Philosophy Review

Topic One: Mind Body Problem

“Only metaphysically similar things can be causally related to each other”
Interactionism

 Idea that mind and body work together, interacting and causing each other to make
actions.
 Where do they interact?
 Rene Descartes= dualist. Believed the mind and the body interacted at the pineal gland,
and that “animal spirits” carried the messages from one to the other. “my senses
sometimes deceive me”
 No way to move things with the mind. What causes the other to happen?
 Hume’s theory on causation
1. A is prior to B
2. A+B are contiguous (touch each other in space in time)
3. A+B are necessarily connected (constant conjunction)
 Generous Theory: Only needs these three conditions to prove causation. Does not include
quote above about metaphysically similar things.
 Can Hume’s conditions be connected to Interactionism?
 Critics claim that the theory of causation cannot be true without the quote on the
metaphysically similar ideas.
 Criticism: The simplest objection to interaction is that, in so far as mental properties,
states or substances are of radically different kinds from each other, they lack that
communality necessary for interaction.
Brie Gertler: Teacher at University of Virginia, defender of dualism

 It is possible to feel pain even if you are in no physical state.

 Disembodiment argument: descendant of Descartes’ argument. Feeling pain with no
physical features. If this pain could occur without a body, then there must be a mind
controlling or feeling this pain.
 Not everything we can conceive of is possible. C fiber stimulation
 There is a concept of pain that is definitive and that it is possible that the hurting sensation
has to occur for us.
 Feeling pain. If the pain is a physical state then we can see that there must be a possibility
that there is pain coming from somewhere other than the body itself.
 Comparing data of the mind is the overall debate
Frank Jackson

 The Qualia Problem

 Experiences allow people to gain a better understanding about situations.
 Experiences and feelings have irreducibly subjective, non-physical qualities. Others take
essentially the same position on the gap while insisting that this does not detract from a
 purely physicalist view of experiences and feelings. What it shows rather is that some
physical qualities or states are irreducibly subjective entities
 Defenses against criticisms by Darwin. Pressures of evolutionary survival have to do
which our changes physical and mental states.
 Materialists must be able to defend their stance against the gap between physical and
mental states that have been created.
Materialism

 Materialism: The only things which exist are material things.

 All mental processes or properties are brain processes or properties ie pain is the brain
firing neurons
 No nomological danglers (unexplained facts in a theory)
 Correlation: All physical events correspond to immediate mental state
 Control: Tell someone to think about baseball and look to see if neurons fire in the same
area as other people.
 Parsimony: If two explanations are equal in explanatory, go with the simpler theory.
 Identity of Indiscernible: If two things are identical, what one says about one thing must
be truth about the other.
 Mental Processes=Brain Processes
 Examples: The surgeon. If the surgeon cuts open a patients head and looks at the brain, if
they show pictures of things, they should be able to point out reactions of the brain either
by looking at the brain through machines or other processes. There’s no physical mind in
the brain, just the firing of neurons.
 No location of the mind.
Peter Carruthers

 “Green afterimage”
 Essential properties vs Accidental Properties: The greenness of after images are essential
properties for people to have, but green books could just as easily be red and have the
same internal properties as the green book.
 Metaphysical items:
1. Thing
2. Event
3. Properties etc.
 Some experiences are literal experiences, but some other events are difficult to perceive.
 The mental situations which defenders of dualism address are necessarily tied to the idea
of physical occurrences. There is a physical-physical causality which is created, not a
metaphysical connection.
 Addresses some issues with the concept of solely a physical body. Leibniz’s law
1. Certainty: Adaptation of Descartes idea of identity. Must be certain of the idea, and
since he is not certain about the idea of identity theory. However, defends it by stating
he is certain.
 2. Privacy: Since conscious statements are not identical with identical statements, they
are not the same as each other. Both of them are caused by the brain-state. There’s no
internal difference in the two statements.
3. Value: Thoughts have different brain-states. Can a brain-state be wicked as well as a
thought be wicked? Yes because they are intentional.
4. Color: Brain-states cannot be green. After-green image.
5. Felt Quality- Cannot physically feel these states. Pain has a physical feel and thoughts
can produce reactions in the brain.
6. Complete Knowledge: There must be a mental state since we do not understand
everything that we have and know. Experiences are physical states because they still
part of the brain process that would be argue that spatial positions must be assigned to
the brain.
Paul Churchland

