Philosophy Final Spring 2019

(38) What injustices does King see in the religious leaders' response to the civil rights movement?

they aren't doing anything about it

(36) How does Descartes explain the interaction between the body and the soul?

we have thoughts due to some body functions; mind is only affected by brain affected by body; changes in the body bring about thoughts in the mind

(57) What is racial prejudice?

The deformation of rationality in judgment that characterizes persons whose racism is not merely a theoretical attachment to certain propositions about race. racial prejudice leads people to treat others unfairly. it's primarily not about what we believe, but about how we act.

(71) What are the two specific challenges Kittay faces in arguing against Singer and McMahan?

The first is to overcome the anger and revulsion that one feels when encountering the view that one's disabled child—or child with a particular disability—is less worthy of dignity, of life, of concern or justice than others. The second is to articulate the differences between a human animal with significantly curtailed cognitive capacities and a relatively intelligent nonhuman animal means that one first has to see the former as the latter

(8) What are the four principles of Descartes' method?

1. Never accept anything to be true unless he can plainly know that it is true- there can be no reason to call it into doubt 2. Break down his beliefs and examine them in many parts 3. Conduct his thought in an orderly fashion. Start with the simplest to know and work his way up to the hardest to understand 4. Go through everything one by one to make sure he hasn't forgotten anything.

(15) Why does Descartes think that a priori beliefs can be doubted?

A Priori beliefs are the after-sense data (like math or why is the sky blue?) There is certain logic that is built into us. These can be called into question because God could be an evil genius that is trying to deceive us.

(41) What does King think is the difference between just and unjust laws?

A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is out of harmony with moral law Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself; a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself

(14) Why does Descartes think that a posteriori beliefs can be doubted?

A posteriori belief are ones that comes from sense data (touch or see). Most of our beliefs are based on these. Because they came from our sense data, and our senses have the capability to deceive us. Such as when we are dreaming or hallucinating. (A mirage on a sunny day). We have to force ourselves to withhold judgment here.

(23) How are clarity and distinctness related to formal error?

If we can be clear and distinct about something, then we are not committing formal error. Which is thinking of something as false as if it were true.

(22) What does Descartes mean by an idea being 'clear and distinct'?

Anything that is clear and distinct is indubitable. It is distinctly true it can't be distinctly false.

(59) Why does Appiah think racists exhibit a systematically distorted rationality?

Appiah thinks that real live racists exhibit a systematically distorted rationality-- ideological. - They often fail to treat evidence against the theoretical propositions of extrinsic racism dispassionately. - Often we don't or won't give up irrational beliefs even in the face of good evidence to the contrary. This is because often those beliefs are to our advantage and therefore serve as a form of false consciousness or ideology. - People persuade themselves to ignore the evidence

(48) What are the five necessary features that Woodruff thinks all justice in a community must have?

Binds a community together and protects it from civil war Gives to individuals and groups what is due to them Justice as a virtue of individuals is fed by, and also nourishes, justice in the community Justice entails freedom, justice is not maintained by physical or psychological force but rather by the attractive power of justice itself. 5. A way of justice in a community must be accepted as such by most members of that community.

(25) What are Descartes' arguments for the existence of God? Are they good arguments? Why or why not?

By Descartes' definition, God is perfect, if he is perfect than He is all good. The idea of an all-perfect being could not have been placed in him by anything less than a perfect being. This is the ontological order of things—God is supremely perfect and I exist because He wanted me to. All the faculties we have are from a supremely powerful Being. So, then God exists, and deception is not a perfection so God cannot be a deceiver. Descartes knows that he is finite and he could not have the idea of an infinite thing. So the idea of the infinite thing was put into his head by THE infinite thing.

(6) What is the point of the analogy between knowledge and city-building? How does this analogy relate to Descartes' method?

Cities and buildings are more beautiful when they are made according to a single plan than when they are patched together piecemeal. Similarly, laws are better when they come from a single mind than when they evolve gradually over time. Descartes cites God's law as an instance of this perfection.

(39) What are the four basic steps of non-violent collective action?

Collection of facts to determine whether injustices exist Negotiation Self-Purification Direct Action

(63) How is power related to the maintenance of the gender hierarchy?

Culturally masculine roles (leadership, strength, dominance) are typically seen as more powerful than culturally feminine roles (compassion, caretaking, supporting) and higher on the hierarchy

(2) Where does the variety of opinions about what is true come from?

