PHIL 440: STUDY QUESTIONS ON NAGEL AND HAMPTON

Study Questions on Nagel

1. What is the "view from nowhere"?

2. What is the difference between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons? What is the difference between agent-neutral and agent-relative values?

3. What is the difference between an internal reason and an external reason, as Nagel uses the terms?

4. Does Nagel believe that there are any agent-neutral values? Explain.

5. Does Nagel believe that there are any external values? Explain.

Questions on Hampton:

6. What does Hampton mean by "the revisers" and "the overhaulers"?

7. What does Hampton mean by a norm?

8. How does Hampton use the "companions in guilt" strategy?

9. What does Hampton mean when she says, "To be able to reason instrumentally, we must be able to reason non-instrumentally? [For your information, transitivity is the requirement that one not prefer A to B and B to C and C to A.]

10. What is Hampton's Consequentialist Norm? [We will call it the Instrumentalist Norm.]

11. What does the example of Hampton's curmudgeon show about the Instrumentalist Norm?