 Philosophical Behaviorism: Any sentence about a mental state can be paraphrased,

without loss of meaning, into a long and complex sentence about what observable
behavior would result if the person were in this, that or other observable circumstances.
 Flaws with philosophical behaviorism. Ignores inner aspect of mental states. Cannot
specify the multiracked disposition said to constitute any given mental state.
 Intertheoretic Reduction: All cases where a new and very powerful theory turns out to
entail a set of propositions and principles of some older conceptual theory or framework.
 Origins of each type of animals leads from evolution and the structure of one.
Neuroscience can help to defend the idea that we are all just physical states.
 Eliminative Materialism: We are made of a psychological framework is a false and
radically misleading conception of the causes of human behavior and nature of cognitive
activity. Older states become eliminated and outdated.
 Relates previous scientific discoveries with the ideas of physical material rather than just
assumed “phlogiston”
 Arguments for Eliminative Materialism:
1. Point to the weaknesses of folk psychology. We do not understand the ideas of mental
illnesses or intelligence or other claimed ideas of mental states which cannot be
related to the idea of a dualist theory.
2. Conceptual histoy should show us that the materialism is better than folk psychology.
3. A priori advantages over identity theory and functionalism
 Criticisms: Begs the question because one’s introspection reveals directly the existence of
pains, beliefs, desires, fears and so forth. These states are simply part of the brain and that
many of these observations are false and cannot be proven to be part of the mental state.
 Statements of meaningfulness, belief and knowledge can overcome the idea that these
ideas have to be flawed.
 Functionalism: The essential feature of any type of any mental state as is causally relates
to environmental effects on the body, other types of mental states and bodily behavior.
Topic 2: Personal Identity
Problem of Personal Identity
a. Unity: Person remain the same after qualitative changes
b. Individualism: How do we pick people out?
c. Reidentification: How do we recognize people as same people?
Criteria for Reidentifcation
a. Memory Criteria- Locke’s Prince and Cobbler
b. Body Criteria – Person with amnesia still has the same body
c. No answer
Theories of Personal Identity
John Locke

 “Sameness of a rational being” or consciousness

 The man is like the body and depends on the biological organization, but exists.
 The person is morally responsible for his actions.
 Idea of a person but be seen as the perception of a rational being who acts based upon
what the body tells him to do.
 Persona has a substance and conscience.
 Memories create the conscience of a person and help to establish the idea of the word
remember.
 Memories can be false: Fallabilist
 Must decide what makes the same spirit, man or person. If one loses his memories, does
he remain the same person? If the Prince and Cobbler wake up in the opposite person’s
body, which is which anymore?
 Criteria:
1. Must be the same individual immaterial, thinking substance ie. The same numerical
soul.
2. The same animal, which has no regard to a soul.
3. Same immaterial spirit united to the same animal.
Thomas Reid

 Criticism of John Locke on basis that personal identity is indefinable.

 If the people have their souls transferred to one another, they could be the same person.
 If a person loses his memories, he could become two diffrenet people, if he only loses his
previous actions.
 For example, boy grows up at age 10 and gets flogged. At age 25 becomes famous war
hero, remembers getting flogged. Age 65 still remembers war, but not getting flogged. IS
he the same person?
 As time progresses, do we really have sameness in identity?
 Defense of Locke: Law of transitivity, memories of memories, still can remember
concepts from that age.
David Hume

