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Question 1Metaphysics and Epistemology

In epistemology, which condition distinguishes knowledge from mere true belief by requiring that the belief be appropriately connected to the truth?

  1. The belief must be formed quickly
  2. The belief must be justified Correct answer.
  3. The belief must be widely shared
  4. The belief must be emotionally satisfying

Explanation

The classical tripartite analysis holds that knowledge is justified true belief, so justification is the element that separates knowledge from a lucky true belief. Being widely shared, comforting, or fast does not connect a belief to the truth in the required way.

Question 2Metaphysics and Epistemology

Gettier-style cases are primarily used in epistemology to challenge which claim?

  1. That memory can generate knowledge
  2. That justified true belief is sufficient for knowledge Correct answer.
  3. That skepticism is self-refuting
  4. That knowledge requires any justification at all

Explanation

Gettier cases present a belief that is justified and true yet intuitively not knowledge because the truth is reached by luck. They therefore target the sufficiency of justified true belief rather than the need for justification itself.

Question 3Metaphysics and Epistemology

A reliabilist account of justification holds that a belief is justified when it is produced by a process that is:

  1. Coherent with the believer's other beliefs
  2. Endorsed by the believer's community
  3. Accompanied by a feeling of certainty
  4. Truth-conducive under normal conditions Correct answer.

Explanation

Reliabilism grounds justification in the truth-conduciveness of the belief-forming process, such as perception or valid reasoning. Coherence and community endorsement describe rival or additional criteria rather than the reliabilist core.

Question 4Metaphysics and Epistemology

Which position holds that the justification of a belief depends on its coherence with a system of other beliefs rather than on a foundation of basic beliefs?

  1. Epistemic externalism
  2. Coherentism Correct answer.
  3. Foundationalism
  4. Direct realism

Explanation

Coherentism treats justification as a holistic relation among beliefs, denying that some beliefs are justified independently of others. Foundationalism instead posits basic beliefs that support the rest.

Question 5Metaphysics and Epistemology

Descartes' evil demon hypothesis is introduced in the Meditations chiefly to:

  1. Prove that the external world does not exist
  2. Push skeptical doubt to its most extreme form Correct answer.
  3. Establish that the senses are always reliable
  4. Demonstrate that God is a deceiver

Explanation

The demon scenario radicalizes doubt by imagining that even clear mathematical judgments could be manipulated, motivating the search for an indubitable foundation. Descartes does not conclude that the world is unreal; he uses the doubt methodologically.

Question 6Metaphysics and Epistemology

The cogito, 'I think, therefore I am,' functions in Descartes' system as:

  1. A claim that the mind is identical to the body
  2. An empirical generalization based on observation
  3. A truth that survives even the most radical doubt Correct answer.
  4. A conclusion derived from the existence of God

Explanation

Descartes holds that even a deceiver cannot make him mistaken about his own existence while he is thinking. The cogito is thus the first indubitable truth and comes before the proof of God.

Question 7Metaphysics and Epistemology

Hume's analysis of causation claims that the idea of necessary connection is derived from:

  1. A customary transition of the mind between observed events Correct answer.
  2. A rational intuition of essences
  3. A demonstration from the principle of sufficient reason
  4. The direct perception of causal power in objects

Explanation

Hume argues that we never perceive necessary connection itself, only constant conjunction, and that the idea of necessity arises from the mind's habitual expectation. This makes the idea a product of custom rather than of reason or perception.

Question 8Metaphysics and Epistemology

According to Hume, relations of ideas differ from matters of fact because relations of ideas are:

  1. Based on the constant conjunction of events
  2. Always contingent and empirically discovered
  3. Concerned only with unobservable entities
  4. Knowable a priori and independent of experience Correct answer.

Explanation

Hume's fork separates demonstrable relations of ideas, such as mathematics, from contingent matters of fact grounded in experience. Relations of ideas are certain precisely because their denial is inconceivable.

