Assignments

Paper 1

First Writing Assignment
Assigned in class 1 of week #2, due a day after class 2 of week #3 (in section).

Explain in your own words the Cartesian criterion of personal identity (one paragraph).

In Perry's dialogue, Miller defends the Cartesian criterion. As a part of that defence, he claims that when making judgements of personal identity, he relies on the principle "same body, same soul".

Why does Miller need this principle? Why can't he allow the possibility of numerous souls successively occupying the same body? (two paragraphs).

Explain Weirob's argument(s) that Miller cannot know that the "same body, same soul" principle is true. Would a "same body, same brain" principle be any easier to know? (two pages).

Weirob claims that immaterial souls, if they existed, would be totally irrelevant to questions of personal identity and survival. Is she right? Why or why not? Do her arguments, if successful, show that brains too are irrelevant to questions of personal identity? (two pages).

Remember: Give reasons for your answers. It might be worth looking over Jim Pryor's Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper and the Handout on Arguments (PDF) before you begin writing.

Roughly five double-spaced numbered pages. No late papers will be accepted unless you have a very good excuse, such as illness.

No footnotes, no quotations (although you may use bits of terminology from the readings or the handouts, as appropriate).

See the Assignments section of the syllabus for further guidance.

Second Writing Assignment
Assigned in class 1 of week #4, due two days after class 2 of week #5 (one day after the recitation section of week #5).

Preliminary Definitions

A person P survives some event E just in case P exists before E occurs, and when E is over, there exists some person who is (numerically) identical to P.
Teletransportation is the process described by Parfit on p. 199 of Reasons and Persons.

The Assignment

Question: Does a person survive entering the teletransporter?

Briefly explain how a proponent of, respectively, the Cartesian, Body, Brain, and Psychological criterion (i.e. Parfit's Narrow Psychological Criterion) of personal identity would answer this question. What about a proponent of Parfit's Widest Psychological Criterion (p. 207)?

What is Parfit's own answer to this question?

[Total so far: 1 1/2 - 2 pages]

Suppose you are now offered the choice between stepping into the teletransporter, and taking a more conventional, but much more expensive and time consuming, spaceship to Mars.

According to Parfit, it would be irrational of you to take the spaceship. Explain why Parfit thinks this, and assess what you consider to be his strongest argument for it. Would you take the spaceship? Why or why not?

Remember: Give reasons for your answers. It might be worth looking over Jim Pryor's Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper and the Handout on Arguments (PDF) before you begin writing.

Roughly five double-spaced numbered pages. No late papers will be accepted unless you have a very good excuse, such as illness.

No footnotes, no quotations (although you may use bits of terminology from the readings or the handouts, as appropriate).

See the Assignments section of the syllabus for further guidance.

Assigned, class 2 of week #7 (in the recitation section), due a day after class 2 of week #9 (one day after the recitation section of week #9).

Let the following be Harman's Thesis:

Sentences of the form: ´it would be morally wrong of P to D' have no truth value considered independently of any context of utterance. For example, suppose Adam is deciding whether or not to be cloned. Then, in one context of utterance, `it would be morally wrong of Adam to be cloned' is true, while in another context that sentence is false. (Cf. ´P is tall', ´P is moving', etc.)

Harman thinks that Harman's Thesis is a "reasonable inference" from the "most plausible explanation of moral diversity".

Explain what the most plausible explanation of moral diversity is, according to Harman. Briefly assess his reasons for thinking so. Is Harman's Thesis a reasonable inference from this explanation of moral diversity? Why or why not?

Remember: Give reasons for your answers. It might be worth looking over Jim Pryor's Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper and the Handout on Arguments (PDF) before you begin writing.

Five or six double-spaced numbered pages. No late papers will be accepted unless you have a very good excuse, such as illness.

No footnotes, no quotations (although you may use bits of terminology from the readings or the handouts, as appropriate).

See the 'Assignments' section of the syllabus for further guidance.

Fourth Writing Assignment

Assigned in class 1 of week #12, due one day after class 2 of week #14 (in the recitation section).

1. Consider the following passage from Karl Popper's Conjectures and Refutations:
   "...Take one typical instance--Einstein's prediction, just then confirmed by the findings of Eddington's expedition. Einstein's gravitational theory had led to the result that light must be attracted by heavy bodies (such as the sun), precisely as material bodies were attracted. As a consequence it could be calculated that light from a distant fixed star whose apparent position was close to the sun would reach the earth from such a direction that the star would seem to be slightly shifted away from the sun; or in other words, that stars close to the sun would look as if they had moved a little away from the sun, and from one another. This is a thing which cannot normally be observed since such stars are rendered invisible in daytime by the sun's overwhelming brightness; but during an eclipse it is possible to take photographs of them. If the same constellation is photographed at night one can measure the distances on the two photographs, and check the predicted effect. Now the impressive thing about this case is the risk involved in a prediction of this kind. If observation shows that the predicted effect is definitely absent, then the theory is simply refuted. The theory is incompatible with certain possible results of observation--in fact with results which everybody before Einstein would have expected... These considerations led me in the winter of 1919-20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows....
   
   (4) A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
   
   (5) Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
   
   One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability."
   
   Explain Popper's main points in this quotation. How would Putnam and Kuhn react to this picture of science? What is your own view? Is Popper right? Are the criticisms Putnam or Kuhn would make correct? Or is Popper wrong for other reasons?
   
   
2. Consider some views that have been attributed over the years to Kuhn.
   
   (a) There is no theory-neutral basis for preferring new theories to old.
   (b) New and old theories are not directly comparable since key terms lack a common meaning.
   (c) New and old theories are not directly comparable since their advocates "see things differently."
   (d) New and old theories are not directly comparable since their advocates "live in different worlds."
   (e) New theories don't not give "a better representation of what nature is really like."
   (f) New theories are not better than old ones in any way.
   
   Which of these do you think Kuhn would agree with? Which would he reject, and why? Of the views listed, pick one that you think is true, and explain why you think this. Then pick one that you think is false or misleading, and explain why it is false. Is it reasonable, in your opinion, for people (us, as it might be) to believe what scientists tell them (us)?

Debate 1

Week #5, Class 2

Debate Motion: Teletransportation is about as bad as ordinary death.

Week #9, Class 2

Is abortion morally permissible? People disagree vehemently about the answer to this question. Yet the dispute appears intractable: the arguments advanced by each side rarely (if ever) persuade anyone to change his or her mind, let alone resolve the issue.

Some possible explanations for this are:

1. People on one side of the debate are just stupid or irrational. For example, someone may accept the premises of a valid argument, yet refuse to believe the conclusion. Or she may fail more generally to connect some of her beliefs together (see Thomson on "Walling Off." Pp. 205).
   
   
2. The issue is very complex and difficult. Issues about abortion are connected to many other important issues, and it is not even clear what is relevant or not relevant to the question of its permissibility. Rational, intelligent people can disagree about complex issues simply because they are hard to understand (Thomson. Pp. 205).
   
   
3. Some people are not as well placed as others to discover the truth because they have very different background experiences and beliefs. "Different people with different starting points will rationally respond in different ways to the same evidence. There is no guarantee that people who start sufficiently far apart in belief will tend to converge in view as the evidence comes in" (Harman. Pp. 12).
   
   
4. Moral relativism (something like Harman's version) is correct.

Debate Proposition: 4 is the best explanation for the intractability of the dispute about abortion.