 No a priori knowledge
 Knowledge created through experiences rather than already there
 Perception of self cannot be proven to be true
 Experiences create the concept of knowledge
 All we see are different perceptions of the things around us.
 Bundle Theory: We stumble upon perceptions and beliefs that we only learn through
experience.
 Identity is nothing really belonging to these different perfections and uniting them
together, but is merely a quality.
 Hume continues to place “I” into the essay, creating the question of who this I person is?
 Must be smuggling in some idea of the self into his paper.
Derek Parfit

 Ego Theory: Experiences are what unite a person. Opposite end of the spectrum from the
Cartesian theory.
 Bundle Theory denies the existence of people due to the lack of a self.
 Buddha argued the no self view, to which Parfit agrees.
 Since we are not people, we can know what is going to happen to a person prior to it
happening. If a person has the same experiences as another person, they will end up being
the same person.
 Ordinary survival is about as bad as being destroyed and having a replica.
 People can be recreated and it would not even matter what had happened in the past.
Scenes can be recreated.
 Could we combine both the brains to create a new person? Different experiences
combined could create new person.
Topic 3: Life, Death and Survival of Death
John Perry
Different Survival Theories
1. Death Ends All
2. Reincarnation
3. Immortality
4. Resurrection
Perry’s Arguments of Death Ends All: Gretchen Weirob=John Perry
1. Soul and Personal Identity
 Immaterial souls are not possible to conceive.
 Cannot prove if anyone has a soul.
 Recreation of a soul would be a problem. Does a soul travel with the body after death,
without the body?
 Could we create a soul detector?
  Could find a soul for each person and tell the different traits from one another.
 If we prove a soul exists, does that disprove Weirob’s argument?
 If you cannot test for a soul, that’s not a good way to transfer to prove personal
identity.
 Seeing or touching the soul is impossible, have same problem as people trying to
prove it.
 Commitment to materialism.
 Jumps into criteria for a soul in order to prove personal identity.
2. Memory and Personal Identity
 Memory can connect people with and ideas over time.
 The first issue is that memory is fallible.
 Apparent memories and genuine memories can be confused with one other, blurring
the line of personal identity.
 Soul in the afterlife the same as the one on Earth?
 Can memory alone suffice to show personal identity?
 Cartesian Circle
1 Real Memory Explains Identity
2 Identity marks the difference between real and apparent memories
3 If Real Memory explains identity, but is only true if identity explains the
difference between the two, does that mean that there’s nothing actually
defending them individually?
4 Can this be defended?
3. Duplication
 If God could put one soul into the afterlife, can he create 3 or 100 of that same soul?
 God avoids this duplication.
 Criterion of uniqueness
 Is it logically impossible for God to duplicate souls?
 Extrinsic Properties: Hard to determine if a person is a widow, must investigate
further than just assumption.
Topic 4: Free Will and Moral Responsibility
Introduction

 Is determinism compatible with moral responsibility? Praised for good actions and
punished for bad acts?
 Compatiblism: Person is responsible for actions. They are similar to soft determinists, but
do not have to be determinists.
 Soft Determinists: People do not have free will, but are responsible for their actions.
 Hard Determinism: People do not have free will and are not responsible for their actions.
 Moral Responsibility:
A is morally responsible if
a. A caused x to happen
b. Moral Implications
c. No excuses
 Determinism is a doctrine which states
 a. Every event has a cause
b. Every event is inevitable
c. Every event, in principle, is predictable
 Indeterminism
 Denial of determinism: At least one event is completely uncaused.
 Wide area of behavior where determinism is true
 Strongest desire v Call to duty
Hard Determinism

 The movement of science

 Consistent movement towards causality and determinism
 Scientists are more able to explain phenomena with logical, medical, scientific
explanations
 Unconscious Motivation: Most actions can be explained through process and decision
making, but some are not.
 Eventually, all actions will be explained and determinism will be proven true.
 Parsimony
 Freud: Some actions we do not know why we are acting in these ways=unconscious
motivation
 Part of causes which we took no part in doing.
 Some people believe our personalities are set by age 5-life determined by luck.
 Still can punish/reward for utilitarian reasons, but they do not morally deserve it.
Holbach and John Hospers: Defenders of Hard Determinism

