PHILOSOPHY 100 (MW) – EXAM #2
This exam is due at the beginning of class on November 13th. You should
answer both parts by writing essays that are around 500 words in length. So
the total length of the exam should be around 1,000 words (that’s
approximately 3-4 printed, double-spaced pages). Each essay must clearly
make use of concepts and arguments presented in Steven Hales, This is
Philosophy. EXCEPT IN CASE OF A DOCUMENTED EMERGENCY, NO
LATE EXAMS WILL BE ACCEPTED!
Part I. Please respond to one of the following (three cases and one thought
experiment) by writing an essay in which you explain how three of the six
ethical theories we have studied (moral relativism, egoism, divine command
ethics, classical hedonistic utilitarianism, Kantian deontology, or virtue ethics)
would address the moral situation described:
1. Leveling Appalachia
(http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2198)
2. Living Under Drones
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yMOzvmgVhc)
3. Triangle Returns (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noL8nFSzsDc)
4. “Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any
experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could
stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing
a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All
the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to
your brain.
Should you plug into this machine for life,
preprogramming your life’s experiences? If you are worried about
missing out on desirable experiences, we can suppose that business
enterprises have researched thoroughly the lives of many others. You
can pick and choose from their large library or smorgasbord of such
experiences, selecting your life’s experiences for, say, the next two
years. After two years have passed, you will have ten minutes or ten
hours out of the tank, to select the experiences of your next two years.
Of course, while in the tank you won’t know that you’re there; you’ll
think it’s all actually happening. Others can also plug in to have the
experiences they want, so there’s no need to stay unplugged to serve
them. (Ignore problems such as who will service the machines if
everyone plugs in.) Would you plug in?” (From Robert Nozick,
Anarchy, State and Utopia, p. 42. NY: Basic Books, 1974.)
Part II. Please write an essay in response to one of the following questions.
1. How does the English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins
criticize religious beliefs and practices? (Watch this interview with
him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS053GRRlzU). Explain
how a religious believer might respond to Dawkins’ criticisms.
2. Consider the following thought experiment: