1 Phil-101 PRACTICE FINAL EXAMINATION Each of The

Phil-101 PRACTICE FINAL EXAMINATION

PART I: SHORT ANSWER Each of the following should be answerable in three to five sentences. Each question is worth 5 points.

Section A For two of the following four, fully explain the term(s) or concept(s), and outline its philosophical relevance. (A1) Cartesian Dualism In his attempt to determine what we can know with certainty, Descartes argues that he is his mind, and that his mind is essentially different from his body. The essence of his mind, Descartes argues, is that it is a thinking thing, while the essence of physical objects such as his body is that they are extended things. (A2) Lady Lovelace’s Objection Lady Lovelace’s Objection to Turing’s argument is that a computer can only do what it is programmed to do. As such, any assessment of a computer’s “intelligence” is really just an assessment of its programmers’ intelligence, and so Turing’s test fails. Turing responds by arguing that it seems not impossible that computers might be constructed to learn. (A3) (A4)

Section B For two of the following four, fully explain the term(s) or concept(s), and outline its philosophical relevance. (B1) Qualia Qualia are subjective qualities of one’s own experience, such as what something tastes like to you, or what pain feels like to you. Qualia are at the center of a debate over physicalism: if qualia exist, as Nagel and Jackson argue, then they would seem to disprove physicalism, which claims that everything that exists is physical and therefore objective. Others, like Lewis, argue that qualia can be accounted for within a physicalist theory. (B2) The Knowledge Argument In an attempt to defeat physicalism, Jackson poses the Knowledge Argument with the thought experiment of Mary, who lives in a black-and-white room, and grows to learn everything there is to know about the physical world, including everything physical about other people. Before being released from the room, however, there is still something she does not know about other people: what it is like for them to experience colors. So, prior to her release, there is some truth about other people that Mary doesn’t know. So physicalism fails. (B3) (B4)

Section C For two of the following four, fully explain the term(s) or concept(s), and outline its philosophical relevance. (C1) Hamlet, Yorick, Fortinbras, and Hubert In Daniel Dennett’s story, “Where Am I”, Hamlet is the name of his body, from which his brain, Yorick, is removed. Yorick controls Hamlet from a distance as Hamlet is sent to recover a warhead under Tulsa. When Hamlet is lost, Yorick is connected to Fortinbras, a replacement body for Dennett. Dennett also discovers that he has been given Hubert, a sort of computer back-up brain. Dennett uses this story to investigate the nature of personal identity. (C2) Parfit’s Divided Mind Example Parfit asks us to imagine a man capable of voluntarily separating and recombining the hemispheres of his brain. Disconnecting the hemispheres results in two independent streams of consciousness, with each hemisphere responsible for a separate task. Recombining the hemispheres results in the whole having two distinct sets of memories. Parfit argues that this example shows that psychological continuity or survival need not be single-channeled, but can be like a river, dividing and reuniting. (C3) (C4)

Section D For two of the following four, fully explain the term(s) or concept(s), and outline its philosophical relevance. (D1) The No Choice Principle The No Choice Principle asks us to suppose (1) that something, P, is true, and that no one has any choice about P, and that (2) it is also true that if P, then Q, and that no one has any choice about that either. It follows that Q is true and that no one has any choice about that. According to determinism, this is how everything in the universe works. Van Inwagen says that, as such, there is no room for free will in the determinist view, so the compatibilist must reject the No Choice Principle despite its obvious truth. (D2) Hypothetical Liberty Hume defines Hypothetical Liberty as the power to act or not act according to a determination of the will. In other words, Hume thinks of free will as freedom from outside constraint. As such, Hume argues that not only is this notion of liberty compatible with necessity in the universe; both are required for morality. On the basis of this argument, Hume is a (soft) determinist. (D3) (D4)

PART II: ESSAYS Answer two of the following three questions in essay form. Each question is worth 30 points.

(E1)

(E2)

(E3) Roderick Chisholm contends that our desires might incline us towards some action, but not necessitate this action. In a short essay, outline Chisholm’s argument for this position, and consider at least one strong criticism of the view. Is Chisholm’s claim a strong one? Why or why not?

Roderick Chisholm argues in his essay, “Human Freedom and the Self,” that human events are not like other events in the universe in that they involve humans, and humans are agents. An agent is responsible for his actions, which Chisholm argues requires an understanding of human action that is neither deterministic nor indeterministic. If human actions were determined in the same way that other events are determined, then humans could not be held responsible for those acts, as the ultimate cause for those acts would lie outside the individuals doing the acting. On the other hand, if human actions were undetermined, then this is just to say that such actions were not caused at all, and so it would seem no one could be held accountable for those acts. The only remaining possibility, Chisholm suggests, is that the agent causes the events but himself falls outside the more general causal chain of events in the universe. Chisholm thus distinguishes between “event causation” (when one event causes another event—what we think of normally as causation) and “agent causation” (when an agent, distinguished from an event, causes another event). That is, the agent causes an event but is not himself caused to cause that event. As such, the agent is solely responsible for the action. On this basis, Chisholm argues that while our desires might incline us towards some action, they do not necessitate this action (which would just be more event causation). Following Kant, Chisholm suggests that there is no causal connection between wanting something and doing something. We may, if we choose, rise above our desires and do something different instead. A difficulty with this view, pointed out by Richard Taylor, is that Chisholm’s view involves a very strange notion of causation. If A causes B, then A was sufficient for B. A cause is a sufficient condition for its effect. But man is not sufficient for any set of events: man’s mere existence does not bring about anything that we would normally want to praise or blame him for. Taylor suggests instead that agents “perform” or “initiate” the events that Chisholm says they cause. Although Chisholm’s version of libertarianism runs into problems with the notion of causation, it has the advantage of explaining how it is we can attribute responsibility to agents for their actions. The view requires denying the persuasive view of determinism, but does not thus result in an indeterministic view of human action. As such, Chisholm’s view (appropriately modified by Taylor) is a strong one (though it may be impossible to ultimately prove).