Moral Relativism The problem of moral relativism begins with the fact of moral diversity: different cultures have different moral codes. Of course,it' s not just between different national cultures that moral opinions differ the same can happen between different subcultures of the same national culture. What does this show? Consider: Moral diversity: Different cultures have different moral codes/values. Does it even follow that: Moral conflict: Different cultures have conflicting moral codes/values

1. Whatever happens is determined by prior events. (Determinism) 2. I act freely iff I am able to act otherwise. (Avoidability Analysis of Freedom) 3. If my action is determined, am unable to act otherwise. 4. So, I never act freely. I. Consider(1): Determinism:

24.00: Problems of Philosophy Prof. Sally Haslanger October 31, 2001 Freewill: Hard Determinism 1. What is our investment in freewill? Not just a sentimental attachment: At the root of how we organize our own lives(deliberation matters). At the root of how we interact with others(presupposed by praise and blame, punishment)

ral questions that might arise concerning personal identity. When we ask\Who am I? we might be being we are, what our possiblities are, under what conditions\I\would continue to exist. We'll begin our discussionon n wonder what\makes us tick\, what we ultimately value, what matters to us. We might also be asking what sort personal identity with the latter set of questions Consider a parallel set of questions (Id) Under what conditions are baseball-events events in the same game? E. g, under what conditions are a

I. Racist Propositions Appiah distinguishes three importantly different ideas relevant to race and racism: Racialism: ...there are heritable characteristics, possessed by members of our species, that allow us to divide them into a small set of races, in such a way that all the members of these races share certain traits and tendencies with each other that they do not share with members of any other race. These traits and tendencies characteristic of a race constitute, on the racialist view, a sort of racial essence; and it is part of the content of racialism that the essential

24.00: Problems of Philosophy Prof. Sally Haslanger September 19, 2001 Evil and the Free Will Defense Review of the Problem 1)If God exists, she'd be OOG. [By hypothesis] )If an OOG being exists, there would be no evil. [from 1] 3)God exists. [Suppose]

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)

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

Evidentialism(Clifford): \It is wrong abways, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence\ (p.113) Pragmatism(James): Faced with a genuine choice about what to believe, and where evidence does not decide the matter, we are free to decide it however we want. Oour passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds. (127) In the relevant cases, we are not

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