December 10. 2001 (Meta-Ethical Subjectivism(or Non-cognitivism) For the past couple of weeks we have been focusing on the following questions i)Which acts are right and which are wrong? Which acts ought we to perform? ii)What makes an action right or wrong? What about the action determines its moral status? Our third question has received less attention

November 29, 2001 Duty and Famine: Singer Last time we considered Mill's version of Utilitarianism, called Eudaimonistic Utilitarianism characterized by what he calls \the greatest-happiness principle\: You ought always to act so as to maximize happiness, i.e., the right act is the act that results in the greatest amount of happiness overall. The \greatest-happiness principle\, however, just states one version of Utilitarianism. Other versions of

Moral Luck One of the important themes in the freewill debate is the idea that freedom is necessary for moral responsibility. In effect, if hard determinism is the correct view, then we should not hold ourselves or others morally responsible. Libertarians, in particular, seem to hold that in order to be responsible for an act, we must be its \sole author. Here is the principle at issue: Control Principle: You are only responsible for what you have control over. If you steal an axe from my garage and use it to break into a gas station, there's no point in holding me responsible, I didn't

Different Sort of Personal Identity:\Ethical\ Identity . Personal Identity: \Ethical\v. \Metaphysical\questions The previous lectures and readings on personal identity were primarily concerned with the metaphysics of personal identity. Question of diachronic identity/unity: Confronted with an individual X at one time and Y at another, what would make it the case that X and Y are (or are parts of) the same person? We've seen that the answer to this question may well depend on what sort of thing you think persons are: are persons bodies? Streams of consciousness?

24.00: Problems of Philosophy Prof. Sally Haslanger November 7, 2001 Freewill IlI: Libertarianism I. Recap: Compatibilism v. Incompatibilism Hard determinism is the view that determinis is true and that because of this freedom is an illusion. The libertarian agrees with the hard determinist that freewill is incompatible with determinism, but disagrees about which claim should be rejected. The libertarian holds that we have free will, but this is only because determinism is false-free acts occur and are undetermined. The hard determinist and the libertarian are both incompatibilists. Soft determinism, also known as compatibilism, maintains that determinism is true, but also that determinism is

October 22, 2001 Personal IdentityⅢ . Review soul criterion and body criterion Soul criterion: x is the same person as y iff and y have the same soul. Problems: i)There is no way to establish body-soul correlations; and no way to establish personality correlations. So soul criterion doesn't make sense of our practices of recognizing and identifying people ii)We have no special access to souls, so even in our own case we can't be sure it's the same soul \inside\ us whenever we are conscious. ii) The problem of identity is \pushed back\: what is it for person-stage x to have the same soul as person-stage y? What makes for sameness of souls? Body criterion: x is the same person as y iff x and y have the same living human body

al Identity ll Problem of synchronic identity for persons: under what conditions are two simultaneous person-events events in the life of the same person? Problem of diachronic identity for persons under what conditions are two person-stages stages in the life of a single person. In particular, what makes a particular person-stage a continuation of me as I am right now? Background desiderata: an account of personal identity should allow for the possibility of anticipation and memory, i.e., of individual psychological connections between different person stages. It should also allow us to justify our practices of

The Problem of Induction Although James and Clifford disagree about the reasonableness of belief in a special class of propositions(when they constitute a genuine choice for us), they agree that in the majority of cases empirical investigation and the scientific pursuit of evidence is at least a, if not the proper way to proceed in forming beliefs. It

1. The\Wager\and the Practical Rationality Principle Practical Rationality Principle: The practically rational thing to do is the thing with the highest expected value(or utility \) Version A: Do the thing with higher expected value than all its competitors --In the case of a tie, neither action/belief is permitted Version B: Find the actions with highest expected value and perform whichever of them you like --In the case of a tie, Theism is practically rational. Just like choosing pie over cake 2. Evidentialism(Clifford)

September 12, 2001 The Problem of Evil Last time we considered the ontological argument for the existence of God. If the argument is cogent, then we have reason to be rational theists, i.e., to maintain that there are justifying reasons for belief in God's existence. Today we're going to consider an argument for atheism which purports to show that theism is incoherent, i.e., that theism entails a contradiction. If the argument works, then the only option available to the theist would be irrational theism: belief in God's existence in spite of justifying reasons supporting