Ethics Chapter 4

Which theory is LEAST associated with David Hume's philosophy?

Egoism

"Ought implies can" usually means the same as "if there is a will there is a way.

False

A psychological egoist is by definition a selfish person.

False

Altruism is similar to psychological egoism because it says that it is certainly both possible and right to look after one's own welfare.

False

An egoist is a person who, by definition, thinks highly of himself or herself and utilizes self praise consistently.

False

An ethical egoist is a person who believes that everybody is selfish.

False

David Hume believes that all humans are selfish at heart.

False

Egoism and Egotism are two words for basically the same thing.

False

Glaucon claims that if we gave away two invisibility rings, one to a just person and one to an unjust person, the unjust person would take advantage of the ring, but the just person would not.

False

Glaucon uses the story of the Ring of Gyges to express his moral disapproval of anyone who gains an advantage by disregarding the interests of others.

False

Hume believed that competition is the human feeling which holds society together.

False

If a theory cannot be falsified under any circumstances, it must be true.

False

It has been proven to the satisfaction of most scientists that chimpanzees have no trace of moral rules in their society.

False

Peter Singer claims that it is to everyone's evolutionary advantage to look after their own interests and disregard the interests of others.

False

Psychological egoism is the theory that the only proper way to live is to be selfish. In other words, everyone isn't necessarily selfish by nature, but one ought to be selfish.

False

The Catholic Church has been relatively immune from recent increases in American cynicism.

False

The basic idea of the "Golden Rule" is found only in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

False

Who wrote, "Despite its fragility and selectivity, the capacity to care for others is the bedrock of our moral system. It is the only capacity that does not snugly fit the hedonic cage in which philosophers, psychologists, and biologists have tried to lock the human spirt."

Frans de Waal

What is the fallacy of the suppressed correlative?

It is a phenomenon where something becomes meaningless if it doesn't have any opposite.

There are three major reasons given in the text for why psychological egoism is an appealing theory. Which should NOT be listed?

The theory allows us to choose when to be selfish and when to consider the feelings of others.

Three major criticisms against psychological egoism are listed in the textbook. Which one should NOT be on the list?

The theory misinterprets the old saying "Ought implies can" to mean "If I ought to do something, then I will be able to do it."

A psychological egoist is a person who believes that all people look after themselves.

True

A theory must be theoretically falsifiable in order to be philosophically acceptable.

True

Altruism can be viewed as an antidote to ethical egoism because altruism rejects the entire premise that it is morally good to focus on one's own needs.

True

By saving a small boy the gorilla Binti Jua was thought by many people to show that apes can display both compassion and logical thinking.

True

Confucius taught his students a version of the Golden Rule: "What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to others." This is sometimes known as the "Silver Rule."

True

Dawkins says that when a person displays altruistic behavior that does not promote the survival of their genes the person is just making a mistake.

True

Emmanuel Levinas expressed the idea that other people are always more important than yourself.

True

Ethical egoism is a consequentialist theory.

True

Mary Midgley suggests that instead of being fundamentally selfish, we extend our caring capacity to strangers, thus making them honorary relatives for a while.

True

Psychological altruism claims that everyone is unselfish by nature.

True

Reciprocal altruism is known as the Golden Rule altruism.

True

Rosenstand speculates that the origin of modern cynicism is linked to the sinking of the Titanic.

True

The altruism theory states that the only moral duty we have is to look to the needs of other people

True

The fallacy of the suppressed correlative is used to argue that psychological egoism is wrong.

True

The principle of falsification was advanced by Karl Popper.

True

The story of the Ring of Gyges indicates that humans will take advantage of any situation if they can get away with it.

True

The unfalsifiability of a theory demonstrates the logical fallacy of begging the question; that is, it assumes that what it is supposed to prove is already true.

True

Thomas Hobbes thought that all acts, even acts of pity, could be attributed to a natural tendency toward selfishness.

True

What is the genetic fallacy?

confusing the origin of something with what it becomes at a later stage

Glaucon, with his hypothesis of the two rings in the text by Plato, points to the fact that

if an invisibility ring was given to a just man and another to an unjust man, the just man and the unjust man will both behave selfishly.

It has been argued that ethical egoism doesn't work in practice because

if every person has the goal of looking after his or her own self-interest, then he or she will have a lot of competition, making it harder to satisfy this goal.

The moral of Glaucon's tale of Gyges and his ring was that

just and unjust men react similarly to temptation.

Abraham Lincoln claimed that he saved the pigs from drowning because

otherwise he wouldn't have had peace of mind all day.

Psychological egoism claims that

people always act selfishly.

The selfish gene theory says that

people are genetically programmed to act in ways that promote the survival of their genes.

Midgely suggests that egoism is probably guilty of the fallacy of

suppressed correlative

Abraham Lincoln can be seen as a psychological egoist because regardless of how unselfishly he acted, he expressed the theory that everyone acts selfishly.

true

According to Thomas Hobbes, the reason we feel pity toward others is because

we are afraid their misfortune might happen to us.