Descartes believed that everyone has equal capabilities of reasoning, but some choose to reason better than others. He thought that some people used the wrong methods to reason and this is where differing opinions come from.

(4) What does Descartes propose to hold as false and true? Why?

Descartes says to "never accept anything as true unless it is evident that it is true." He believes that in order to find something certain you cannot be wrong about it. Descartes believes this because he finds that our senses can deceive us at time and he has found things in his life that he has questioned.

(3) Why does Descartes think that he needs a particular method?

Descartes thinks that he needs a particular method to unify truth seeking and to build a firm and indubitable foundation for truth seeking.

(21) What are the various modes of thought?

Doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and senses and has mental images.

(42) What's an example of a just law that is unjust in its application?

EX: King was arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. There is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. BUT, such an ordinance becomes UNJUST when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

(72) What are 'epistemic responsibility' and 'epistemic modesty'? Why do these virtues matter when doing philosophy?

Epistemic responsibility: know the subject that you are using to make a philosophical point (why it matters: having a conceptual and personal distance from the subject matter lends them a degree of objectivity and make very broad generalizations and misinformed) Epistemic modesty: know what you don't know (why it matters: they presume that they have nothing to learn that is of moral significance and that it can suffice to know some bare facts about the deficits in question)

(61) What are 'gender identity' and 'gender role', and how are both of these social in nature?

Gender identity: thinking of oneself as male or female (generally socially constructed) Gender role: behaving in ways considered appropriate for women or men in the surrounding culture

(60) According to Lips, what are the differences between sex and gender?

Gender: culturally-mediated expectations and roles associated with masculinity and femininity Sex: biological maleness or femaleness

(32) How does Descartes attempt to reestablish the ability to assent to a posteriori beliefs without committing formal error?

God gave us faculties we can trust and since we can imagine, there must be a physical world; God would not deceives us with senses we can't trust Also, our minds and bodies are tightly joined/connected

(17) How is our will related to our beliefs?

God may will for us to have certain deceived beliefs May believe certain things against will

(7) What is Descartes' view of education (his own in particular, but also in general)?

He didn't like education because he felt like the teachers/authority figures were teaching him to believe things that weren't true.

(12) Why does Descartes set out to raze all his previous beliefs as a whole rather than one by one?

He does not want to have false beliefs about anything, so it is better to get rid of all of them and then build up knowledge from the ground up. It is hard to find something to be certain of and he does not want to have wrong beliefs. Also, he believes that the foundation on which all of his other beliefs have been formed can also be called into doubt. This process is called cartesian skepticism or methodic doubt—withholding judgment on every belief.

(26) Has Descartes succeeded in refuting the Evil Genius Hypothesis? Why or why not?

He has, because he proved that God is not evil because by his definition of God (an all-good, infinite, perfect being) He cannot be a deceiver.

(45) What are ways that West think's King has been 'moderated'?

He is a "radical man deeply hated and held in contempt" and recast like a moderate

(18) What epistemic position is Descartes left in at the end of the first meditation?

He is left with the conclusion that if he is dreaming or being deceived, then all of his beliefs are untrustworthy and unreliable. He has no beliefs and he can be found in a deep stage of skepticism.

(27) What types of knowledge does the existence of a non-deceiving God allow Descartes to reaffirm?

He is now allowed to reaffirm his a priori beliefs. (He still can't trust his sense because he could be hallucinating or dreaming.)

(1) What is the aim of the Discourse as a whole?

His aim is to help explain the method for rightly conducting one's reason and for seeking truth in the sciences

(29) How then does Descartes explain the ability to commit error given the existence of a non-deceiving God who creates our faculties?

How material error is possible: when we use the intellect to think about things that are false How formal error is possible: endorsing or assenting to a material error (disconnect between intellect and will)

(19) What is the first indubitable truth that Descartes finds?

I think, therefore I am

(13) What are the criteria by which Descartes will accept or reject a belief?

If he has any reason to doubt a belief AT ALL—then it will be rejected. If you can doubt it then you should withhold your judgment. He will only accept a belief is there can be clear and distinct reasoning.

(50) Why does Woodruff think justice in the individual and justice in the community are Connected?

Individuals need families and communities in order to grow toward justice

(56) What is intrinsic racism?

Intrinsic racism distinguishes morally between different races because they hold that each race has a different moral status, apart from the moral characteristics included in its racial essence. One can endorse intrinsic racism without endorsing racialism

(58) Which of these is a moral error, and why?

Intrinsic racism, because, Appiah believes that just because someone is from another race than yours-does not mean they need to be treated differently-- there's no reason to treat them better or worse - People are owed treatment independently of their biological characters: if they are to be treated differently, there must be some morally relevant difference between them. - Using race in itself as a morally relevant distinction strikes us as obviously illogical. - Arguments of "matter of taste" and "preferring one's family" is not a valid argument

(44) Why does King think that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere?"

It is an "inescapable network of mutuality," "whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly"

(66) Why does Frye think it best to understand oppression in terms of social or network forces rather than individual choices? Relatedly, why do we need to understand oppression as about membership in a social group?

It is like a cage: there are many forces that form the cage of the oppressed and it cannot be seen except from a macroscopic view People fail to see the various elements of the situation as systematically related in larger schemes There is "a network of forces and barriers which are systematically related and which conspire to the immobilization, reduction and molding of women and the lives we live" It is the virtue of being a certain member of a category or group that causes the systematic reduction, molding, and immobilization into that specific category/group They must belong to a group in order to be seen as oppressed

(40) Why does King think that direct action isn't unjust?

It is necessary to confront the issue and promote growth

(68) How does oppression differ from frustration or harm?

Just because someone experiences frustration or harm does not mean they are oppressed It depends on who constructs and maintains it, whose interests are served, it is confines, reduces or immobilizes a group, if it is due to one being a member of a certain category, etc.

(47) What are the two reasons Woodruff doesn't think we can fully achieve (arrive at) Justice?

Justice is an ideal which humans can aspire to and grow towards. Like health, justice needs constant maintenance

(49) What does it take for a community to grow toward justice?

Justice must be shared by all members of the community It must follow the "dueness" condition It must be recognized as just by the community (the subjectivity condition) Freedom condition - cannot be repressive

(5) Which of these two types of error does Descartes' method aim to prevent?

Material error: THINKING something is true when it's false or THINKING something is false when it's true Formal error: BELIEVING OR ENDORSING a material error His method is aimed at preventing Formal Error

(28) What is the difference between formal and material error?

Material error: thinking about something true as if it were false, or thinking about something false as if it were true. Formal error: judging a material error to be true (or assent to a material error)

(43) What is King's criticism of the white moderate?

More devoted to order than justice Prefer negative peace (absence of tension) to positive peace (presence of justice) Agree with goals but not methods Believe they can set the timetable for another man's freedom Lives by a mythical concept of time, constantly saying wait for a more convenient time

(10) What are the parts of Descartes' provisional code of morals?

Obey the laws and customs of his country To be as firm and resolute as possible; once something is decided on, to stay committed to that To change himself, not the world TO choose a vocation that best allows for the cultivation of reason and truth

(64) What does Frye think the central nature of oppression is?

Oppression for her is about a systematic nature, it's"an enclosing structure of forces". It's about the way in which some structures all the way close off certain options or force you into certain options that it is just easier to follow certain options or harder to follow certain options.

(9) Is Descartes optimistic or pessimistic about coming to knowledge?

Optimistic

(62) What are ways in which individuals learn (or are socialized) to be gendered?

Parents, teachers, peers, environmental factors, observation, media

(51) How should we foster habits of justice?

Practice and coaching

(54) What is racialism?

Racialism holds that inherited characteristics possessed by human beings permit us to divide them into a small number of races so that members of these races share characteristics with each other that they do not share with members of any other race. In other words there are races and they are biological.

(67) Why does Frye think oppressed individuals often better understand the nature of oppression

The barriers/cage mean something different to the insiders and the outsiders Insiders: confined and limited Outsiders: see it as protection, liberty and enlargement to them, maintained, controlled, and promoted by them, for their benefit

(30) What does Descartes think is the relationship between the intellect and the will?

See page 82. Will depends on prior operation of intellect. The will depends on the prior operation of the intellect. The will lets you decide what to believe, make decisions and judgements but you have to use your intellect correctly. There is an imbalance because of a misunderstanding. Extending the will beyond the intellect is formal error. Mistakes come from when we believe material errors. It is not God's fault that we make these mistakes, giving us free will was a sign of goodness, we need to be responsible thinkers and not jump to conclusions but think about and reevaluate according to logic.