Question 9Metaphysics and Epistemology

Kant's Copernican revolution in philosophy consists in the claim that:

  1. Objects must conform to the structure of our cognition Correct answer.
  2. All knowledge is derived from sense experience alone
  3. Our cognition must conform to things as they are in themselves
  4. The noumenal world is directly accessible to intuition

Explanation

Kant reverses the traditional picture by arguing that space, time, and the categories are contributions of the knowing subject, so experience is structured by us. Things in themselves remain unknowable in principle.

Question 10Metaphysics and Epistemology

For Kant, a synthetic a priori judgment is one that is:

  1. Informative about the world yet independent of experience Correct answer.
  2. Contingent and revisable by future evidence
  3. Derived entirely from sensory observation
  4. True by definition and lacking informative content

Explanation

Kant holds that judgments such as 'every event has a cause' extend our knowledge while resting on a priori conditions of experience. This combination of informative content and non-empirical warrant is the core of his theoretical philosophy.

Question 11Metaphysics and Epistemology

The problem of personal identity over time asks primarily:

  1. What makes a person at one time the same person as one at another time Correct answer.
  2. Whether persons have free will
  3. How a person should act morally
  4. Whether the mind is identical to the brain

Explanation

Personal identity concerns persistence conditions: what relation must hold between person-stages for them to constitute one continuing individual. Free will, mind-body identity, and ethics are distinct debates.

Question 12Metaphysics and Epistemology

Locke's account of personal identity ties a person's persistence to:

  1. Continuity of consciousness and memory Correct answer.
  2. Persistence of the same material body
  3. Continuity of social roles and reputation
  4. Persistence of an immaterial soul substance

Explanation

Locke locates personal identity in the continuity of conscious experience, so that one is the same person insofar as one can remember and appropriate past experiences. He explicitly separates this from sameness of body or substance.

Question 13Metaphysics and Epistemology

Parfit's teletransportation cases are designed to show that:

  1. Persons are simple, indivisible substances
  2. Memory is irrelevant to survival
  3. Personal identity is guaranteed by bodily continuity
  4. What matters in survival may not be identity itself Correct answer.

Explanation

Parfit argues that in fission and teletransportation scenarios identity becomes indeterminate or absent while psychological continuity persists, suggesting that survival admits of degrees. He therefore treats identity as less important than continuity.

Question 14Metaphysics and Epistemology

In the metaphysics of modality, a possible world is best understood as:

  1. A world that God actually created
  2. A mere fiction with no role in semantics
  3. A distant physical region of the actual universe
  4. A complete way things could have been Correct answer.

Explanation

Possible worlds are standardly treated as maximal consistent ways reality could be, used to analyze possibility and necessity. This is a semantic device that need not correspond to concrete physical places.

Question 15Metaphysics and Epistemology

A proposition is necessary in modal logic when it is:

  1. True in every possible world Correct answer.
  2. True in at least one possible world
  3. True in the actual world only
  4. False in every possible world

Explanation

Necessity is standardly defined as truth at all possible worlds, while possibility is truth at some world. This distinction underwrites the semantics of modal operators.

Question 16Metaphysics and Epistemology

The problem of universals concerns which question?

  1. Whether persons survive bodily death
  2. Whether the future is determined by the past
  3. Whether time has a beginning
  4. Whether properties exist independently of the particulars that have them Correct answer.

Explanation

The debate over universals asks about the ontological status of shared properties such as redness, pitting realists against nominalists. The other options concern determinism, survival, and cosmology.

Question 17Metaphysics and Epistemology

Aristotelian realism about universals differs from Platonic realism chiefly in holding that universals:

  1. Have no existence whatsoever
  2. Exist only as mental concepts
  3. Exist in a separate realm of Forms
  4. Exist in the particulars that instantiate them Correct answer.

