PHIL 410A: MIDTERM REVIEW QUESTIONS
The
Midterm Exam will take place in class on Monday, May 5. PLEASE BRING A BLANK EXAM
BOOKLET AND A PEN TO THE EXAM. EXAM BOOKLETS
WITH NOTES WRITTEN ON THEM OR WITH PAGES MISSING WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Please answer all questions completely, but
concisely. Answer in complete
sentences. In preparing for the exam,
you are encouraged to discuss these questions with other members of the class,
and to discuss what the relevant considerations would be in answering them. However, each student is expected to develop
his/her own answers to the questions.
You should not discuss the wording of an answer or attempt to come up
with an agreed upon answer. If you draft
answers to the questions, you should not show your draft answers to others, nor
should you read or copy someone else's draft answers. The exam will consist of selections from the
following questions. In answering
the following questions, whenever you are asked to discuss the views of any of
the authors we have read, be careful to distinguish the views they express in
the readings from any modifications or extensions suggested in lecture, or
advocated by you.
1.
Explain and distinguish the members of the following groups of terms, as
used in this course:
(a) Top-Down/Bottom-Up Moral
Reasoning;
(b) positive/negative liberty
(c) moral atom/moral molecule
(d) simple ought/moral claim (on
Thomson's view)
(e) infringe/violate a right
(f) belief-mediated/non-belief
mediated distress
(g) first property/second property
(h) direct/indirect utilitarianism
(i) Normative Hayek/Descriptive
Hayek
(j)
consequentialist/nonconsequentialist
2.
For each statement or argument below, state whether you believe it is a
correct interpretation of the relevant author's views, and justify your answer
by explaining the relevant parts of the author's view.
(a) As
(b) Thomson believes that financial
loss is not a harm. Therefore, she
believes that no one is ever entitled to compensation for financial loss.
(c) Thomson believes that in a State
of
(d) Thomson believes that in a State
of
(e) Thomson believes that we have a
natural right not to be caused fear.
(f) Mill is a utilitarian. Therefore, he believes that the government
has a duty to infringe individual liberty whenever it believes that doing so is
necessary to maximize total utility.
(g) Mill believes that the only
justification for government coercion is to prevent harm to others. Therefore, he is a libertarian. (A libertarian is someone who believes that
the only justification for government coercion is to protect its citizens from
being harmed in certain ways and to exact compensation and punishment from
those who harm others in those ways.)
(h) Mill believes that all opinions
should be tolerated because all opinions are equally likely to be true.
(i) Mill's argument for freedom of
thought and expression depends crucially on the claim that human beliefs are
fallible. Therefore, Mill's argument
implies that it is a mistake to think that one has any infallible beliefs. Therefore, Mill's argument implies that the
government may prohibit anyone from claiming to have infallible beliefs.
(j) Mill believes that polygamy
should be illegal.
(k) Mill believes that no drugs
should be illegal.
(l) Normative Hayek argues that we
should minimize coercion. Because all
laws are backed up with the threat of punishment, Hayek believes that all laws
are coercive. Therefore he is an anarchist--that
is, he believes that no government coercion is legitimate.
(m) Normative Hayek believes that
progress is the growth of knowledge and that progress is good. Therefore, he thinks that as many people as
possible should be forced to study the sciences and to work in scientific
laboratories to contribute to the growth of knowledge.
(n) Sen believes that guaranteeing
some civil and political rights prevents starvation.
(o) Rawls believes that in the
Original Position a rational person would accept the principle of maximizing
overall utility.
3.
As
4.
What is the Problem of Hobbesian Libertarianism? What does the Problem of Hobbesian
Libertarianism show about any acceptable normative theory of negative
liberty? Explain.
5.
What is a "simple moral ought"? We have described Thomson's moral claims as
moral molecules. According to Thomson,
what are the constituents of moral claims?
Explain each of them. What constituent
does she leave out that other authors (e.g., Locke and Talbott) include? Explain it.
6.
(a) According to Thomson are all claims absolute? Explain.
(b) According to Thomson are all claims enforceable? (i.e., Is it always
permitted to use the minimum amount of force necessary to prevent a claim
violation?) Explain.
7.
According to Thomson, what are our natural rights? Explain each of them.
8.
We have used the metaphor of border crossings to represent claim
infringements. According to Thomson,
what are the factors that can make it permissible to cross another person's
borders? Explain each of them briefly.
9.
What is the Tradeoff Idea? What
kind of example persuades Thomson that some tradeoffs of natural rights are
permissible?
10.
Why does Thomson's view imply that I do not violate your rights by
playing Russian Roulette on you if the chamber turns out to be empty? Does it matter whether you know that I am
playing Russian Roulette on you or not? Explain.
11. (a) What is Mill's Harm
Principle? (b) In class we discussed a
direct or act utilitarian interpretation of the Harm Principle. Explain the direct utilitarian
interpretation. What sphere of negative
liberty would be guaranteed by the direct utilitarian interpretation of the
Harm Principle? Explain. (c) On a literal reading, the Harm Principle
sounds like a statement of libertarianism.
Explain why Mill's interpretation of the Harm Principle is not
libertarian. [In class we listed the kinds
of exceptions that Mill allows to the Harm Principle. List and explain as many
of them as you can.]
