1. Should philosophers search for definitions?
2. Should all philosophical enquiry start with the demolition of pre-existing
opinions? What can be achieved by such demolition?
3. A British newspaper has published cartoons mocking Mother Teresa and the
pope, which are perceived as offensive by Catholics in Britain and elsewhere.
The editor defends her decision to publish the cartoons on grounds of the
right to free speech. Should we be persuaded by this defence?
4. ‘In morals, as in science, we should aim for a reflective equilibrium between
our immediate judgments and our deeper theoretical commitments.’ Assess
the plausibility of this claim with reference to at least one normative ethical
theory.
5. Is the claim that we get ethical knowledge by ethical intuition any more
mysterious than the claim that we get sensory knowledge by sense
perception?
6. Do facts about human psychology have any implications for normative ethics?
7. Is morality conventional because the meaning of moral terms is a matter of
convention?
8. ‘Consider the claim that murder is wrong and 3 > 2 because God freely
determined that murder is wrong and 3 > 2. Some people object that we can’t
imagine how God could possibly have made murder right or 3 < 2. That’s not
a weighty objection because it would have been easy for God to have created
us as unable to wrap our minds around these possibilities.’ Evaluate this
response to the objection.
9. Does formal logic cast any light on other areas of philosophy?
10.What is the point of attempting to analyse simple English expressions like ‘if’
and ‘the’?
11.What is the relationship between the analysis of language and the analysis of
mind?
12.Must a religious person believe in God?