Part I. The first part will contain questions asking for brief
descriptions of some of the key ideas we have discussed; these will be
taken from the following list:
Part II. The second part of the examination will ask you to write an extended essay on one of two questions. Answers to the essay question will be graded on (1) the degree of familiarity with,and understanding of, the details of the readings exhibited by your answers; (2) quality of philosophical argument, and degree to which you consider and respond to views opposed to your own; (3) clarity of organization and expression. The outline of the material we have covered this semester on the web site may help you to organize your thought for the examination. Of course, you should also review the readings! The overview does *not* contain enough material to enable you to do well on the exam without also consulting the texts! Here are some candidates for the essay question:
1. Discuss the relation between an ethics of virtue and a rule-based ethics. Is it impossible to codify an ethics based on the virtues in a set of rules? If so, does this make the theory difficult or impossible to apply in practice? Your answer should include some discussion of the following: McDowell's argument (in "Virtue and Reason") that the kind of knowledge he believes morality is cannot be encoded in any set of rules; Louden's argument that one problem for virtue ethics is the difficulty of applying it in practice; and Hursthouse's attempt to show how in fact considerations about the virtues can aid in thinking about a particular moral issue, in her case the abortion issue.
2. Which is more fundamental, the evaluation of a person's character as virtuous or vicious, or the evaluation of actions as right or wrong? Consequentialism and deontology typically understand virtues to be simply dispositions to act rightly, and so take the evaluation of actions to be basic. Virtue theorists, on the other hand, sometimes argue that the fundamental category is the evaluation of one's character, and that right action should be defined as (something like) action in accordance with virtue (i.e. as the kind of thing a virtuous person would do). Many of the virtue ethicists we have read defend something like the latter view. The most explicit is Michael Slote's defense of what he calls "agent-based virtue ethics," but Philippa Foot and others also defend this view. Explain and defend your own view in relation to theirs.
3. Consider the problems posed for morality by Harman and Mackie (the argument from the apparent observational irrelevance of moral facts, the argument from queerness, the argument from relativity). How are these problems dealt with by Moore? By Stevenson? How are Moore's and Stevenson's views similar, and how are they different? How satisfactory do you find their views, and why?
4. Discuss the approach to moral realism taken by Boyd and Railton. Both attempt to analyze moral properties as ordinary empirical properties, in principle available to empirical research in the same way ordinary properties like mass or shape or electrical charge are. Compare and contrast the ways in which they attempt to do this, and evaluate the extent to which you believe they succeed or fail.
5. Discuss the anti-realism of Blackburn. What does he mean by describing his view as "projectivism"? How is his view similar to and different from Stevenson's emotivism? Why is it reasonable to describe the view as "anti-realism"? Compare and contrast Blackburn's view with Gibbard's (but here a rough general idea of Gibbard's approach will be enough; don't worry too much about the gory details).
6. Discuss the view defended by McDowell, and discussed in some detail in class, that there is a useful analogy between moral facts and facts about secondary qualities. (Views of this sort are what the editors of Moral Discourse and Practice call "sensibility theories.") Give an account of what the secondary qualities are, and then show how a parallel account might be offered for moral properties. How different is this view, really, from Blackburn's projectivism? Do you find this sort of account plausible or implausible? Explain and defend your view.
Curtis Brown
Last Update: April 24, 1998