary to what Utilitarians hope, the future is basically unpredictable. It rarely can be used as a decisive argument but it serves as a general caution instructing us to always keep in mind several scenarios or series of possibilities when predicting or anticipating the future. When discussing the outcome of our actions, we may have perfectly good reasons to expect a certain outcome, but the Law of Unintended Consequences tells us to be prepared for the unforeseen.

13. Discuss whether Karl Marx states that we have a Free Will.

Marx, like Hegel, claims that the world develops in a certain predictable way where each situation develops into its opposite, its antithesis. For example, during Feudalism the European medieval world was characterized by a small number of politically powerful people: the medieval kings and counts. That developed into its opposite, the Bourgeois Society, where a large number, the merchant class, had economic power. Bourgeois society, the opposite and antithesis of feudal society, then developed into capitalism that is a synthesis of feudalism and bourgeois society and that combines features of both. That is, in capitalist society only a few have power, like in feudal society, but that power is economic, like in bourgeois society. Marx, therefore, claimed that we have no free will but develop along with our societies and we have to be a capitalist, bourgeois merchant or communist, depending on what society we live in.

14. Explain why Thiroux considers the principle of Fairness or Justice to be basic for an ethical theory.

'Fairness' means that everyone is considered equal in the eyes of the Law or, in this case, our ethical theory. This seems to be an obvious democratic principle, but it is also a good way to test laws or ethical principles. Kant had a good point when he demanded that a good rule should be applicable always and everywhere, without exceptions. If we make exceptions, then we can never know whether the rule works. The only way to test a rule is to allow it to run without exceptions. Fairness is therefore important, first, to find out whether an ethical principle works in general. Second, if we allow for exceptions to an ethical principle that already has been proven valid, then we water the principle down and may as well not have it.

15 Explain the 'Slippery Slope' or 'Domino' argument. Is it a strong argument?

The 'Domino' argument states that one event may be acceptable and harmless in itself but that it leads to similar events that will be harmful in their totality or that will gradually grow more harmful. This is not a strong or weak argument by itself; it completely depends on the situation. A person may have an addictive personality, and in that case the Domino Argument that smoking even one cigarette will be wrong and harmful is a strong argument. Others may have a different personality and in their case smoking would be a waste of money but would not lead to addiction as it does in the first case. And, by the way, if one is not absolutely sure what type of personality one has, then it is safer to assume it is an addictive personality and not start smoking or drinking at all.

15. Explain why Thiroux considers the principle of Truth to be basic for his ethical theory.

With any ethical theory, the decisions on whether actions are right or wrong will have to be based on facts. We have to know those facts, and we have to know that our knowledge of those facts is true. We can, unfortunately, be mistaken about those facts, and then we make the wrong decisions. Mistakes are unavoidable; there is not much that we can do about it except to try hard. But our decisions will also be based on the truth of the statements we base our decisions on. We may not be able to eliminate mistakes but the quality of our decisions will improve when they are based on true statements. If people don't speak the truth, there is no point in discussing anything, and without discussions it will be vary hard make ethical or any other decisions.

16. Discuss Freud's psychological theory. Does Freud assert that we have a free will?

Freud claims that our mind has three components. First there is the Id, which is the total of all our primitive urges and instincts. The Id is, so to say, our Caveperson in Residence. For example, when I suddenly get hungry in class, my Id may tell me to eat my sandwich now, grab yours, or run to the cafeteria. Our Superego is the total of all of society's laws and restrictions on what we can do and it tells me, for instance, that eating a sandwich is not acceptable while lecturing. The Ego is that part of us that works out a compromise between the Id and the Superego, for example by rewarding waiting for lunch till after class with something extra like a sundae. Freud proposes that we have several possibilities when facing the demand of the Id. We can ignore and suppress the Id, and then we get psychological problems, which Freud called "complexes." We also can yield to the Id and do what it wants, but that leads to guilt feelings. Best, according to Freud, is sublimation: giving in to the Id's demands but in a socially acceptable and intellectually higher level form. Freud claims, for example, that we want to kill our same-sex parent, and the best way to deal with that urge is by sublimation: not kill the parent but, for example demolish a generally accepted theory, prove your professor wrong or defeat a political opponent. That is sublimation. According to Freud, we have the free will to suppress the Id's demands, yield to them, or sublimate them.

18. Discuss the 'Prisoners' Dilemma.' Which problem is it supposed to illustrate?

The 'Prisoners' Dilemma' is a description of two prisoners in the jail of some totalitarian regime. The prisoners cannot communicate and the regime wants them to confess to some imaginary crime, for political reasons. The prisoners refuse. Then, to coax them into confessing, the regime tells them that if they both confess, they will each get 5 years in jail, presumably because it now has a good case. If they both hold out and refuse to confess, they will each get 2 years, presumably because the regime's case is weak. So, it would be in their best self-interest not to confess. However, the regime is not stupid. It announces that if one confesses and the other holds out, the one who confesses will be rewarded for his cooperation with a sentence of only 1 year, while the one who held out will be punished for his stubbornness with a sentence of 10 years.

