Review for Final Exam

There will likely be no major changes in this review from now on.

Contact: Dr. Jan Garrett

Last Revised April 28, 2010, 8:15 a.m.
Minor Change: May 5, 9:00 a.m.

The final exam is scheduled for the regular final exam time:
    8:00 a.m. Monday, May 10 (for the class that normally met at 9:10 a.m.)
    and 10:30 a.m., May 13th (for the class that normally met at 11:30).

For review purposes you are advised to look at the department of the course website whose button label is "Lecture Notes, Dialogues, etc." The dialogues on persons and war survey the major positions on important issues. It is also recommended that you familiarize yourselves with the major issues, positions, and arguments for those positions regarding issues discussed in this course. To that end you should be reading the introductions to the chapters (do not confuse chapters with articles in the chapters!) in the Boss anthology regarding Abortion, Capital Punishment, Drugs, War and Peace, Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics.

If you want to do well on essay exams, I suggest you consider this: How to Prepare for Essay Exam Questions. Since this is not a general introduction to philosophy course and the advice was prepared with students in such a course in mind, you would have to adapt this advice to the somewhat different subject-matter. But I think you're up to that!

Applied Ethics Essay (30 % out of 100% for the exam) related to an article in the Judith Boss anthology
that was an option for the Second Major Paper

Describe the purpose, conclusion, main premises, key concepts, and practical implications of the article chosen from the list given below. To do a complete job you may need to state some of the implicit assumptions the author makes and mention some intermediate steps that link the chief premises and assumptions to the author's main or final conclusion. The best essays will present some reasoned criticisms of the article from a perspective other than that of the article's author, if possible from a perspective represented in the course anthology. (I have indicated in parentheses a text or the author of an article that represents a contrary position.)

Remember, one of the four articles listed below will likely be omitted from the options on the final. You will write your essay on one of the options remaining. Do not choose the article that was your focus article or your primary contrary article for your second major paper.

Articles selected by student ballot April 21 and 26:

PHIL 320-001 (9:10 class)

Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion" (Marquis or Noonan)
Carl Cohen, "Do Animals Have Rights?" (Regan)
      Do not choose both Cohen at this point and the Animal Rights/Environmental Ethics topic under Theoretical Ethics.
Ernest Van den Haag, "The Ultimate Punishment: A Defense of Capital Punishment" (Bedau or Reiman)
David Luban, "The War on Terrorism and the End of Human Rights" (The "Hybrid" position discussed in the article)
      Do not choose both Luban at this point and the War topic under Theoretical Ethics.

PHIL 320-002 (11:30 class)
Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion" (Marquis)
Douglas Husak, "A Moral Right to Use Drugs" (Wilson)
Peter Singer, "Animal Liberation" (Cohen)
      Do not choose both Singer at this point and the Animal Rights/Environmental Ethics topic under Theoretical Ethics.
Eyal Press, "In Torture We Trust" (Dershowitz and other pro-torture views cited in the article)
      for the article by Press and a debate involving Dershowitz, see website, Contemporary Issues;
      for study questions keyed to the article by Press, see Questions for Press article.

Theoretical Ethics. Possible Options for a second Essay on Final Exam
(30 percent out of 100 percent of the Final)

1. Explain the just war theory, including details about jus ad bellum and jus in bello. (Don't just list the key words, but specify the principles they represent.) Then discuss the pros and cons of another approach to this issue, such as prescriptive political realism.

2. Essay on two or more theories related to environmental ethics/animal rights, at least one of them anthropocentric, one of them not. Show how the theories differ in their approach to the same issue (e.g., pollution, animal deaths, ecosystem destruction). (Note: Do not choose "strict animal rights" as one of the theories if you are writing about the Cohen or Singer in the Applied Ethics essay).

3. Martha Nussbaum's Theory of Capabilities or Rawls' Theory of Justice. (For Nussbaum see the Ethical Theories department of the course website and the handout we discussed in class.)

If you chose the former: What are basic capabilities, internal capabilities, combined capabilities? How are they related to what living a satisfactory or fulfilling life? In what ways can personal and government action promote capabilities in one or two of Nussbaum's ten types of activity that capabilities enable (say, bodily integrity or control over one's environment)?

If you choose the latter: Be sure to explain the original position, what people know and don't know there, how they are motivated, what their assignment is, what principles of justice they would choose.

Key Terms and Concepts (About 40 percent of final)

I may include terms related to the major ethical theories that we discussed early in the course and that were options for the midterm. See Review for Midterm (Section on Key Terms and Concepts).

moral standing (247, 645) personhood conception biological humanity (80) sentience (81, 646) viability (81) right (670.1) rights-bearer (672) duty to refrain requirement to sacrifice addressee of a right (672.2)      =person against whom one has a right (91) social responsiveness (80-81, 107.1-2) ensoulment (106) End of Life Distinctions. principle of mercy (196), principle of nonmaleficence (651) Justice (several kinds)

retributive justice, punishment (def.) (handout) retribution, revenge reparation, retributivism, two types:     equality retributivism (cf. lex talionis),     proportional retributivism, deterrence (rationale for punishment) reform (rationale for punishment) incapacitation, restitution approach to crime, therapeutic approach benevolence (246), moral object (247.1), direct moral object (247.1), indirect moral object (247.1), moral subject (247.2), cruelty (250.1)

 

forfeiture of rights (253), social defense argument for death penalty (257), dignity argument for death penalty (254), principle of retribution (254.2), lex talionis (259), argument from justice    against death penalty (259-60, 266), argument from dignity    against death penalty (257) Liberty-Limiting Principles. drug (in Husak, 309.1), drug use v. drug abuse (278, 313), addiction (278)--but see also Addictive Qualities of Popular Drugs disease model of addiction (285-286), moral model of addiction (286), principles used to argue on this topic     (287-90):     virtue ethics, human dignity,     autonomy, liberty, rights, hedonism,     paternalism, nonmaleficence, and     preventing harm to others recreational use (of drugs) (309-310), non-recreational uses of drugs (310.1), presumption of freedom (310.2) paternalist rationale for laws     against drugs (311), legal moralism (311) social contract view of moral standing     of animals (646) hedonistic utilitarian approach     to animal interests (646) moral agents (646, 672), moral patients (646, 672) interest model of rights (647) (non-utilitarian) animal rights view     (Regan, 647 bottom), animal welfarism (647),

speciesism (648, 662), principle of equality (648, 661.1), capacity for suffering, having interests (662.1) researcher's central dilemma (666.1) consciousness, language test for     (652, 661 bottom); noninjury, principle of (651.1); intensive (animal-) rearing methods (652.2); capacity to claim rights     as test for being rights-bearer (652.1, 672). self-assertion model of rights (647) interest (769, elsewhere); correlativity of rights and obligations (671-72); two senses of autonomy (673.2),     esp. moral autonomy; inherent value, two senses of (674); community of moral beings (i.e., moral agents), fallacy of equivocation (674) ecofeminism (688) jus ad bellum and jus in bello (593) proportionality (part of jus ad bellum) (593.2) "discrimination" (part of jus in bello) (596.2) terrorism (597.2) prescriptive political realism     see definition in dialogue on war Aristotle's anthropocentrism (639-640) biotic community (=the land, 678) land ethic (Leopold, 678.2-679.2) basic capability internal capability combined capability functioning practical reason (in Nussbaum's sense)