PHIL 440: Study Questions on Wilson, Ruse, and Sober.

Questions on Wilson:

1. What does Wilson think is the source of ethical judgments (intuitions)?

2. Why does Wilson think it is a mistake to believe that there are universal ethical truths?

Questions on Ruse:

3. According to Ruse, what is the main mistake that the Social Darwinists and other advocates of "traditional" evolutionary ethics made?

4. What does Ruse mean by "metaethics"?

5. Why is it correct to categorize Ruse as an ethical non-cognitivist?

6. What is the point of Ruse's spiritualism example (p. 659)?

7. Why does Ruse have to liken morality to the spiritualism example and not to the train example?

8. What is the Dulles moral principle?

9. What is "intergalactic relativism"?

10. What does Ruse mean when he says, "Your genes are a lot stronger than my words."

Questions on Sober (Note that the diagram on page 667 of Sober's article is mixed up. I will correct it in lecture):

11. What is Sober's distinction between explanation and justification?

12. What is the difference between explanation and justification?

13. What is the example of the avunculate intended to show?

14. What is the example of the decline in birth rates in Italy intended to show?

15. What does Sober mean by "subjectivism", "objectivism", "conventionalism", and "realism"?

16. What does Sober call "Hume's Thesis"? What are the two additions that Sober makes to Hume's Thesis?

17. What is the Ruse-Wilson distinction between "internal" and "external" norms (discussed by Sober)?

18. It is important to realize that Sober's use of "genetic" in "Genetic arguments" and "genetic fallacy" does not refer to genes. It comes from "genesis", which means source or cause.

19. What are the examples of Ben and Cathy show supposed to show?

20. What is the example of the statistics professor supposed to show?