Question Description

What is “ethical realism”?

What is utilitarianism?

What is virtue ethics?

What is deontology?

Give, in brief, Mill’s argument that happiness must be the highest good.

Give, in brief, the major premises for Socrates argument that the unjust person will be unhappier than the just person (and the just person, happier than the unjust):

According to Hobbes, what is justice in the state of nature? Why?

According to Hobbes, what is injustice in the civil state? Why is this injustice?

Give Hobbes argument that, without a sovereign, there can be no art, no culture, and no “mine and thine.”

Give, in brief, Nozick’s “experience machine” argument against Utilitarianism.

…The argument against relativism from Rachel’s essay (that is, and I cannot stress this enough: Rachel’s argument that relativism is wrong!)

…The argument in favor of a right to abortion in J.J. Thomson’s essay.

…The argument that the just person is happier than the unjust person from Plato’s Republic

…The argument in favor of objectivism from Enoch’s essay

…The argument that group rights should not trump individual rights from Susan Moller Okin’s essay

.According to Yochai Benkler, Hobbes is wrong about the state of nature. In what way is Hobbes wrong, and what evidence does Benkler present to show that Hobbes is wrong?

What is the point of Rawls “veil of ignorance”? What is it meant to do, and how does it do it?

Why does Rawls mean by “social and economic inequalities must be arranged so that they to be of the greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society”? Why does he think we would choose this principle from behind the veil of ignorance?

According to Singer, why do standard attempts to separate human from all other animals fail? Give some examples of the criteria used and how they fail to work.

Singer says that when we think about equality for all, we should be concerned with equality of consideration, and not a pure equality of rights. Why? What is “equality of consideration?” What’s wrong with absolute equality of rights?

Mary Midgley argues that the person/thing distinction is not subtle enough to capture important moral differences. What differences, and how does it fail to capture them?

Mills argues that “personhood” is part of a “political economy.” What does he mean by this? How has this political economy acted on personhood?

In “Akan philosophy of the person,” Ajume Wingo describes Kwasi Wiredu’s idea of degrees of personhood.” How, for Wiredu, does personhood have degrees? How can Wiredu justify the idea of degrees of personhood?

What is Gyekye’s objection to Wiredu’s “degrees of personhood” view? Why does Gyekye think it is wrong, and what would he replace it with?