Final Exam Review – American Philosophy – Spring 2004

John Dewey – “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy” and “The Quest for Certainty”

Influence of Darwin, Quest for Certainty

Value of Change

Rejection of Teleology and Dewey’s position contrary to the ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers on a divine intelligence

The senses in which Dewey’s view is like that of Hobbes, Francis Bacon, and Karl Marx – to change the world. How is this different from the general view of the ancient, medieval and early modern world view?

Dewey’s conception of experience – passive vs. active

The Search for the Great Community

What is the distinction between the great society and the great community?

The value of information and the duty of society and the individual with respect to a common good

Thomas Paine – Common Sense and The Rights of Man

The meaning of Paine’s claim that society is created by our wants and government by our Wickedness. Notice here that he argues for limited government (compare to Emerson and Thoreau).

Social contract theory is inherent in this work (Common Sense) – compare to Declaration of Independence – government exists by the consent of the governed.

What is the purpose of government, according to Paine? (Freedom and Security)

What is Paine’s argument regarding the reason that England should not (naturally) be the ruler over America?

The Rights of Man

What is the difference between natural rights and civil rights, according to Paine?

See p. 260, volume I in the text of “The Rights of Man” – what is Paine’s position regarding the notion that there is a form of government proper to human beings?

Paine makes he claim that “the more perfect civilization is the less occasion has it for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself….” Among those who are the subject of this last half of the course (and included in this review), to whose view does this claim have the closest affinity?

Thomas Paine argued that citizens do not have a contract with government. John Locke held the same position. What is, in your view, the significance of this claim?

James Madison, Federalist Papers

What are the causes of faction and what are the proposed, but rejected, solutions that Madison mentions? (Removing the causes, controlling the effects). Why does Madison reject both proposed solutions? How does a republic, rather than a pure democracy, cure the problem of factions?

Jefferson – on religion and Declaration of Independence

Dec of Independence – what are some of the problems with the concept of “self-evidence” with respect to the claim that it is “self evident” that we are all created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights?

Jefferson on separation of church and state –see vol. 1, p. 270, bottom. Why does Jefferson argue for such separation? Does Amendment 1 of the U.S. Constitution guarantee or provide for separation of church and state? Why do you think as you do on this matter?

Grimke Sisters – Appeal to the Christian Women of the South and Letters on the Equality of the Sexes

Appeal to the Christian Women

What are Angelina Grimke’s five primary suggestions or requirements for a person who wishes to fight against slavery? In what sense(s) are her suggestions akin to a Kantian view (ethics)?

What is A. Grimke’s argument against the claim that the Bible justifies slavery?

Letters – Sarah Grimke

See vol. 1, p. 289 – What does Sarah Grimke say regarding the claim that Adam is Eve’s moral superior? Is this view consistent with E.C. Stanton’s argumentation in the Woman’s Bible?

Elizabeth Cady Stanton – Seneca Falls Convention, Solitude of Self and The Woman’s Bible

Seneca Falls – review the list (parallel to the list of usurpations and abuses in the Declaration of Independence) that lead Stanton to think of the treatment of women by men as on a par with the treatment of Americans (colonists) by England.

Solitude of Self- meaning of self-sovereignty, importance of education for women/girls.

Relationship of the concept of self-sovereignty to Emersonian self-reliance

Woman’s Bible

Compare Sarah Grimke’s claims regarding original sin/the fall of man and that of E.C. Stanton in The Woman’s Bible. Be able to elaborate on at least two similarities between their positions.

Frederick Douglass – What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

Why did Frederick Douglass refuse to argue that slavery is wrong? Are there any arguments in his oration, even given the claim that he would not argue for the position? Is claiming that there is no need for arguments regarding the moral wrongness of slavery consistent with Emerson’s and Thoreau’s general philosophical positions regarding the use of argument?

Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail

What is King’s distinction between a just law and an unjust law? Why do we have an obligation to break unjust laws?

Is King’s act of civil disobedience consistent with Thoreau’s view of the same concept? How?

Marilyn Frye

What is the distinction between the arrogant eye and the loving eye?

What is it to have an “arrogant eye”? Are only men possessors of this “eye”? Explain.

What does Frye claim is wrong with the kind of notion of freedom that is presented in theories like those of Locke and Jonathan Edwards? (Remember them? You should – the idea is that a person is free insofar as he or she is not prevented from doing what he or she wills to do.)

There is an interesting line in Frye’s work where she says that “the arrogant perceiver falsifies –the Nature who makes both green beans and Bacillus botulinus doesn’t give a passing damn whether humans live or die—but he also coerces the objects of his perception into satisfying the conditions his perception imposes.” She says that the arrogant perceiver is a teleologist. On the basis of this conception of things, do you think that Paine would agree with Frye? How about Dewey? Stanton? Emerson or Thoreau?

Thoreau – Civil Disobedience

Why was Thoreau in jail? What does it mean to say that he is more free in jail than out of it? Why is it not enough simply to vote for change? What else must be done?

Rawls – on Justice

What are Rawls’s two principles of justice?

Remember that Rawls claims that these principles are not to be used to form new governments, but to serve as the principles on which any government may run.

Why is equal liberty prior to the difference principle?

What does it mean to claim that the principles that Rawls puts forth are “pure procedural” rules? How would Dewey or Sandel react to Rawls’s two principles?

Nozick – on Distributive Justice

What is the meaning of Nozick’s principles of justice in transfer and in holdings? What does it mean for Nozick to claim that liberty upsets “patterns”? In what way is Nozick’s claim here a response to principles like those of Rawls?

What does it mean to say that his principles are historical? (This makes a world of difference in understanding some of the essential differences and points of disagreement between Rawls and Nozick.)

Michael Sandel – on Procedural Justice and the Unencumbered Self

What is an unencumbered self, according to Sandel? How is this concept (of the “unencumbered self”) relevant to the theories of Rawls, Nozick, Paine, or Emerson and Thoreau?

Virginia Held – Feminist ethics – we didn’t have enough time for Held, so I will not put any questions on the test on her work (no matter how much I wish I would).

Reason/emotion

Public/Private

Conceptions of the Self

SOME NOTES AND THOUGHTS ON THESE WORKS

The difference between assimilationists (Grimke sisters, Douglass, King) and separatists (Frye)
The rejection or acceptance of teleological thinking, and how this affects the way in which those who do one or the other ultimately do philosophy.

Who, among those on the list above, are teleologists? Who is not? Are there essential similarities between those who are and those who aren’t? Do you think that Frye’s claim that those with an arrogant eye are teleologists might be indicative of the claim that all teleologists possess the arrogant eye? Clarification – Frye simply says the former (that arrogators are teleologists) – but do you have any evidence from any of the works we have to consider here that all teleologists are arrogators?