PhD Doctor of Philosophy Philosophy and You 2 ā Questions and Answers
Question 1: When you hold a belief because it is comforting rather than because evidence supports it, you are engaging in what philosophers call:
- Epistemic virtue
- Wishful thinking (motivated reasoning) (Correct answer)
- Reflective equilibrium
- Coherentism
Correct answer: Wishful thinking (motivated reasoning)
Motivated reasoning is the tendency to evaluate evidence in ways that confirm what we want to believe, an epistemic vice studied extensively in social epistemology.
Question 2: The Socratic method primarily aims to:
- Transmit established knowledge efficiently
- Expose contradictions in interlocutors' beliefs to prompt deeper inquiry (Correct answer)
- Persuade audiences through rhetoric
- Catalog empirical observations systematically
Correct answer: Expose contradictions in interlocutors' beliefs to prompt deeper inquiry
Socratic elenchus uses probing questions to reveal inconsistencies, spurring the interlocutor toward genuine self-examination and clearer understanding.
Question 3: Which scenario best illustrates the philosophical concept of 'moral luck'?
- A researcher chooses a topic based on funding availability
- Two equally reckless drivers, one of whom happens to hit a pedestrian who steps out suddenly (Correct answer)
- A student picks an exam answer arbitrarily and gets it right
- A philosopher revises a thesis after peer review
Correct answer: Two equally reckless drivers, one of whom happens to hit a pedestrian who steps out suddenly
Moral luck, as discussed by Nagel and Williams, occurs when factors beyond an agent's control influence the moral judgment we make of them.
Question 4: You discover that your most cherished ethical principle leads to an absurd conclusion in an extreme case. The philosophical move of using that absurd conclusion to reject the premise is called:
- Modus ponens
- Tollensing the ponens (modus tollens applied to ethics) (Correct answer)
- Reflective equilibrium adjustment
- Conceptual analysis
Correct answer: Tollensing the ponens (modus tollens applied to ethics)
Running the argument backwardātreating the unacceptable conclusion as evidence against a premiseāis sometimes called 'tollensing the ponens' in contemporary metaethics.
Question 5: The distinction between 'knowing how' (procedural knowledge) and 'knowing that' (propositional knowledge) was famously articulated by:
- Edmund Gettier
- Gilbert Ryle (Correct answer)
- Alvin Goldman
- W.V.O. Quine
Correct answer: Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle in 'The Concept of Mind' (1949) drew the distinction between knowing how to do something and knowing that a proposition is true.
Question 6: When you ask 'Is this the right thing to do?' you are engaging in first-order ethics, but when you ask 'What makes anything right or wrong?' you are engaging in:
- Applied ethics
- Normative ethics
- Metaethics (Correct answer)
- Descriptive ethics
Correct answer: Metaethics
Metaethics investigates the nature, foundations, and methodology of moral judgments rather than prescribing what to do in particular cases.
Question 7: The philosophical thought experiment of 'Neurath's boat' is most relevant to which epistemological position?
- Foundationalism
- Coherentism (Correct answer)
- Reliabilism
- Contextualism
Correct answer: Coherentism
Neurath's boatārebuilding the ship plank by plank while at seaāillustrates coherentism: beliefs are revised by adjusting the overall web of belief, not from an external foundation.
PhD Doctor of Philosophy Philosophy and You 2
When you hold a belief because it is comforting rather than because evidence supports it, you are engaging in what philosophers call: