Download UNIVERSITY OF LONDON BA EXAMINATION 2011 PHILOSOPHY

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?
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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?
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*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.
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