Explanation

Aristotle locates universals immanently, in the things that have them, whereas Plato posits transcendent Forms. Both are realist positions, but they disagree about where universals reside.

Question 18Metaphysics and Epistemology

The bundle theory of substance holds that an object is:

  1. A collection of properties with no underlying bearer Correct answer.
  2. An indivisible simple with no properties
  3. A bare substratum supporting properties
  4. A mere linguistic convention

Explanation

Bundle theorists eliminate the substratum and analyze objects as compresences of properties, often invoking a relation of co-instantiation. Substratum theory is the rival that posits a bearer distinct from the properties.

Question 19Metaphysics and Epistemology

Van Inwagen's special composition question asks:

  1. What the essential properties of organisms are
  2. How many objects exist in the universe
  3. Whether composite objects are perceivable
  4. Under what conditions do some objects compose a further object Correct answer.

Explanation

The question concerns the conditions under which parts form a whole, with answers ranging from universalism to nihilism. It is central to debates about material constitution and mereology.

Question 20Metaphysics and Epistemology

Mereological universalism is the thesis that:

  1. Only organisms compose further objects
  2. No two objects ever compose a further object
  3. Composition occurs only when parts are contiguous
  4. Any plurality of objects composes a further object Correct answer.

Explanation

Universalism holds that composition always occurs, so every collection of parts has a sum. This contrasts with nihilism and with restricted views that tie composition to special conditions.

Question 21Metaphysics and Epistemology

The Ship of Theseus puzzle is used to raise problems about:

  1. Whether causation is deterministic
  2. Whether abstract objects exist
  3. Whether identity survives complete replacement of parts Correct answer.
  4. Whether time is real

Explanation

The puzzle asks whether an object remains the same when all its original components are gradually replaced, pressing the tension between continuity and material constitution. It is a classic case in the metaphysics of identity.

Question 22Metaphysics and Epistemology

Presentism in the philosophy of time holds that:

  1. Time is an illusion generated by the mind
  2. The future is fixed and the past open
  3. Past, present, and future are equally real
  4. Only the present moment and present entities exist Correct answer.

Explanation

Presentism restricts existence to the present, denying that past or future times and objects are real. Eternalism is the rival view that all times are equally real.

Question 23Metaphysics and Epistemology

McTaggart's argument against the reality of time concludes that the A-series is contradictory because:

  1. Every event would have to be past, present, and future simultaneously Correct answer.
  2. The present moment cannot be experienced
  3. Events cannot be ordered by earlier and later
  4. Time lacks any metric

Explanation

McTaggart argues that A-determinations are incompatible with one another yet each event must possess all of them, generating contradiction. He concludes that the A-series, and hence time, is unreal.

Question 24Metaphysics and Epistemology

A compatibilist about free will holds that:

  1. No one ever acts freely
  2. Determinism is false and indeterminism is true
  3. Free will requires the falsity of determinism
  4. Free will is compatible with determinism Correct answer.

Explanation

Compatibilists argue that acting freely consists in acting according to one's own desires without external coercion, which can obtain even under determinism. Libertarians instead insist that determinism rules out free will.

Question 25Metaphysics and Epistemology

Frankfurt cases are introduced to argue that:

  1. Moral responsibility requires a soul
  2. Moral responsibility does not require the ability to do otherwise Correct answer.
  3. Determinism is incompatible with moral responsibility
  4. Free will requires indeterminism

Explanation

Frankfurt describes agents who act on their own desires while lacking alternative possibilities, yet remain intuitively responsible. This challenges the principle of alternate possibilities and supports compatibilism about responsibility.

Question 26Metaphysics and Epistemology

In epistemology, the classical tripartite analysis defines knowledge as justified true belief. Which scenario is standardly used to show that this analysis is insufficient?

  1. A person holds a true belief but cannot articulate any reasons for it.
  2. A person forms a true belief by luck from a false premise that happens to entail a truth. Correct answer.
  3. A person believes a true proposition on the basis of strong evidence, with no defeating conditions present.
  4. A person holds a justified belief that turns out to be false.

Explanation

Gettier-style cases show that justified true belief can fall short of knowledge when the truth of the belief is accidental relative to the justification. The belief is true and justified, yet the connection between justification and truth is a matter of luck, so it does not count as knowledge.

Question 27Metaphysics and Epistemology

Foundationalism in the theory of justification holds that the structure of epistemic justification is such that:

  1. justification depends entirely on the reliability of the belief-forming process.
  2. some beliefs are justified non-inferentially and serve as the basis for others. Correct answer.
  3. every justified belief derives its justification from an infinite chain of further beliefs.
  4. justification is a matter of coherence among beliefs, with no privileged stopping point.

Explanation

Foundationalism posits basic beliefs that are justified without deriving their warrant from other beliefs, and non-basic beliefs inherit justification from these foundations. The view is defined by this asymmetric structure, which is offered as an alternative to regress and coherence accounts.

Question 28Metaphysics and Epistemology

A reliabilist about epistemic justification claims that a belief is justified when it is:

  1. accepted because it survives the believer's best attempt at skeptical doubt.
  2. produced by a belief-forming process that tends to yield true beliefs. Correct answer.
  3. held with sufficient internal evidence accessible to the believer on reflection.
  4. coherent with the largest consistent set of the believer's other beliefs.

Explanation

Reliabilism is an externalist account: justification depends on the truth-conduciveness of the process that produced the belief, not on the believer's access to supporting reasons. A belief can therefore be justified even if the subject cannot cite the evidence for it.

Question 29Metaphysics and Epistemology

A direct realist about perception holds that in ordinary veridical perception we are perceptually aware of:

  1. nothing beyond the contents of our own experience.
  2. the external objects themselves, without an intermediary object of awareness. Correct answer.
  3. mind-dependent sense-data that represent external objects.
  4. our own sensations, from which we infer the existence of external objects.

Explanation

Direct realism denies that perception is mediated by an object of awareness such as a sense-datum; on this view, the ordinary object itself is what we perceive. The representational and sense-datum theories instead interpose an intermediary mental entity.

Question 30Metaphysics and Epistemology

Descartes argues in the Meditations that even if an evil demon deceives him about the external world and mathematics, he cannot be deceived about the existence of his own mind. The reasoning turns on the claim that:

  1. the clear and distinct ideas of mathematics are guaranteed by a non-deceiving God.
  2. whatever thinks must exist at the time it is thinking. Correct answer.
  3. the senses are generally reliable when conditions are favorable.
  4. the existence of an external world is the best explanation of his experiences.

Explanation

Descartes treats the act of thinking as self-verifying: doubting is a form of thinking, and thinking presupposes a thinker. Even maximal deception requires a subject who is being deceived, so the existence of the thinking self survives the skeptical hypothesis.

Question 31Metaphysics and Epistemology

A coherentist about justification faces the objection that a well-integrated set of beliefs could be internally consistent yet systematically disconnected from reality. This objection is known as the problem of:

  1. the isolation of the coherent system. Correct answer.
  2. the generality of epistemic warrant.
  3. the myth of the given.
  4. the regress of justification.

Explanation

The isolation objection charges that coherence alone cannot guarantee any connection between a belief system and the world, since many internally coherent systems are possible. Coherentists respond by building in constraints such as input from experience or by treating coherence as partly constituted by observational beliefs.

Question 32Metaphysics and Epistemology

According to the causal theory of perception, for a subject to see an object it is necessary that:

  1. the object be the cause of the subject's perceptual experience in the appropriate way. Correct answer.
  2. the subject believes that the object exists.
  3. the object be present in the subject's visual field and attended to.
  4. the subject's experience be qualitatively indistinguishable from a hallucination.

