PHI 3670, Ethical Theory

Final Exam Review

Spring 2004

Wollstonecraft

1. What is the primary cause of the degradation of women in the society in which Wollstonecraft lived? Are her claims regarding women still applicable in today’s society? If so, how? If not, why not?

Marx

2. What does this concept from Marx mean? “Communism is the negation of the negation.” What are the forms of alienation of which Marx writes, and how do they manifest themselves in capitalist societies? What is the moral import of Marx’s discussion of forms of alienation?

Mill

3. What is the principle of utility? What is the categorical imperative? Are either of these principles clear with respect to moral requirements? Explain the notion that the principle of utility might not be clear or exact with respect to the question of how we ought to distribute the good and how we ought to concentrate our attention with respect to creating the greatest happiness FOR the greatest number.

Emotivism/Ayer

4. What is Ayer’s view of the meaning of metaphysical and moral statements? Why is this the case? Does the emotivist claim that ethics can be normative?

Rawls

5. What are Rawls’s two principles of justice? What do they mean or imply? What is the meaning of the concepts of “veil of ignorance” and “original position”? What is a “maximin strategy”? In what primary ways is Rawls’s theory Kantian?

Hill

6. Explain what Thomas Hill means by the claim that the tendency of the servile person to be liable to violate duties to others is a consequence of his argument against servility, and not a presupposition of it. What does Hill say are the two basic types, or causes, of servility? What does he say about the notion that there are some rights that a person cannot forfeit?

Emerson

7. What does Emerson mean by the term ‘self reliance’?
8. What is the ultimate authority, and why is this the case?
9. Explain Emerson’s attitude toward “logical consistency.”

Wolf

10. What is Susan Wolf’s general attitude toward moral sainthood and moral perfection? How does she characterize the “loving saint” and the “dutiful saint”? Why is moral sainthood inconsistent with both Kantian and Utilitarian moral theories? What is Wolf’s position with respect to the development of non-moral perfections?

Held

11. What does this concept from Marx mean? “Communism is the negation of the negation.” What are the forms of alienation of which Marx writes, and how do they manifest themselves in capitalist societies? What is the moral import of Marx’s discussion of forms of alienation?

Also remember to go to the end of the selections in Ethical Traditions for other review questions.