 Argue that there is no alternative in decision making. There are no decisions that we
can make that do not have causes.
 Defend against the arguments that one could have done otherwise, he could have
chosen to do otherwise.
 No agent causing us to make certain actions.
 Always necessary consequences of person’s temperament, received ideas, and
notions, whether true or false. Forces continually drive people to there ideas, even if
they are evil.
 Choices do not prove freedom. Person could throw himself out of the window, but
does not mean that he has the freedom to throw himself out the window. Must have a
cause that forces him to jump out the window.
 Refer to the will that has created the reason to act.
 Absence of restraint does not mean absence of necessity. There are always forces that
are making people come to decisions, such as a sick man choosing to die.
 Fatality is part of the necessary order.
 Cause and effect. Every action has some reason behind it and must be concluded to
have come from outside force. Every action has come from a cause in the brain.
 We can never determine that people are acting by themselves with absolute certainty.
 No one can resist the inclination to act in the way that actions have occurred.
  Criticisms: Smerdyakov effect: Ivan realizes that there is no afterlife to punish him and
would like to kill his father, but does not have the guts. His brother, Smerdyakov would
and does. Gets away with it and the Ivan gets arrested.
 Criticism: Sentimentality: If we are sentencing criminals to death, are we actually making
that decision for ourselves or is this force of determinism making us make that decision
even though hard determinists do not believe in moral responsibility.
 Criticism: Can it rationally be believed? If hard determinism is true, are there any causes
or reasons as to why we believe in hard determinism, or is it just because we have outside
forces acting on us.

Soft Determinism

 Actions must be caused, but people are responsible for the caused actions.
 In order to be morally responsible
a. Accomplish what one wants to do.
b. Behavior must be modifiable.
 Determinism does not equal Fatalism
 Many of our actions are caused by our own desires/wants
 Fatalism, our desires have no influence on what happens.
 Compatible with Moral Responsibility
 We are not responsible for natural laws, but our desires and actions can cause actions to
happen.
 Hume’s Theory
a. A causes B
b. Priority A happened before B
c. Contiguous in space and time
d. B is expected from A
 Modifiability and I could have done otherwise
 Rational to run red light when hijacked I could not have done otherwise, was coerced.
Therefore, not morally responsible for the action. Bad deed leads to good.
Ayer, Stace and Fischer
A.J. Ayer

 There are never accidents for making a decision, even if the decision that was made was
wrong. There was a cause for the person to make that action.
 Consciousness of Necessity: In order to be acting freely, a person must have their
decisions caused.
 If one is constrained, then we are not acting freely, but when are we constrained.
Instances where the erson s free to act i.e. kleptomaniacs.
 Differences between constrain and compel.
 If it is true that I could have done otherwise, they I should have done otherwise. Has to do
with moral responsibility.
 Future can be explained by the past, then is the past influencing the future?
Walter Stace

 Problems with Free Will

 Used to be concluded that determinism is inconsistent with free will.
 Wholly determined beforehand. However, may not be true.
 Common usage and the issues with words defined.
 Examples: Jones and Smith, Ghandi and Smtih, Judge and Stace.
 Differences between free acts and unfree acts.
 Acts freely done are those whose immediately causes are psychological states in the
agent. Acts not freely caused are those whose immediate causes are states of affairs
external to the agent.
 Free will is a condition of oral responsibility.
John Martin Fischer

 Compatiblism and Semi-compatiblism

 Semi-compatiblism: Moral responsibility and free will are compatible with both
determinism and indeterminism, so no need to clarify. Both will be compatible with free
will and moral responsibility if true.
 Very luring to assume compatiblism because it’s hard to believe that our actions have no
causes, or that people have no free will or moral responsibility.
 These assumptions are very important in keeping to the beliefs that we have.
 Distinction with regards to hard cases.
 Example of Keith Leher. Wanting to pick up the snake but not being able to due to
psychological aversion.
 Simple and refined conditional analysis.
 Causal determinism: There could be an infringement on free will if causal determinism is
true.
 Frankfurt examples: John Locke and the key lock in his mind. Political decisions. He
experienced free will to choose the Democrat, but could not have done otherwise.
 Attack the consequence argument.
 Semi-compatiblism combines the best parts of indeterminism and determinism by allow
people to track common sense in making distinctions between those factors that act to
undermine free will and the ones that do not.
Criticisms

