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fall Philosophy 2010
Final Exam Study Questions (the exam is on Friday, December 10th, from 11:30-2:30)
Questions on the exam will make use of the ideas in these study questions but the actual questions may be different.
You are responsible for material covered in the study questions for the mid-term about Plato, Aristotle and Hume.
Mill
1. What is Mills view of Happiness? How does it compare to Aristotles view of happiness? How does virtue relate
to happiness for Mill (As a means? As a part of the end?) Does Mill think a virtuous life makes a person happy?
2. Mill compares different pleasures in terms of quantity and quality. What is the point of the distinction? and how
does he make it? Is a higher quality pleasure morally better than a lower quality pleasure? Is a higher quality
pleasure to be preferred to a lower quality pleasure in every possible circumstance?
3. According to Mill, if an action produces a small negative balance of utility (when compared with alternatives), is
it therefore morally wrong? If not, what further element makes an action morally wrong?
4. What is the role of rules in utilitarian moral thinking? What problems do secondary rules solve? What is the
difference between a rule of thumb and a secondary or moral rule? Does Mill think it is ever right to lie?
5. Compare Mill and Kant on the motive of duty. Is acting from duty very important in utilitarianism?
6. What is the difference between internal and external sanctions? Why does Mill think that the conscience of a
utilitarian agent would resist the dissolving force of analysis?
7. Could utilitarianism justify or require the sacrifice of one life to save many lives? Could Kants theory? How
would Hume about think such a possibility?
Kant
8. What is the good will? And why is Kant interested in it? In what sense is the good will good without condition or
qualification? Why is the good will good through its willing alone?
9. What, according to Kant, is moral worth? and when does an action have it? What is the connection between moral
worth and good willing? What is the difference between acting according to duty and acting from duty? Why is it
better to help someone from duty than from sympathy?
10. What is the connection between morality and rationality? In what sense is reason, for Kant, a source of moral
distinctions? Does Kant think that reason is the slave of the passions? Are the passions the slave of reason?
11. What is the difference between a categorical and a hypothetical imperative? Why does Kant think morality
requires categorical imperatives? What is the source of the authority of the different imperatives?
12. Why should an action whose maxim cannot be willed a universal law count as morally wrong? Is it possible to
will that a maxim of enslaving blue-eyed people should be a universal law?
13. What is it to treat rational nature in a person merely as a means? why is it wrong to do that? What does Kant
mean in saying that rational nature is an end-in-itself? Why cant any non-rational beings be ends-in-themselves?
14. Would an action that had moral worth, according to Kant, be judged virtuous, according to Aristotle?
15. Would someone acting from Humes sense of morality or duty be acting in the same way as someone who
acted from duty in Kants sense?
16. How would an agent with a Kantian good will respond to Gyges ring? What about someone with a utilitarian
conscience?