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UNIVERSITY OF LONDON BA EXAMINATION 2011 for Internal Students This paper is also taken by Combined Studies Students. PHILOSOPHY 3.(a) Ethics Answer THREE questions, at least ONE from EACH section. Candidates taking optional paper (n) Philosophy of Kant may NOT attempt question 23, marked with an asterisk. Avoid overlap in your answers. SECTION A 1. ‘If murder is wrong, two murders are worse than one; so if A, by murdering B, can prevent C from murdering D and E, then (other things being equal) A ought to do so.’ Discuss. 2. Is there any good ground for saying that, whereas being painful can be a property of a blow, being cruel cannot? 3. ‘One has no duty to save the greater number, because nobody would be wronged if one saved the lesser number instead.’ Discuss. 4. Does the doctrine of double effect provide a solution to the trolley problem? 5. ‘Desiring to do something is of course a reason for doing it’ (Bernard Williams). Discuss. 6. Can virtue theory provide guidance to agents who aren’t already virtuous about how to act? 7. Are those who make promises obligated to keep them? 8. Are normative standards the same as standards that reason requires us to meet? 9. Does the moral obligatoriness of an action add to our reason for performing it? And if not, how else might it motivate us to perform the action? 10. Is there a coherent form of moral relativism? PLEASE TURN OVER Page 1 of 3 11. Can one plausibly maintain that all our moral beliefs are false? 12. Can there be cases of free action where the agent could not have done otherwise? 13. ‘Morality is a matter of feeling, not knowing.’ Discuss. 14. Is an ethical naturalist bound also to be a subjectivist about ethical value? 15. ‘There are no moral dilemmas; just moral confusions.’ Discuss. 16. Are moral considerations necessarily overriding for a morally serious person? 17. Can reflection on remorse teach us anything important about the kind of seriousness that considerations must have if they are to be moral considerations? SECTION B 18. EITHER (a) Does Socrates’ account of the just soul in Republic IV give us good reason to believe that the possessor of such a soul will refrain from unjust acts? OR (b) Critically discuss the role of hedonism in Socrates’ argument in the Protagoras against the possibility of akrasia (weakness of will). 19. EITHER (a) How, exactly, does Aristotle understand the relationship between virtue and phronesis? Is his account of the dependency of each on the other defensible? OR (b) What role does the idea of eudaimonia play in Aristotle’s account of moral virtue? Is it convincing? 20. Give a critical assessment of Aquinas’s account of moral reasoning. 21. What is Scotus’s view of the relation of the second table of the Decalogue to natural law? What problems is this view designed to solve, and how defensible is it? 22. EITHER (a) Explain and assess Hume’s view of practical reason. OR (b) Hume argues that if we were endowed with universal generosity in respect of the goods of this world, or if there were an irremediable shortage of these goods, justice would have no place. Is he right? PLEASE TURN OVER Page 2 of 3 *23. EITHER(a) What is the role of freedom in Kant’s account of morality? OR (b) What is categorical about Kant’s categorical imperatives? 22. EITHER (a) How consistent a utilitarian is John Stuart Mill? OR (b) Explain how, and to what extent, Mill offers a ‘proof’ of his utilitarianism. END OF PAPER Page 3 of 3