Explanation

The causal theory adds a causal condition to the perceptual relation: the experience must be brought about by the perceived object in the right kind of way. This condition is meant to distinguish genuine perception from hallucination and from deviant causal chains.

Question 33Metaphysics and Epistemology

An externalist about mental content holds that the content of a subject's beliefs depends partly on facts about the subject's environment. Which thought experiment is most directly used to support this view?

  1. Putnam's Twin Earth scenario. Correct answer.
  2. Jackson's knowledge argument.
  3. The Chinese room argument.
  4. Nagel's bat example.

Explanation

Twin Earth pairs a subject with a physically identical counterpart in an environment where the natural kind has a different microstructure, and intuition says their beliefs differ in content. This supports the claim that meaning and content are not determined solely by what is inside the head.

Question 34Metaphysics and Epistemology

A causal theorist of reference, following Kripke, holds that a proper name refers to its bearer because:

  1. the name denotes whatever satisfies the cluster of descriptions most speakers associate with it.
  2. the name is associated in speakers' minds with a definite description that uniquely picks out the bearer.
  3. the bearer is the unique object that best fits the name's sense as fixed by linguistic convention.
  4. an initial baptism links the name to the object, and later uses inherit that link through a chain of communication. Correct answer.

Explanation

On the causal-historical picture, reference is established at an initial naming and transmitted to later speakers through a chain of communication. This explains how names can refer even when speakers associate no uniquely identifying description with them.

Question 35Metaphysics and Epistemology

A defender of the analytic-synthetic distinction responds to Quine's critique by arguing that analyticity can be explained through:

  1. meaning postulates or truth in virtue of semantic rules governing the expressions involved. Correct answer.
  2. the confirmation of a statement by the totality of experience taken as a whole.
  3. the simplicity and usefulness of the conceptual scheme that contains them.
  4. the psychological inevitability of accepting certain statements.

Explanation

Post-Quinean defenders, such as Carnap, reconstruct analyticity as truth determined by the semantic rules or meaning postulates of a language. The strategy is to show that a principled distinction survives without appealing to a mysterious realm of meanings.

Question 36Metaphysics and Epistemology

A skeptic argues that we cannot know we are not brains in vats, and therefore cannot know ordinary propositions about the external world. A Moorean response to this argument typically claims that:

  1. skeptical hypotheses are meaningless because they cannot be verified.
  2. our knowledge of ordinary propositions is more certain than the skeptical premise, so the premise should be rejected. Correct answer.
  3. the concept of knowledge is context-sensitive, so both claims can be true in different contexts.
  4. the skeptic's premise is more certain than the ordinary knowledge claims it is used to attack.

Explanation

Moore inverts the skeptic's inference: since we plainly know such things as that we have hands, and this certainty exceeds that of the skeptical premise, the premise is what must give way. The dispute thus turns on the relative epistemic priority of ordinary and philosophical claims.

Question 37Metaphysics and Epistemology

In the debate over the a priori, a proponent of the view that all a priori knowledge is analytic must explain mathematical knowledge. The strongest challenge to this view is that:

  1. mathematical knowledge is innate and therefore requires no justification.
  2. mathematical truths are conventions whose adoption is a matter of practical choice.
  3. some mathematical truths appear to be synthetic yet knowable independently of experience. Correct answer.
  4. mathematical truths are known through empirical observation of counting and measuring.

Explanation

Kant's classification of arithmetic and geometry as synthetic a priori is the classic challenge to the thesis that the a priori coincides with the analytic. If those judgments are genuinely ampliative yet independent of experience, the analytic theory of the a priori is incomplete.

Question 38Metaphysics and Epistemology

Suppose a subject has a justified belief that a coin will land heads because she consulted a reliable-looking source, but the source was fabricated and the coin in fact lands heads by chance. The case is designed to show that:

  1. truth and justification can come apart from the reliability of the belief's actual causal history. Correct answer.
  2. justification is not necessary for knowledge because the belief is true.
  3. knowledge requires certainty, which the subject lacks.
  4. testimonial beliefs can never amount to knowledge.

