PhD Doctor of Philosophy Philosophy and You 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: You are reading a philosophical text and encounter an argument that seems valid but whose conclusion strikes you as obviously false. Which response is methodologically appropriate?
- Accept the conclusion since the argument is valid
- Identify which premise must be false and explain why (Correct answer)
- Reject the argument without examination because the conclusion is uncomfortable
- Declare the argument meaningless
Correct answer: Identify which premise must be false and explain why
A valid argument with a false conclusion must have at least one false premise; identifying which premise fails and why is the proper philosophical response.
Question 2: The 'veil of ignorance' thought experiment asks you to design social institutions without knowing your position in society. Its purpose is to:
- Demonstrate that ignorance is epistemically virtuous
- Generate principles of justice by eliminating self-interested bias (Correct answer)
- Prove that social contracts are historically real
- Argue for libertarian minimal state principles
Correct answer: Generate principles of justice by eliminating self-interested bias
Rawls' veil of ignorance strips away knowledge of one's class, gender, and talents so that chosen principles reflect impartiality rather than personal advantage.
Question 3: Which best describes the 'hard problem of consciousness' as formulated by David Chalmers?
- Explaining how the brain integrates sensory information
- Explaining why physical processes give rise to subjective, qualitative experience (qualia) (Correct answer)
- Mapping neural correlates of specific mental states
- Determining whether animals are conscious
Correct answer: Explaining why physical processes give rise to subjective, qualitative experience (qualia)
Chalmers distinguishes 'easy problems' (functional explanation of cognition) from the hard problem: why there is something it is like to be a conscious creature at all.
Question 4: The philosophical principle of charity requires that when interpreting another's argument you should:
- Assume the worst-case reading to strengthen your critique
- Attribute to them the strongest, most rational version of their position (Correct answer)
- Accept their conclusion without scrutiny
- Focus only on explicit statements, ignoring implied meanings
Correct answer: Attribute to them the strongest, most rational version of their position
The principle of charity demands interpreting arguments in their strongest form before critiquing, ensuring that refutations engage with the best version of the opposing view.
Question 5: You experience a profound sense of alienation from your own choices and wonder whether 'you' are the author of your actions at all. This is closest to which philosophical concern?
- The problem of other minds
- Questions of personal agency and free will in the context of determinism (Correct answer)
- The trolley problem
- The paradox of the heap
Correct answer: Questions of personal agency and free will in the context of determinism
Existential alienation from one's own agency connects to longstanding debates about whether determinism undermines genuine authorship of one's decisions.
Question 6: A philosopher claims that moral facts are objective features of reality, like mathematical truths, independent of what anyone thinks. This position is called:
- Moral relativism
- Moral anti-realism
- Moral realism (Correct answer)
- Emotivism
Correct answer: Moral realism
Moral realism holds that moral facts are mind-independent and objectively true, discoverable through reason or intuition, analogous to how we discover mathematical truths.
Question 7: Which scenario best illustrates the philosophical concept of 'bad faith' (mauvaise foi) as used by Sartre?
- A student accurately assesses her academic strengths and limitations
- A person tells themselves they had no choice but to obey orders, denying their freedom (Correct answer)
- A researcher discovers her hypothesis was wrong and revises it
- A philosopher changes her position after encountering a strong counterargument
Correct answer: A person tells themselves they had no choice but to obey orders, denying their freedom
Bad faith is Sartre's term for self-deception that denies one's radical freedom by pretending one's choices are determined by role, nature, or circumstance.
PhD Doctor of Philosophy Philosophy and You 5
You are reading a philosophical text and encounter an argument that seems valid but whose conclusion strikes you as obviously false.
Which response is methodologically appropriate?