Philosophy Final

Van Inwagen Conclusion

Cliffords thesis cannot reasonably be used to show that religious belief is immoral or unjustified.

Breukner - Why Is Death Bad?

"It seems that, whereas a person's death needn't be a bad thing for him, it can be. In some circumstances, death isn't a "bad thing" or an "evil" for a person. For instance, if a person has a terminal and very painful disease, he might rationally regard his own death as a good thing for him, or at least, he may regard it as something whose prospective occurrence shouldn't be regretted. But the attitude of a "normal" and healthy human being - adult or child - toward the prospect of his death is different; it is not unreasonable in certain cases to regard one's own death as a bad thing for oneself.' If this is so, then the question arises as to why death is bad, in those cases in which it is bad. " - A primary argument against the badness of death (known as the Symmetry Argument) appeals to an alleged symmetry between prenatal and posthumous nonexistence. The Symmetry Argument has posed a serious threat to those who hold that death is bad because it deprives us of life's goods that would have been available had we died later. Anthony Brueckner developed an influential strategy to cope with the Symmetry Argument. In his attempt to break the symmetry, he claims that due to our preference of future experiential goods over past ones, posthumous nonexistence is bad for us, whereas prenatal nonexistence is not. Granting his presumption about our preference, however, it is questionable that prenatal nonexistence is not bad. This consideration does not necessarily indicate their defeat against the Symmetry Argument.

Harman - Does Moral Ignorance Exculpate?

"Non-moral ignorance can exculpate: if Anne spoons cyanide into Bill's coffee, but thinks she is spooning sugar, then Anne may be blameless for poisoning Bill. Gideon Rosen argues that moral ignorance can also exculpate: if one does not believe that one's action is wrong, and one has not mismanaged one's beliefs, then one is blameless for acting wrongly. On his view, many apparently blameworthy actions are blameless. I discuss several objections to Rosen. I then propose an alternative view on which many agents who act wrongly are blameworthy despite believing they are acting morally permissibly, and despite not having mismanaged their moral beliefs."

Feldman - Reasonable Religious Disagreements

- Are reasonable disagreements possible? - In his article, Feldman argues that "reasonable disagreement" is not possible between two "epistemic peers" who have shared all of their evidence. After an example he held with his students who believed in God vs. the ones who did not - he found that both parties were able to hold onto their beliefs and simultaneously acknowledge that the other was reasonable in holding an incompatible epistemic attitude to the proposition in question. - Neither of the parties could revise their positions on the evidence of the other having a contrary belief nor could they altogether assume that the other was mistaken. They could not conceive the other as not possessing all relevant information with regards to the issue at stake or perhaps that the other had some rational defect; rather they considered themselves right and at the same time considered those who held the contrary view right too. Consequently, Feldman raises strong epistemic issues from this attitude of his students and thus posits two fundamental questions: Can Epistemic Peers who have shared their evidence have Reasonable Disagreements? and Can epistemic peers who have shared their evidence reasonably maintain their own belief yet also think that the other party to the disagreement is also reasonable? Feldman thinks that that reasonable people cannot (in full awareness of each other) draw different conclusions from the same evidence while each regards the other as a peer. He thinks that in such cases, the reasonable thing to do is suspend judgment. He notes that it in realistic cases, we won't have the same evidence to support our beliefs

3. Van Inwagen - "Is it wrong, everywhere, always, and for anyone, to Believe anything upon insufficient evidence? Argument:

- Cliffords Principle: It IS wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. ⇒ Van Inwagen believes this is true - but a ridiculous standard b/c if we interpret "sufficient" evidence as just publicly accessible information that every rational person is capable of assessing, then no has sufficient evidence for most of what they believe.

Cohen Argument (from Irrelevant Influences)

- Cohen argument - discusses the fact that because you were raised in one community instead of another is neither here nor there when it comes to what you ought to believe about God, morality, politics, etc. (ex. he would not have ended up at Oxford if he had been raised differently..good or bad thing?) ⇒ But still, we find that factors such as upbringing tend to guide our beliefs/ decisions.