Explanation

The case isolates the gap between the subject's evidence and the actual explanation of why the belief is true, illustrating why many epistemologists add a no-luck or anti-accident condition. It shows that justified true belief can fail to be knowledge when the truth is not appropriately connected to the justification.

Question 39Metaphysics and Epistemology

A causal theorist of knowledge, such as Goldman, requires that the belief be appropriately caused by the fact believed. The main difficulty for this condition is that:

  1. the relevant causal chain can be deviant, so the belief may be true for the wrong reason. Correct answer.
  2. causal theories cannot accommodate knowledge of the future.
  3. causal connections between beliefs and facts cannot be established empirically.
  4. causal theories make knowledge too easy to obtain through testimony.

Explanation

The deviant causal chain problem shows that merely requiring some causal connection is too weak, since a belief can be caused by the fact through an aberrant route that does not confer knowledge. The theory must specify which causal pathways are appropriate, and that specification is difficult to give non-circularly.

Question 40Metaphysics and Epistemology

A philosopher argues that phenomenal consciousness cannot be fully explained by physical facts because a complete physical description of a subject would leave out what it is like to be that subject. This argument is best characterized as:

  1. an argument from causal closure, used to show that mental events cannot cause physical events.
  2. an argument from vagueness, used to show that physical predicates have indeterminate boundaries.
  3. an argument from multiple realizability, used to show that mental states are not identical with brain states.
  4. an argument from the explanatory gap, used to support the conclusion that consciousness is not exhausted by physical facts. Correct answer.

Explanation

The explanatory gap argument appeals to the apparent impossibility of deriving facts about subjective experience from physical information alone. It is used to resist reductive physicalism about consciousness, whether or not it establishes full-blown dualism.

Question 41Ethics and Moral Philosophy

In Kantian ethics, what does it mean to treat a person as an 'end in themselves'?

  1. To obey the laws that the state has passed concerning them
  2. To maximize the total happiness that the person experiences
  3. To love them unconditionally as one would love a family member
  4. To respect their rational agency and never use them merely as a means Correct answer.

Explanation

Kant's Formula of Humanity requires that rational beings be treated as grounds of value in their own right. Using someone merely as a means treats them as a tool, ignoring their capacity to set and pursue ends; respect for that capacity is what treating them as an end involves.

Question 42Ethics and Moral Philosophy

A utilitarian considering a policy choice asks which option produces the greatest net well-being. Which feature most centrally distinguishes this reasoning from a deontological approach?

  1. It treats the agent's intentions as the sole determinant of moral worth
  2. It weighs the aggregate consequences of the action rather than its conformity to a duty Correct answer.
  3. It holds that moral rules can never be used to guide action
  4. It denies that the consequences of an action are ever morally relevant

Explanation

Consequentialism evaluates actions by their outcomes, and utilitarianism specifies the relevant outcome as aggregate well-being. Deontology instead assesses actions by whether they conform to duties or rules, independently of the total good produced.

Question 43Ethics and Moral Philosophy

Aristotle's doctrine of the mean holds that a virtue such as courage lies between which two vices?

  1. Humility and arrogance
  2. Cowardice and recklessness Correct answer.
  3. Temperance and indulgence
  4. Generosity and stinginess

Explanation

In the Nicomachean Ethics, courage is the disposition to feel and act on fear appropriately, with cowardice as the deficiency and recklessness as the excess. Virtue is a stable mean relative to the agent and the situation, not a fixed arithmetic midpoint.

Question 44Ethics and Moral Philosophy

Which claim best captures the core of psychological egoism?

  1. Altruism is possible but always morally inferior to self-interest
  2. Self-interest is one legitimate motive among many
  3. All human actions are ultimately motivated by self-interest Correct answer.
  4. People ought to pursue their own interests above all others

Explanation

Psychological egoism is a descriptive thesis about motivation: it claims that, as a matter of fact, every action is ultimately driven by the agent's perceived self-interest. It must be distinguished from ethical egoism, which is a normative claim about how one ought to act.