(70) Why does Kittay think it's so important to argue against the view of Singer and McMahan, when it comes at such personal emotion cost to her?

So her own daughter will be viewed as human and seen as worth as much as "normal" people; limiting her severely intellectually disabled daughter's worth to the likeness of an animal is mocking of the relationship she has with her; it is a matter of public policy, that her daughter can grow into a member who is granted respect and who can develop a sense of self-respect, for others to develop moral responsibility to the child; it is for her daughter's sake, for just treatment and moral protection

(37) What injustices is King's letter a response to?

There were a group of pastors who told King that while there are social justices, those issues needed to be fought in court and not out in public on the streets.

(35) What is Descartes' view regarding the relationship between the body and the mind/soul?

They are deeply connected

(69) Why do Singer and McMahan think that individuals with intellectual disabilities have such low moral status?

They can reliably be said to have neither a strong continuity of self, nor a capacity to project themselves into the future, nor an ability to appreciate the higher pleasures we associate with being human, and so forth. Humans are "all human beings who function at a certain (unspecified) cognitive level and possess certain psychological attributes that allow them a variety of functions that we recognize as distinctively human"

(20) What is Descartes' view of the cogito in Meditation II?

Thinking (any activity of the soul/mind) proves the existence of a thinking thing

(16) Why does Descartes think that the Evil Genius Hypothesis is needed?

This is needed because we cannot be certain that God is not a being that enjoys watching us be deceived.

(11) Why does he need a provisional code of morals?

To guide his behavior while he undergoes his period of skeptical doubt. This ensures that he will not have to remain indecisive in his actions while he willfully becomes indecisive in his judgments.

(53) What kinds of features can increase our likelihood of failing to develop justice?

Unjust elders or leaders setting bad examples. Anger stoked by bad losers, An unjust community that is presented as the norm. Selfishness. Tyranny. Temptations that strain human goodness. Overconfidence in your own justice or wisdom.

(34) What is his argument for the existence of other minds?

We can be aware of other bodies the same way we can of ours - other people react similarly to us

(24) Why does Descartes attempt to prove that God exists?

We can't be certain of any a priori beliefs because God could be deceiving us—so then we need to prove that God exists and is not a deceiver and then we can get our a priori beliefs back! This will help trust our reason.

(46) What are steps that West thinks we need to take in order to live more fully into King's legacy

We must take seriously, in our words and deeds, his critiques and resistances to US empire, capitalism and xenophobia we are forgetting his fighting words and ideas that seem so radical and violent to us now we only want to remember the good things he did

(52) What features of the community are necessary for you to grow toward justice?

You have good examples of justice in your family or family-equivalent, your teachers, and the other people who show leadership around you. Your community is willing to become more just, with the result that it will not block the advance of its members toward justice. You have opportunities to practice justice; for this, it is ideal for you to have opportunities for leadership from an early age. You are practicing to know yourself; from your self-knowledge you are growing both the compassion that is essential to justice and the modesty that comes from knowing how easily you may judge wrongly. You are observing the human landscape and learning to appreciate the hidden merits of people around you. You are practicing good communication, both by listening to those around you and by speaking or writing, in order to approach the consensus that justice requires. You are trying to be independent in your judgments, willing to challenge an old consensus, and open to broadening the membership of your community. You are equally committed to other virtues, such as wisdom, courage, reverence, and self-control.

(55) What is extrinsic racism?

extrinsic racist believes that the racial essence, whose existence is affirmed by racialism, implies morally relevant differences between the races. In other words, an extrinsic racist believes that races are biological realities (as racialists do) and that some races are more intelligent, more honest, more courageous, more industrious, etc. than others. You have to endorse racialism if you are a extrinsic racist.

(33) Does Descartes think that he should assent to all a posteriori beliefs or not? If not, which ones should he assent to?

no, only when our sense data is clear and distinct

(31) Does Descartes think human are capable of avoiding material error? Formal error?

no, they are incapable of avoiding either

(65) What does she mean by saying oppression involves a 'double bind'?

situations in which options are reduced to a very few and all of them expose one to penalty, censure or deprivation