Sider - Free will and Determinism

- Determinism: the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions. - Example: If you are kidnapped and forced to commit a series of murder, are the police and parents fair to blame you? No..because you have an unassailable excuse: You did not act on your own free will. - Only those who act freely are morally responsible

Stout - Religious Reasons and Political Argument

- In regards to speaking ones personal beliefs in public/political debates..respect might be better served both by keeping to ones self the reasons one finds most persuasive, and appealing to reasons that they might find most persuasive, given their own commitments to one another or another comprehensive perspective. -

Wolterstorff - An Engagement w/ Rorty Argument

- Reminds us that within American democracy there are no grounds on which to restrict citizens from thinking about public, political, and social matters with their religious convictions out in front. - In fact, Wolterstorff argues that when it comes to really important matters for our democracy, we need recourse to our own comprehensive perspectives. That's because for Wolterstorff the right to speak religiously in public carries with it the demand to speak well, clearly, and with recourse to reasons and explanations.

Weignberg - Is Procreation Always Bad?

- We don't commonly think of procreation as a moral issue. But why not? When you think about it, creating another person seems like a morally weighty thing to do. And we tend to think that procreation under certain conditions would be irresponsible, selfish, or reckless. Might there also be cases where procreation is morally impermissible? - She argues that procreation is a form of risk imposition, and so is morally permissible only under certain circumstances. - she argues that it's moral to have children only if the risk you impose wouldn't be irrational for you to accept as a condition of your own birth.

Sher - But I Could be Wrong Argument:

- aim is to explore the implications of the fact that even our most deeply held moral beliefs have been profoundly affected by our upbringing and experience—that if any of us had had a sufficiently different upbringing and set of experiences, he almost certainly would now have a very different set of moral beliefs and very different habits of moral judgment. - morality is based on contingent facts about your upbringing.

Haslinger - Gender and Race

- asks what is gender? what is race? what is it to be a man or woman? what is it to be white? latino? asian? - Gender, according to Haslanger, is the social meaning of sex. - While race, is the social meaning or geographical ancestry. - Claims nature divides us by sex and color - but we divide ourselves by gender and race. - Although social meanings of gender and race vary across cultures, they everywhere include differences in power and privilege.

Lewis - Punishment that Leaves Something to Chance

- example: Should we punish those who attempted murder and those who were successful the same? - There is no deterrence-based justification for punishing attempts less severely than successes - we have just as powerful an interest in deterring attempts. - We punish successful attempts more severely than we punish failed attempts. Lewis worries that this might be unfair on the grounds that it involves giving different punishments to equally culpable people. His article gives an argument for the conclusion that our practices are fair, despite appearances. - Penal Lottery: A penal lottery is a system in which people convicted of crimes would go through a lottery to determine whether they are punished (or, in impure cases, how much they will be punished).

Nagel - Moral Luck

- he defines moral luck as being circumstances where a person is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences, even if it is evident that this person did not have control over either the action or its consequences - Problem of moral luck: lies beneath the intent of two parties and the actions they pursue vs. if the results of those actions differ, therefore, leading to the decision to either punish or praise them equally or not example: If two people have committed the same crime, but suffered different consequences (like one killed a person and one did not), does one hold more moral blame than the other? The answer, according to moral luck is yes, but why? when they've committed the same crime? -> This is the problem If it is given that moral responsibility should only be employed when a person voluntarily performed or fails to perform some action, the two people SHOULD be equally blamed. However, whatever the external circumstances are - the fact is they ended in different results (one being death, one not) Therefore, one may think there needs to be some degree of retribution made for that loss of life, and feel the need to punish one more harshly than the other. Nagel never gives one single answer as to what the conclusion or proper response to this problem should be, but he gives readers a way to consider the best possible response to the problem of moral luck. In his conclusion Nagel states, "The problem of moral luck cannot be understood with an account of the internal conception of agency..". This would imply that one cannot judge a person's actions until one understands the intent of the person's actions were.Does this mean that if two people intended to commit a crime, but only one succeeded in committing it, that they should receive the same punishment? If one were to follow Nagel's argument for this explicitly, the answer would still not be undoubtedly obvious, because his claim only suggests that one must first take into account a person's intentions because determining if they are to morally blame or praise Overall, we need to understand the intent of the person's involvement in a situation before we can judge or come to any consensus about the degree of punishment that should be enforced.