So while initially the prisoners may realize that it is best for them not to confess, each will realize that if (s)he does not confess, the other may confess and get the lighter sentence.

This is an illustration of Thomas Hobbes' point that individuals may have to act against what is their interest in the short run so that they can gain in the long run. The problem then is that when some individuals begin doing what is in everybody’s best interest, others may choose to act what is in their best self-interest and leave the former holding the bag. This, Hobbes claims, shows why we need a government or any organization that coordinates the behavior of individuals. In the case of the Prisoners' Dilemma we need a, lets us say, labor union of prisoners that guarantees that if one prisoner refuses to confess, the other prisoner, too, refuses. It would be in the interest of the latter to confess and get a 1-year sentence, but the prisoners' labor union would see to it that that would not happen. In real life we pay, for example, taxes to keep the Des Moines River from flooding, and that is in our long-term best self-interest. Some individuals would decide not to pay, because that is in their short-term best self-interest, but a government or state would prevent them from doing so, thereby serving our overall best self-interest.

19. Discuss 'Soft Determinism' and its problems.

Soft determinists admit a certain degree of causation, for instance that parents can 'cause' their children to grow up as law-abiding citizens. They admit that our genetic make-up or Nature determines part of our behavior, along with our education or our experiences or Nurture. Additionally, though, they believe that in certain situations we can 'override' what our genetic make-up or our experiences force us to do. But why would we want to 'override' our Nature or Nurture? Because we have good reasons for doing so. But what are those reasons? Those reasons are to be found in our genetic make-up or Nature and also in our experiences or Nurture. In short, people, including Hard and Soft Determinists, cannot think of any causes except for those based on our Nature or Nurture, and then we are basically following Hard Determinism. We cannot imagine that a person takes a decision based on something else than his genetic make-up or Nature and his experiences or Nurture.

To put it more concretely: you are in bed early on a cold and frosty morning, and you have to get up for an 8 o’clock class. Now on the one hand you may have an inherited personality, a personality inherited from your parents which they inherited from their parents, and so on. This personality is, let’s say, that you are a punctual person, always do your job, always are on time, and in that case you have no problem getting up. On the other hand, if you have inherited a sloppy personality, there is no use even trying to get up on time. You’ll be late or miss the class altogether, and you know it.

Now it rarely happens that a personality is completely inherited. In general, we inherit a personality, and then change it on basis of our experiences. For example: I am sloppy but in High School I once overslept, missed a class that was important for the understanding of the whole course, never could understand any of the following classes, and eventually failed the course. Will this one event or experience change my personality? That depends, first of all on my personality: I interpret that one event on basis of my personality. But I also interpret on basis of other events or experiences in my life: was there only one event in my life where I missed something with disastrous consequences, or did that happen all the time?

To make a long story short: whenever we make a decision, it is based on our personality or on our experiences. But our personality is caused by, yes, our personality and our experiences. And we interpret our experiences on basis of, yes, our personality and other experiences. When something happens, we interpret it and say, for example, that it will never happen again, that it happens rarely, that it happens rarely but with such dangerous consequences that we had better assume that it happens often, or that it happens often or always. In each case our interpretation is caused by our personality and our experiences, both of which are caused by our personality and our experiences, both of which … and so on. No matter how far back we go, there is never a ‘free will.’ We always run into personalities and experiences caused by personalities and experiences

What is going on? Remember, we started out analyzing whether we have a free will, for example the free will to get out of bed on a cold morning. Then we asked what would cause such a decision, thereby sneaking in the assumption that there is a cause, and then we ran into an unsolvable problem as all causes have other causes. This is similar to Descartes’ problem: he wanted to know whether he existed and found, yes, he existed because he thought. But when he assumed that “he thought” was true, then he assumed that there was a “he.” So, when we ask what causes or free will decision, we assume that there is a cause, and we should not be surprised that we can’t find any free will.

Historical note: when the US psychologist and philosopher Henry James analyzed free will, he came to the above conclusion without realizing that there was no free will because he had introduced the assumption that there was a cause. He then became seriously depressed for over a year. Eventually he found a publication by the French philosopher Charles Renouvier who said yes, our experiences and our personality determine our actions. But not our thoughts. We are completely free to think about whatever we want to think about, and in that way we can determine our personality and the interpretations of our experiences, and so we have a free will after all.

20. Discuss Kant's support for Retributivism. Does he oversimplify the mind of the criminal? Discuss.

Kant claimed that we should refrain from taking into account mitigating circumstances, which would result into a milder sentence, or trying to improve criminals by education or rewarding good behavior. He claims that criminals are rational beings, like all humans, that they know what they are doing and what the resulting punishments will be, and that we insult them by giving them lesser sentences or re-educating them. Kant commits here the 'Perfectionist Fallacy' with which Lincoln tried to trick his fellow passengers. This fallacy consists in setting one's standards too high and then proving what one wants to prove. In Kant's case his mistake consists in assuming that criminals are completely rational, and that if we deny that, that will mean that we think they are completely irrational like animals. In reality people are not completely rational: criminals and non-criminals all are rational in varying degrees.