Question 45Ethics and Moral Philosophy

In ethics, the fact that an action is 'supererogatory' means that the action is:

  1. Permissible but morally inferior to inaction
  2. Forbidden and blameworthy
  3. Praiseworthy but not morally required Correct answer.
  4. Obligatory because it produces the best outcome

Explanation

Supererogatory acts, such as heroic self-sacrifice, go beyond the call of duty: they are morally good and commendable yet not obligatory, so omitting them is not wrong. The category is often used to challenge act-utilitarian views that treat every optimific act as required.

Question 46Ethics and Moral Philosophy

According to Hume, what role does reason play in moral judgment?

  1. Reason and sentiment are identical faculties
  2. Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions Correct answer.
  3. Reason alone discovers moral truths independent of sentiment
  4. Reason is irrelevant to action but sovereign in ethics

Explanation

Hume argues that reason alone cannot move us to action or generate moral approval; it supplies information about means and relations, while sentiment supplies the motivating force. His slogan that reason is the slave of the passions expresses the view that moral distinctions derive from sentiment.

Question 47Ethics and Moral Philosophy

What does the principle of universalizability in Kant's ethics require of a maxim?

  1. That the maxim conform to the customs of one's society
  2. That one be able to will the maxim to become a universal law Correct answer.
  3. That the maxim be approved by a majority of rational agents
  4. That the maxim produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number

Explanation

The first formulation of the categorical imperative tests a maxim by asking whether it could consistently be willed as a universal law. Maxims that cannot be universalized, such as making false promises whenever convenient, fail the test and are thereby impermissible.

Question 48Ethics and Moral Philosophy

Which statement correctly distinguishes a hypothetical imperative from a categorical imperative?

  1. A hypothetical imperative commands an action as a means to some end, while a categorical imperative commands unconditionally Correct answer.
  2. A hypothetical imperative applies only to hypothetical situations, while a categorical imperative applies to actual situations
  3. A hypothetical imperative commands unconditionally, while a categorical imperative depends on one's desires
  4. A hypothetical imperative is always immoral, while a categorical imperative is always moral

Explanation

Hypothetical imperatives are conditional: they prescribe action relative to a desired end, as in 'if you want to be healthy, exercise.' Categorical imperatives bind rational agents unconditionally, regardless of what they happen to want.

Question 49Ethics and Moral Philosophy

A rule utilitarian argues that doctors should generally tell patients the truth, even when a particular lie might spare a patient distress. What is the structure of this reasoning?

  1. The rule is justified because it reflects what the most virtuous doctor would do
  2. The rule is a categorical duty that cannot be overridden by consequences
  3. The rule is justified because it has been enacted by a legitimate authority
  4. The rule is justified by the long-run utility of a practice of truthfulness, even if individual lies sometimes maximize utility Correct answer.

Explanation

Rule utilitarianism evaluates rules by their general tendency to produce well-being, so it can endorse a practice of truth-telling while acknowledging that isolated exceptions might yield more utility. This is the standard reply to the objection that act utilitarianism licenses too much deception.

Question 50Ethics and Moral Philosophy

In a trolley-style case, a bystander can divert a runaway trolley, killing one person instead of five. A Kantian who refuses to divert most likely objects on which ground?

  1. The bystander lacks the virtue of benevolence
  2. Diverting intentionally uses the one person as a means to saving the others Correct answer.
  3. The total number of deaths would be greater
  4. The bystander has no legal duty to intervene

Explanation

A strict Kantian worries that redirecting the trolley makes the death of the one a deliberate element of the plan to save the five, thereby treating that person as a means. This is the same reasoning that underlies the standard contrast between the bystander and the footbridge case.