Parfit - Personal Identity

- proposes that we separate the notions of identity and survival. - The conditions Parfit places on survival are possession of "character and apparent memories" - "Personal Identity" targets two beliefs commonly thought to be central to most earlier discussions of personal identity. The first is the belief that all questions about personal identity must have an answer. At some future time, it is either the case that I shall exist or I shall not exist. Questions about personal identity are all-or-nothing questions. The second belief is that there are matters which are important to us, having to do with survival, memory, and responsibility, which cannot be decided unless the question of personal identity is answered. In order to determine whether or not I survive or am responsible for some future action, I must be able to answer the question, "am I the same person?" Parfit argues in this essay that these beliefs are mistaken. He employs a series of ingenious thought experiments, particularly cases of fission and fusion, the object of which is to establish that survival is neither one-one nor all-or-nothing, and that therefore survival is not necessarily connected to identity. - Basically trying to prove his idea that neither self nor identity have any special significance.

Nagel - The Absurd

-Asks why people sometimes feel that life is absurd. For example, people sometimes say that life is absurd because nothing we do now will matter in the distant future. But Nagel points out that the corollary of this is that nothing in the distant future matters now: "In particular, it does not matter now that in a million years nothing we do now will matter."[i] Furthermore, even if what we do now does matter in a distant future, how does that prevent our present actions from being absurd? In other words, if our present actions are absurd then their mattering in the distant future can hardly give them meaning. -Nagel further argues that reflection about our lives does not reveal that they are insignificant compared to what is really important, but that our lives are only significant by reference to themselves. So when we step back and reflect on our lives, we contrast the pretensions we have about the meaning of them with the larger perspective in which no standards of meaning can be discovered. - Summary - Life has no objective meaning and there is no reason to think we can give it any meaning at all. Still, we continue to live and should respond, not with defiance or despair, but with an ironic smile. Life is not as important and meaningful as we may have once suspected, but this is not a cause for sadness.

Williams - The Self and the Future

-Presents a thought experiment involving "exchanged bodies". In Williams' first presentation of this experiment, two individuals, A and B, by means of an extraction device have the sum of their memories transferred into one another's bodies. In theory, this results in an 'A-body-person' who has the memories of the former B, and a 'B-body-person' who has the memories of the former A. -Williams fleshes out the various outcomes and in every instance, regardless of what happens to each subject, the 'A-body-person' who has the memories of the former B identifies himself with the former B, and the 'B-body-person who has the memories of the former A identifies himself with the former A. - Williams states that "the principle that one's fears can extend to future pain whatever psychological changes precede it seems positively straightforward." In light of this, it seems that A faces a certain amount of risk in deciding whether or not to pass on the prospect of torture to the B-person body—it is this risk which Williams considers to be a major feature of the present problem concerning personal identity.

Arguments Against Clifford's Principle:

1) No one is justified in believing any proposition without sufficient evidence 2) There is no sufficient evidence for the existence of God 3) Therefore, no one is justified in believing in God.

Klein - Skepticism Argument:

2 types: Academic and Pyrrhonian Skepticism - Academic: knowledge of things is impossible. Ideas or notions are never true; nevertheless, there are degrees of probability, and hence degrees of belief, which allow one to act. - Pyrrhonian: the assertion that, since all perceptions tend to be faulty, the wise man will consider the external circumstances of life to be unimportant and thus preserve tranquility.