 Soft determinism argues that determinism is compatible with moral responsibility

but not fatalism.
 Has to do with desires and ICHDO, but does that mean it actually is compatible with
determinism. i.e. the 3 steps in introduction
 Are those three criteria true for fatalism as well?
 Do desires and wishes actually influence fate?
 Is there any distinction anymore?
 Pill makes it impossible for us to make decisions. Decision to turn right or left, could
be held morally responsible because ICHDO.
Indeterminism and Libertarianism

 Basic Intuitions for Indeterminism

a. The feeling of freedom: certain instances where people feel free to take actions while
there are instances where people do not feel free to take actions.
b. Movement of science: Uncertainty principle: events at subatomic level cannot be
predicted or explained. Randomness can occur.
c. Right Hand and the Left Hand: Tied up to the chair, only hands are free. Computer
hooked up to person. Ask the person to raise either left or right hand. Computer
cannot predict which hand the person will raise. Person would try to trick computer?
Libertarian Arguments

 Ought implies can: Coach of basketball team says 6’ 3”center ought to be 6’ 8” but has
no power to make that decision.
 Range of free will: How much freedom do we have?
 Some only believe we have freedom when deciding between two competing desires.
 Free in any decision/choices?
 The idea of he could have done otherwise.
 People can resist the need to do something and can choose to do otherwise.

Libertarian Models

 Volition Theory: We make volitions, or hidden inner choices which push us towards
decisions. Agree that people make choices based upon beliefs and outer world, but
decisions are not caused.
 Infinite Regression Objection: Are volitions free, or are they caused? Decisions caused
by volition? Do I feel volitions? Impulses? Gut feeling?
 Can we learn to volition?
 The Self: C.A. Campbell argues that there is a concept of a self.
 The self causes free acts.
 Proof is introspective. Moral temptation.
 Myself=character + nature.
 No one determines what the self does.
Conditions
a. No coercion
b. Genuine alternatives
c. Cause is the agent
 Agency Theory: Future is malleable and that the agent acting at the time has the option to
make his own decisions. The future can be manipulated by our own choices.
 Example of mowing the lawn: Determinists say that a person mows the lawn because it
needs to be cut, he has 90 minutes, and wanted to get exercise.
 Libertarian argues that inner thoughts choose action. Do not want people to think him
lazy and he wants the lawn to look nice.
Criticisms
  Cannot be held morally responsible for random events that could be true under
indeterminism.
 All actions are caused by the agent or outside forces.
 If humans can cause things to happen, what makes me act in this way?
 We can still predict actions in the future based upon the past.
 If libertarianism is true, no way to predict the future.
Topic 5: Kant’s Moral Philosophy

 Deontology: Determine morally right based upon the action/motives

 Actions have good and bad consequences, but nothing to do with the morality of
decision.
 Maxim: Form of “I wil do ______”
 Intrinsic good within itself extrinsic produces intrinsic.
 Only good thing is a good will.
 Good will is a will to obey the moral law.
 Categorical Imperative: I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will
that my maxim should become universal law.
 No exceptions. One must act in the way that in accordance with a categorical imperative
because it applies to everyone.
 Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can act the same time will
that it become a moral law.
 Hypothetical Imperative: Implies an “if” clause. Counsel of prudence. Act in one’s own
best interest.
 Different versions of the CI: “can will that it be” Some of these alternatives do not make
sense with the CI.
 Self defeating? In a world where people tell the truth only when it benefits them and lie
when it benefits them may cause problems for society.
 Uses of CI: I will help everyone if it benefits me to help him. Will everyone start looking
out for themselves?
 Treat people as ends, not only as means to an end.
Topic 6: Ethical Skepticism, Psychological Egoism, Cultural Relativism
Psychological Egoism: Joel Feinberg

