PHIL 150C1 Spring 2022 final exam
Date and time
The final exam is 10:30am–12:30pm in our regular classroom on 11th May.
If you can’t be there because you have another University-sanctioned activity, you must send me your Dean’s Excuse by Thursday 5th May, and I will arrange for you to take the exam at another time.
If you can’t take the exam then because you need more than 120 minutes and this has been pre-approved by DRC, you must contact me to arrange this by Thursday 5th May, and I will arrange for you to take the exam at another time.
If you can’t be in class then because of illness, you must e-mail me as soon as you become ill and you must address your e-mail to both me and to the Dean of Students,
<DOS-deanofstudents@email.arizona.edu>. This is in conformity with the most recent University-wide class absence policy.E-mails stating that you cannot attend because you are ill which are not addressed to both me and the Dean of Students will not count.
No other reasons for not sitting the exam along with everyone else will be accepted. The date and time for the final has been on the syllabus since the start of the semester; you must plan around it.
If you miss the exam and do not fall into one of the categories described above, or in any case you request a make-up exam after the regular exam has already occurred, you will get a zero as your score for the exam.
Equipment
You must bring a blue book, as purchased at the UA BookStore, and it must have no writing in it. I will swap your blue book for one of mine.
If you do not bring a blue book, you will two choices. Either you can walk over to the BookStore and buy one and then return to sit the exam, or you can wait until 10:50am. At that point I will hand out the spare blue books I have, and you will have to sit the exam in less time than everyone else.
Format
The exam is closed-book.
Write in ink not pencil.
There are seven possible exam questions, listed below.
For the exam, I will select four of them.
You must write answers to two of them.
Thus, you must prepare answers to at least five questions. We will talk about how to do this in class.
Your two essays should be the same style as the midterm. There are only two differences:
you have 120 minutes, so the essays should be longer; and
I will additionally be asking you for assessment and evaluation, not just explanation. Assess arguments, don’t just state opinions.
If you have questions about the material, attend my office hours to discuss it. I will not be able to help you by e-mail.
Questions
I will write the numbers of four questions on the whiteboard. You must answer two of those four, in 120 minutes—not any of the others. Most people should write approx. 1000 words for each answer.
How does Robert Nozick use his Wilt Chamberlain example to argue against patterned and end state principles of justice, and in favour of his entitlement theory of justice? Why is he against the welfare state? Assess the argument and Nozick’s theory of justice.
Be sure to include: What’s a distribution, in the relevant sense? Briefly summarise Rawl’s theory of justice as fairness, and explain how it’s a patterned principle of justice and an end state principle of justice. Explain the three basic components of Nozick’s entitlement theory: justice in original acquisition; justice in transfer; rectification. What makes this a path-dependent, as opposed to end state, conception of justice? In that sense it is unpatterned rather than patterned? Carefully explain the structural contrast with Rawls’s view. Who was Wilt the Stilt? Explain Wilt’s extra collection box at the game. Why does Nozick think that a defender of the patterned principle of justice has to say that nothing unfair has happened? How does this make such a principle self-undermining, thus supporting Nozick’s idea that “liberty upsets patterns”? What is the welfare state? Why does Nozick think that it couldn’t be compatible with his theory of justice? What does Nozick mean when he says “liberty upsets patterns”? Does the Wilt Chamberlain argument succeed? Is Nozick more successful than Rawls in arguing for his theory of justice?
Are most Westerners morally wrong for not donating significantly more to charities working in the third world than we do?
Be sure to include: What are consequentialism and utilitarianism? Carefully explain the shallow pond and envelope scenarios, and then make Peter Singer’s argument that comparing them shows we are morally obligated to put money in the envelope – that the conduct in the envelope scenario is at least as bad as in the shallow pond scenario. Similarly carefully explain the cases of Bob and his Bugatti and Rob and his retirement account, and how this leads to the conclusion that we should give away retirement savings. What are each of the four steps of the basic argument, including its conclusion? Explain how the possibility of sacrificing small luxuries supports the second premise – give some examples. How exactly does the argument depend upon Singer’s utilitarianism, if at all? What are our options, in terms of denying premises, to object to the argument? Can it be objected to? Assess the conclusion – are we all in the moral wrong?
Explain and assess David Schmidtz’s response to consequentialist arguments like those of Singer.
Be sure to include: If you didn’t also answer question 2, a brief summary of Singer’s position. In what sense is Schmidtz a consequentialist, despite disagreeing strongly with Singer? Why does Schmidtz think that we cannot, in fact, ever find ourselves in the envelope scenario, even though it can seem like we are? What is a tragedy of the commons? Why is putting money in the envelope like a commons tragedy? Explain the idea of a button which would annihilate all sentient life, and how Schmidtz turns it into an argument against Singer. What is the difference between respecting and promoting value? What value must we respect, and what value must we promote, in a good life? What does Schmidtz mean when he says “my main obligation to the world concerns not how I spend my paycheck, but rather what I do to earn it”? What is the difference between moral rules that establish trust, and rules that try to directly intervene, and how does the example of the courier entering the hospital and having his organs harvested show the importance of this difference? Do Schmidtz’s arguments succeed, or is Singer in the stronger position?