Epicurus - Letter to Menoeceus

In this letter, Epicurus recommends to Menoeceus that he conduct his life according to certain prescripts, and in accordance with certain beliefs, in order that his life go as well for him as it could. Epicurus maintains that the ultimate good of life is pleasure (and the avoidance of pain), and that all other goods spring from this chief good. With this hedonistic picture providing context, Epicurus recommends a somewhat peculiar view concerning the nature and value of life, particularly in regard to death. Epicurus argues that death actually causes no harm for the one who dies, and although many fear death, it is irrational to do so. His reasoning is, roughly, as follows: only pleasure and pain can make my life go better or worse for me; sensation is required in order to feel pleasure or pain; the dead have no sensation; so, when dead, my life cannot be made to go worse for me. The key idea is that when I am dead, I cease to exist, and nothing can harm me if I no longer exist, so death must not be able to harm me either. The argument that we should be unconcerned about the fact that we will die continues further. Epicurus notes that some people think that death is bad not because it causes pain when it occurs, but it causes pain to the living individual who thinks about it. He argues, though, that this kind of pain the fear of death is irrational. He maintains that because death will bring about no pain when it actually occurs, there is no reason to inflict pain on ourselves by fearing it. The living, Epicurus argues, should not fear death because it has not yet arrived; the dead, on the other hand, could not be harmed by death because they no longer exist. In keeping with the considerations discussed above, Epicurus further suggests that there is nothing inherently valuable about living a long life. Because pleasure is of fundamental value, the duration of a life does not affect that lifes value, except insofar as living longer sometimes affords a greater net pleasure. If, however, a very short life contained a greater sum of pleasure than a very long life, Epicurus maintains that the former life is best. Epicurus uses an analogy to make the point more plain: just as we do not choose simply the largest portion of food, but rather the food of the greatest quality, so too should we not prefer simply the longest life, but the life of greatest value. Epicurus then discusses several consequences of his position that pleasure is the chief value in life. First, he argues that it does not follow from his view that we must always choose something that will be immediately pleasurable over something that will be immediately painful. The explanation for this is that sometimes things that are immediately pleasurable will result in a net loss of pleasure in the future, and that sometimes things that are immediately painful will result in a net gain of pleasure. He is concerned, then, with maximizing pleasure in the long run. Next, Epicurus argues in favor of conditioning oneself to enjoy simple pleasures. By doing so, one enables oneself to very easily provide the pleasures that are necessary for happiness. Epicures then takes pains to point out that the type of hedonism he endorses does not entail that the best life is one that is filled constantly with physical pleasures, as some of his critics believe it does. He contends that the greatest amount of pleasure will be produced through intellectual pursuits, and that the greatest life will be the life guided by wisdom. Importantly, he maintains that the happy life will be identical to the virtuous life.

Shiffrin, 'Wrongful Life, Procreative Responsibility, and the Significance of Harm'

A wrongful life suit is an unusual civil suit brought by a child (typically a congenitally disabled child who seeks damages for burdens he suffers that result from his creation. Typically, the child charges that he has been born into an unwanted or miserable life. These suits offer the prospect of financial relief for some disabled or neglected children and have some theoretical advantages over alternative causes of action. But they have had only mixed, mostly negative, success. They have, however, spurred considerable philosophical interest. This attention, though, has been primarily focused on issues about the coherence of complaining about one's existence or its essential conditions. These suits also raise important, but less well-probed, philosophical questions about the morality of procreation and, more generally, about the moral significance of imposed, but not consented to, conditions that deliver both significant harms and benefits I have argued for a more equivocal stance toward procreation, one that recognizes that parents subject their future children to harm and substantial risk by bringing them into existence. Even if the creation is overall beneficial for the child, that is not alone a sufficient reason to refuse to impose liability. These arguments challenge some of the purported philosophical barriers against wrongful life liability and have implications for legal approaches to other issues involving parent-child relations. Of course, strong and practical considerations exist against the imposition of wrongful life liability, but these considerations, and the practical alternatives to such liability, have been underscrutinized because of the perceived philosophical barriers to liability. Exploring these philosophical grounds for stronger norms of parental responsibility may orient the debate more toward assessing the most effective measures to promote children's welfare.

Vavova - Irrelevant Influences: Argument

Argues that overall, evidence of irrelevant belief influence is sometimes, but not always, undermining. - Says we can recognize and correct for our error to improve our "epistemic" lives.