 All human actions when properly understood can be seen to be motivated by selfish
desires.
 Only thing people look out for is their own self-interest. This is a means towards
happiness.
 Ethical Egoism argues that people out to pursue their own interests in order to promote
their own wellbeing.
 All of my actions are prompted by my motives.
 Person gains pleasure when person gets what he wants.
 Self-deception on good deeds.
 People only act well when there’s a motive for them to act well.
Criticisms

 The question is whether the objective of the motive is selfish. What does the action aim
to do? If the action aims to help others, it is not selfish.
 Is every action only an objective to gain pleasure for oneself?
 We normally get pleasure no matter what our desires are for, pleasure as a by-product of
an action is not proof that the action was selfish. What if we desired something else, but
that didn’t happen and we still feel pleasure?
 What if Jones’ goal in life is to be frustrated?
 Only thing that actions have are motives, but they are not inherently selfish.
James Rachels
Ethical Egoism

 Acting on behalf of others would just lead to more mischief than good.
 We shouldn’t meddle in other people’s business.
 Making people an object of their actions is degrading.
 Acts other than ethical egoism do not take seriously the importance of individualism.
 People can adapt to acting in our own best interest while not messing with other people’s
lives. We learn that our bad actions eventually have negative consequences for ourselves.
Against Ethical Egoism

 Cannot provide solutions for conflicts of interest (2 presidents running against each other)
 Logically inconsistent to practice ethical egoism. (some actions can both be beneficial to
the person, but cause unintended consequences)
 Any moral doctrine that assigns greater interest of one group than to those of another is
unacceptably arbitrary unless there’s a difference between the two groups that justifies
the action. However, there’s no difference that can be made between oneself and the
other people that can be justified for the treatment created from these actions.
Cultural Relativism William Graham Sumner

 Morality should be based upon one’s culture and should not apply to all of society.
 Only one’s culture can decide what is morally right or morally wrong.
 People should be tolerant of other’s beliefs and practices
Criticisms

 Does the conclusion follow?

 Moral reformers?
 Sumner’s own location
 What is a culture?
Ethical Relativism
  What is morally right and morally wrong based upon the individual’s decision to choose
what is wrong and what is wrong.
 Eliminates moral reform.
 Are there absolute rights or wrongs?
Ethical Skepticism

 Ideas about moral beliefs are just subjective opinions. No objective opinions. Feelings
and emotions are at the heart of ethics
 Moral Cynicism: Act in the way you want to do so. Do not think about anyone else
Consequenes

 If relativism is true, radicals such as KKK are morally correct in their actions.
 No reason to influence other, no ethical progress
 Is it possible to be a tolerant objectivist?
The Myth of Sisyphus
I The Absurd

 People have desires

 World does not answer these questions
 Meaning of life can be discovered and achieved based upon religious teachings
 Camus states there are no Meanings to life
 Feeling of absurdity includes thinking about nothing or boredom of life.
 Longing for future but knowing that time is the enemy.
 Horror of realizing one day one will die.
Options
 Hope
 Suicide
 Revolt
Camus’ Argument for Revolt

 Illusions of hope bind people. Place burden on the church or other beliefs rather than
themselves.
 Life can have meaning beyond these hopes.
 Answer: meaning of life: must be found by the person through different acts.
 One intrinsic good is life
 Person who revolts lives in the present. Person therefore is free and autonomous. Not
bound by other’s beliefs and desires
 Ex: Don Juan, Actor, Conqueror, Writer
 Any person can be absurd if follow these ideas.
 Ex Sisyphus punishment He overcomes the gods and defeats fate. He becomes superior.
Lives in the moment.
Criticism
 Is hope bad?
 Camus gives no rejections to our hopes of afterlife? How is life absurd?
 Person who commits suicide is simply denying the fact.