Should there be a market for kidneys?
Be sure to include: What is libertarianism in political philosophy? What is the basic libertarian argument for legalising markets for kidneys? Briefly describe the facts on the ground of black markets for kidneys – why do people want to do it, and how does the libertarian argument draw on these basic economic facts? Explain, with examples, how justice in transaction can be understood as parties being fully informed and not coerced. Why might selling organs be unjust because coerced? Why does Debra Satz think this argument doesn’t do much against the libertarian? How does this first argument rely for its persuasiveness on one’s preexisting conception of what people are entitled to? If there were legal markets for kidneys, how might this economically disadvantage people who don’t want to sell? How does this generate an argument against markets for kidneys, in terms of protecting freedoms? How is this similar to arguments about prostitution and the minimum wage, and dissimilar to the case of owning second homes? Is it a human right not to have to sell one’s kidneys, and is this sufficient for Satz’s second argument to succeed? Should law about markets focus on protecting people who don’t want to trade, or maximising the liberty of those who do want to trade?
In the face of environmental catastrophe, is John M. Meyer’s expansive notion of sacrifice truly distinct from that of self-abnegation?
Be sure to include: What is self-abnegation? Why does Meyer think that the notion of self-abnegation is not going to help the political cause of environmentalism? What is the basic conceptual error he imputes to environmentalists? How does Meyer find equally unjustified both technological optimism and pessimistic catastrophism? How is hope meant to be different from both of these? Use examples to explain how Meyer thinks a non-self-abnegating conception of sacrifice is already weaved throughout our lives. How does this involve an expansive conception of self-interest? What non-environmental cases are there where we all think that it would be good to rebalance our sacrifices to be more equitable? In what sense does our not making changes for the sake of the environment already involve sacrifice? Then, how could making larger changes for the sake of the environment be understood are more of what we are already motivated to do rather than self-abnegation, which we are not motivated to do? How is self-abnegation like being a victim of sacrifice while sacrifice is being an agent of sacrifice, where the latter is empowering and the former is disempowering? How is a rich country telling a poorer one not to emit so much similar to making the poor country a victim of sacrifice rather than an agent of sacrifice? Assess Meyer’s position. Is the distinction between self-abnegation and sacrifice real, or is this just a way to make the need for self-abnegation seem more appealing?
Assess Iris Marion Young’s conception of the politics of social groups, and Tommie Shelby’s case that racism is fundamentally a political problem, against 21st century liberal individualism.
Be sure to include: How do Rawls and Nozick conceive of oppression? Is there much of this in contemporary Western countries? In what ways does Young find this conception to be mistaken (there are at least three)? What is Young’s conception of oppression? Why does she object to just calling it “discrimination”? What does Young mean by a social group? How does she think philosophers like Rawls and Nozick oversimplify social groups? What is a privileged group? Explain each of the five faces of oppression, with examples, but not only with examples – say precisely what is distinctive about each one. What does Shelby mean when he says that contemporary racism is primarily a political philosophical problem rather than a moral problem – how would things be different if it was just a moral problem? How are the views of Young and Shelby similar, and similarly different from the views of Rawls and Nozick? Are Young and Shelby right, and why?
Does Martha Nussbaum succeed in responding to feminist critiques of liberalism?
Be sure to include: What two ideas does Nussbaum think form the core of liberalism? What sort of views is liberalism opposed to? Explain the worry that liberalism falsely describes individuals as existing outside of all social ties. How do feminists cast this as a form of egoism? How does Nussbaum respond? How is liberalism meant to subvert family and community? Why does Nussbaum think that, on the contrary, liberalism avoids overemphasising family and community to the detriment of oppressed groups? How do ideas about religious freedom lead Rawls to exclude families from the basic structure? What problems does this cause? How does Nussbaum argue liberalism ought to be revised in response to those issues? How do feminists argue that liberalism might fail to leave room for treating groups differently where that’s appropriate, such as granting women maternity leave? How does Nussbaum think her capabilities approach can respond to this? Explain the feminist worry about liberalism unduly privileging reason over emotion. Why does Nussbaum think this is misplaced? What does Nussbaum mean when she says that what’s important is that members of oppressed groups must distinguish their own wellbeing from the wellbeing of others, and how does this not involve them caring any less about what they already care about? Assess this – is Nussbaum denying the existing identities of certain women? Does religious freedom require permitting gendered hierarchies within families, even though a liberal society should discourage that in other ways?