Cohen - Paradoxes of Conviction

Cohen asks why we persist in a belief, when we know we have this belief rather than a rival one, because we were brought up to believe it. Cohen adduces a syllogistic argument named 'the Arguments" that sees to demonstrate the irrationality of holding on to such a nurtured belief. If the Argument is right, it has far reaching consequences because "any nurtured religious and other beliefs should then be abandoned as being irrational. Argument: It is not rational to believe P rather than Q when you lack good reason to believe P rather than Q. 2. (Cohen's Principle.) If you cannot justifiably believe that your grounds for believing P are better than another's grounds for believing Q, then you lack good reason to believe P rather than Q. 3. People in Nurtured Belief cases continue to believe P even though they know they cannot justifiably believe their grounds for believing P are better than another's grounds for believing Q. 4. So people in Nurtured Belief cases believe P irrationally. It should give us pause that we would not have beliefs that are central to our lives—beliefs, for example, about important matters of politics and religion—if we had not been brought up as we in fact were. It is an accident of birth and upbringing that we have them, rather than beliefs sharply rival to them, and (here's the rub) we shall frequently have to admit, if we are reflective and honest, that we consequently do not believe as we do because our grounds for our beliefs are superior to those which others have for their rival beliefs

Rorty - Religion as a Conversation Stopper

Here Rorty makes the point that when in a discussion; citizens of a democracy should try to put off "conversation-stoppers" such as philosophy or religious beliefs. He thinks of these topics as conversation- stoppers because people often disagree or have varying opinions on these subjects, and when brought up in conversation it can lead to an abrupt end because no one wants to get into a disagreement.

Klein - Conclusion:

IF there are only three patterns of reasoning available to settle matters, and IF none of them can settle matters sufficiently to warrant assent, and IF assent is required for knowledge, it seems that the Pyrrhonian has a viable strategy for resisting dogmatism(the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others) because no process of reasoning could lead to knowledge of non-evident propositions.

Descartes- First Meditation Argument:

If we can never be certain, how can we claim to know anything? - Senses: Even when we are dreaming, the images come from somewhere in the waking experience.

Strawson - Freedom and Resentment

In this writing, Strawson took hold of and changed the outlook of a good many other philosophers, if not quite enough. He did so, essentially, by assuming that talk of freedom and responsibility is talk not of facts or truths, in a certain sense, but of our attitudes. His more explicit concern was to look again at the question of whether determinism and freedom are consistent with one another -- by shifting attention to certain personal rather than moral attitudes, first of all gratitude and resentment. In the end, he arrived at a kind of Compatibilist or, as he says, Optimist conclusion. That is no doubt a recommendation but not the largest recommendation of this splendidly rich piece of philosophy

Wolf - Meaning of Life

In what sort of situations do questions of meaning arise? What types of lives would be generally accepted as paradigms of meaning? What is meaningfulness? - Susan Wolf maintains that meaning arises from loving objects worthy of love and engaging with them in a positive way. It involves subjective and objective elements, suitably and inextricably linked as it arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness. Moreover, a mere passive recognition and a positive attitude toward an object's or activity's value is not sufficient for a meaningful life. One has to actively engage with the worthy object of love. - Wolf concludes specifying that meaning is not the only good in life and not every activity needs to contribute to it.

Benatar - Why is it Better to Never have Come Into Existence?

It is commonly assumed that we do nothing wrong by bringing new life into existence, if we can also assume that the life, by some definition, will be good. From this, we can also assume that, in general, being brought into existence is beneficial. To this, Benatar argues that, "Being brought into existence is not a benefit, but always a harm." One could very well respond to this idea by saying that living is beneficial as long as the benefits outweigh the bad. Benatar argues that this cannot be, due to the fact that 1) pain is bad, 2) pleasure is good, but 3) the absence of pain is always good whether people exist or not, whereas 4) the absence of pleasure is only bad if people exist to be denied it. By this, Benatar means that suffering is a fundamental harm, but the absence of pleasure is not. This means that not existing is either better than existing, in regards to pain, or worse, in regards to pleasure. Conclusion: Although it is obviously too late to prevent our own existence, it is not too late to prevent the existence of future possible people". Furthermore, he would say that it would be best for people to stop having children so that no one would suffer in the future, because it will be better for future people to never come into existence, because being born is always harm

MacKinnon - Difference and Dominance

MacKinnon discusses how sex discrimination law bounds gender equality by difference. Which, suggests that women should "be the same as men." This is at least one way to incorporate sex equality. However, is this notion not problematic? Women and men are different, and thus sex equality cannot be reached for women with them being the same as men. The alternate route of course is being different then men, but gender neutrality is the male standard. While it is no secret to feminists it is known that "man has become the measure of all things." Subsequently, women are then measured according to their relation to men. The important question brought up within this article is how do we get women access to all the things men have, and all the things they have been excluded from. The trouble is, part of what women have now has been because of the struggle. The struggle implemented change, and respect, without the struggle what would the world be like for women today? - Conclusion: give women equal power, and let them be heard. Sex equality cannot continually be based on the differences between the sexes. Let the women be heard, and sex equality can truly be that. Equal.