12. (a) Name and summarize briefly
Mill’s four arguments for freedom of thought and expression. (b) Identify the three main
arguments. (c) We also identified a fifth
argument that is more implicit. What is
it?
(d)
By their nature, what sorts of expression do Mill's four arguments apply to and
what sorts of expression do they not apply to?
Explain. (e) Give at least three different
kinds of expression that Mill's four arguments don't apply to and explain why
they are not covered by his arguments. (f)
Suppose that Mill's three main arguments for freedom of thought and expression
are successful. What is the gap that
remains in providing a utilitarian justification for freedom of thought and
expression? (g) How does Mill close
the gap?
13.
(a) What is the social process of the free give-and-take of
opinion. (b) Explain Mill's
epistemology. In your answer, you must
explain the role of the social process of the free give-and-take of opinion in
knowledge and rational belief. (c) Why
does Mill think it is rational for him to believe his epistemology?
14.
(a) Does Mill believe that the right to freedom of thought and
discussion is absolute? (i.e., Does he
believe that limits on freedom of expression can never be justified?) Explain.
15.
Explain why it is appropriate to describe the following defenses of
liberty as epistemological:
(a)
Mill's defense of freedom of thought and discussion;
(b)
Mills' defense of individuality;
(c)
Normative Hayek's defense of negative liberty.
16.
(a) What does Mill mean by "individuality"? (b) Name and briefly summarize Mill's two
main arguments for individuality. (c)
Which of his arguments seems like an a priori argument? (d) Explain the other argument, the one that
is clearly not a priori, and in your explanation explain why it is indirect
in two senses.
17. Hayek says that the case for
individual freedom is based on ignorance.
But this is puzzling. How could
ignorance be the basis for anything? If
Hayek admits his own ignorance, why doesn't he just admit that he does not know
whether individual freedom is good or not, whether it contributes to progress
or not, etc.? Explain how Hayek could
base his case for individual freedom on ignorance and do so in a way that
addresses and resolves this puzzle.
18.
(a) Why does Mill's defense of a right to thought and discussion in
Chapter 2 of On Liberty not directly cover advising and counseling? (b) Some kinds of advising and counseling are
justified by "the reasons on on which the
principle of individual liberty is grounded". What kinds?
What is the justification? (c)
There is at least one kind of advising and counseling the justification of
which Mill finds doubtful. What is
it? Why does he have doubts about its
justification?
19.
Mill opposes laws that restrict recreational activities on Sunday but
does not oppose laws that restrict working on Sunday. Is he inconsistent? Explain.
20.
When Mill first states his Liberty Principle in Chapter 1, it sounds
simple, but by the end of On Liberty, it no longer seems so simple. Summarize Mill's fully developed, more
complex, position. Do it by defining a
protected sphere that Mill believes should be free of certain kinds of
interference (border crossings).
Identify what is inside the borders of the protected sphere, what kinds
of intervention qualify as impermissible border crossings (violations of the
protected sphere) and what kinds of intervention qualify as permissible border
crossings (infringements that are not violations). In your answer, be sure to specify all the
cases in which, according to Mill, government coercion of an individual can be
justified.
21.
(a) Does Thomson believe that any natural rights are inalienable, in the
sense in which we use the term in this course?
Explain. (b) Does Mill advocate
any inalienable rights, in the sense in which we use the term in this course? Explain.
22.
(a) How is Mill's Ideal of the Experimental Society doubly experimental? (b) How is Mill's consequentialist defense of
rights to a sphere of negative liberty doubly indirect?
23.
(a) Explain why Thomson's account of natural claims is
nonconsequentialist. (b) Explain why Mill's
defense of individual rights to a protected sphere of negative liberty (autonomy
rights) is consequentialist. (c) Why
would some nonconsequentialists object to the idea of giving a consequentialist
defense of autonomy rights? (d) How
might Mill or Hayek reply? (e) Which kind
of justification for autonomy rights do you favor, consequentialist or nonconsequentialist? Explain.
24.
(a) What is legal paternalism? (Make
sure you explain paternalism.) (b) Briefly summarize Mill's argument for a
right against legal paternalism. In your
explanation, be sure to explain the claim of first-person authority. (c) What is a collective action problem? (d) Why are coercive solutions to collective
action problems not paternalistic? (d) How
can the idea of a collective action problem be used to provide a non-paternalistic
argument for a government to refuse to permit slavery contracts?
25.
One way of stating the argument for economic progress over political
freedom is to claim that "you can't eat a right to freedom of expression
or other political rights". Based
on Amartya Sen's research,
explain how one could argue that, speaking metaphorically, "you can eat a
right to freedom of expression and other political rights"?
26.
(a) According to Rawls, what are the two moral powers? (Name and explain them.) (b) What is the Original Position? (c) How does the Original Position model the
two moral powers?
27.
(a) What is a Beehive Society?
Consider the following objection to Rawls's theory: Your theory is question-begging. You define the Original Position so that it
could not be rational for the parties to choose a Beehive Society. But if people would be happier in a Beehive
Society, the parties in the Original Position should be free to choose it. (b) How might Rawls best respond to this
objection.