Scheffler - the Afterlife

Philosopher Samuel Scheffler doesn't believe in a traditional afterlife — that is, he doesn't think that a spirit or soul survives the body's physical death. But he does believe in another kind of afterlife: Regardless of what we think about our own life after death, we all trust that others will continue to live after us. - He says humanity will outlive us - and that much of what we do would lose its meaning. - Says if we KNEW there would be an afterlife, many of the things that seem worth doing now would not seem worth doing - If you knew that life on earth would end shortly after your death, lots of the things you now do might start to seem pointless.

Frankfurt - alternate possibilities and moral responsibility

Principle of Alternative Possibilities: 1) A person is responsible for an action only if said person could have done otherwise 2) a person could have done otherwise only if causal determinism is false 3) therefore, a person is responsible for an action on if causal determinism is false Causal determinism is "the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature". main idea: a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise Frankfurts Objection: Frankfurt infers that a person is not morally responsible for what he has done if he could not have done otherwise - a point with which he takes issue: our theoretical ability to do otherwise, he says, does not necessarily make it possible for us to do otherwise. in particular by rejecting the first premise of the argument. According to this view, responsibility is compatible with determinism because responsibility does not require the freedom to do otherwise.

Taylor - The Meaning of Life

Taylor begins by observing that it is partially due to the fact that it is difficult in the first place to even understand what it means to question whether life has meaning that the question is so difficult to answer. He proposes, then, to come at the question by a more circuitous route. His strategy is to describe what it would be like for life to be meaningless, and then compare that picture of meaninglessness to the actual state of affairs. In the end, Taylor argues that there is a strong sense in which all life is precisely like the paradigmatic meaningless life that he envisions. However, there is another sense, indeed a more worthwhile sense of meaning which Taylor argues our lives are infused with. Taylor asks us to recall the famous myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was condemned to roll a large boulder up a hill, only to have that boulder roll back down the hill, forcing Sisyphus to repeat the task without end. Despite all his toiling, his existence amounted to nothing more than endlessly repeating the same task which itself contributed to no greater goal or purpose. This, Taylor suggests, is the very image of meaninglessness. Taylor is careful to identify exactly which features of Sisyphus plight account for the lack of meaning, and which are irrelevant. Importantly, Taylor argues that the facts that Sisyphus task is both difficult and endless are irrelevant to its meaninglessness. Even if the stone that Sisyphus brought to the top of the hill were very light, and the hill not very tall or steep, Taylor maintains that this would not detract from the lack of meaning. What explains the meaninglessness of Sisyphus life is that all of his work amounts to nothing at all; and this will be so whether it is easy, and whether it at some time came to an end. One way that Sisyphus life could have meaning, Taylor suggests, is if something came of his struggles; if, for example, the stones that he rolled were used to create something. A separate way in which meaning might be made manifest in his life is if Sisyphus enjoyed rolling the stone up the hill, and not only enjoyed it, but could imagine nothing else more enjoyable. What Taylor points out, though, is that even given this last modification, Sisyphus life has not thereby acquired meaning of the first kind; there is still no point to his rolling the stones, still nothing gained he simply enjoys doing it. Taylor argues that all life as we know it is importantly like Sisyphus life. Whether viewed from a very wide scope, or at the level of a single individual, life is nothing but the succession of struggles and attempts that ultimately culminate in nothing; the only thing that endures is the repetition of the cycle. There is no end point toward which the struggles are directed that could confer meaning. In this way, Taylor thinks, our lives our meaningless. However, he suggests that this is not even the most important way in which our lives could have meaning. Like the imagined Sisyphus who enjoys rolling stones, we are able to project meaning onto our own lives through embracing our struggles, even if they accomplish nothing lasting and fulfilling.

Sher - Conclusion

The best way to meet the first-person challenge of morality is not to try to show that one's moral judgements are better-supported than those of others, but rather to recognize that being a practical agent just is acting on one's own best judgments. - Basically if you have good reason for believing what you believe, you should not let others influence your beliefs or force your beliefs on another who has good reason for believing what they believe.

Camus - the Myth of Sisyphus

The central concern of The Myth of Sisyphus is what Camus calls "the absurd." Camus claims that there is a fundamental conflict between what we want from the universe (whether it be meaning, order, or reasons) and what we find in the universe (formless chaos). We will never find in life itself the meaning that we want to find. Either we will discover that meaning through a leap of faith, by placing our hopes in a God beyond this world, or we will conclude that life is meaningless. Camus opens the essay by asking if this latter conclusion that life is meaningless necessarily leads one to commit suicide. If life has no meaning, does that mean life is not worth living? If that were the case, we would have no option but to make a leap of faith or to commit suicide, says Camus. Camus is interested in pursuing a third possibility: that we can accept and live in a world devoid of meaning or purpose. Living with the absurd, Camus suggests, is a matter of facing this fundamental contradiction and maintaining constant awareness of it. Facing the absurd does not entail suicide, but, on the contrary, allows us to live life to its fullest. The book ends with a discussion of the myth of Sisyphus, who, according to the Greek myth, was punished for all eternity to roll a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back down to the bottom when he reaches the top. Camus claims that Sisyphus is the ideal absurd hero and that his punishment is representative of the human condition: Sisyphus must struggle perpetually and without hope of success. So long as he accepts that there is nothing more to life than this absurd struggle, then he can find happiness in it, says Camus. Camus appends his essay with a discussion of the works of Franz Kafka. He ultimately concludes that Kafka is an existentialist, who, like Kierkegaard, chooses to make a leap of faith rather than accept his absurd condition. However, Camus admires Kafka for expressing humanity's absurd predicament so perfectly.

Rosen - Culpability and Ignorance

When a person acts from ignorance, he is culpable for his action only if he is culpable for the ignorance from which he acts. The paper defends the view that this principle holds, not just for actions done from ordinary factual ignorance, but also for actions done from moral ignorance. The question is raised whether the principle extends to action done from ignorance about what one has most reason to do. It is tentatively proposed that the principle holds in full generality

Rorty - Religion in the Public Square Argument:

in "Religion in the Public Square", Rorty seems to address a different issue. Rorty never really clearly defines what exactly the "public square" is, but the main issue of the writing is the idea of hypocrisy of religious beliefs. For example, he says that it is typically okay for an atheist to base their religious beliefs off of political beliefs, but it is not usually permissible for a theist to do the same. This leads readers to ask the question, "should people be allowed to use religious reasoning for political decisions?". The answer would be no, because not everyone will agree or share the same beliefs, which will inevitably lead to controversy. Which leads to another question that Rorty addresses, which is "Should everyone be entitled to their own beliefs?" Answer: Yes. As long as they do not hurt/effect others.

Descartes conclusion

that we can doubt studies based on composite things, but not simple things. - Ends by supposing some evil demon wants to deceive him and has committed himself to doing so, therefore, by doubting everything he will not be mislead into falsehood by this demon.

Vavova Conclusion:

• Conclusion: We are rational human beings who can recognize the error in our decision making in order to improve our epistemic lives, once we recognize that ability we should be able to make decisions without the influence of our upbringing taking over.

Parfit - Non-Identity Problem

what weight should we give to the interests of future people? The Non-Identity Problem—the problem of developing a moral theory (Theory X) that yields correct choices even when the choices affect who will exist. Three kinds of choice: 1 Same-people choices: the same people will have ever existed regardless of which action we take (most choices as ordinarily conceived, including life-and death choices) 2 Same-number choices: different people will have existed if we take one action rather than others, but their numbers will have been the same (e.g., decision to have a child now or later) 3 Different-number choices: different numbers of different people will have existed depending on our choice (decisions affecting total population numbers). Traditional moral thinking generally concerns same-people choices, but moral thinking about future generations usually concerns different-number choices. Same-number choices are an easier intermediate case.