STUDY GUIDE

This should be all quiz questions, including those suggested by students and those included with presentations. If you note something missing, add it in the comments.

For Jan 23rd

1. Name two of the ways you can earn a base in our class. (See "course requirements" & other info in the sidebar & on the syllabus)

2. How many bases must you earn, for each run you claim on the daily scorecard? How many runs can you claim, each class?

3. How do you earn your first base in each class?

4. Can you earn bases from the daily quiz if you're not present?

5. How can you earn bases on days when you're not present?

6. Do bases accumulate from one class to the next? (Think of this by analogy with baseball: do runners who didn't score in the previous inning get to come out and stand on base in the next one?)

7. Suppose you came to class one day, turned on the computer/projector and opened the A&P site,  had posted a comment, a discussion question,  and an alternate quiz question before class. How many bases did you earn? How many runs? What will you write on the scorecard?

8. How can you indicate extra bases (beyond the four required to earn your daily participation run) on the scorecard?

9. What are Dr. Oliver's office hours? Where is his office? What is his email address?

10. How do critics who conflate physicalism with eliminative materialism mis-portray atheists?

11. Why isn't atheism parasitic on religion?

12. Does Baggini agree that absence of evidence is never evidence of absence?

13. What did David Hume point out about our tendencies of belief?

14. Give an example of an abductive argument supporting atheism.

15. Why isn't atheism a faith position?

16. Many people think that atheists believe that there is no God and no       , no        , or no                

17. What does it mean to be “dogmatic”? (23)

For Jan 28^th

1. The Euthyphro Dilemma implies what about the properties of goodness? (39)

2. What is Kierkegaard's (and Woody Allen's) existentialist point about Abraham and morality? (42)

3. Morality is about acting in whose best interests? (44)

4. What's the "first step in moral thinking"? (49)

5. Does Baggini think it matters whether judgments like "pain is bad" are factual? (52)

6. Did Sartre deny that human life lacks purpose or meaning? (58)

7. What's problematic about seeking meaning in life by serving somebody else's purposes? (59) [And see Rick & Morty on passing the butter, below]

8. What "vital point" do we miss, if we focus too much on goals? (65)

9. What dilemma arises from reflections on eternal bliss or nirvana? (70)

For Jan 30^th

 1 "Anaxagoras is the earliest historical figure to have been indicted for atheism" (Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History... & see Tim Whitmarsh's Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World - "Disbelief in the supernatural is as old as the hills"), but the first "avowedly atheist work" was by whom? Who does Baggini name as some of his ancient precursors? (78)

2. Did original Marxist communism advocate religious oppression? (87)

3. Which of the traditional god arguments does Baggini find "philosophically interesting" but even weaker than the others? (97)

4. How do most believers justify their faith, according to Baggini? (98)

5. What methodological principle does Baggini invoke, to reject the imposition of stringent standards of evidence and truth? (104)

6. What's a humanist? (109)

7. What is the flaw in the ontological argument for God’s existence? (97)

8. What is the problem of evil, and what are theodicies? (102)

For Feb 4^th

1. What distinguishes neuroexistentialism from previous varieties of existentialism? (1)

2. Neuroexistentialism is defined here as ...? (2)

3. Neuroscience adds what to Darwin's message? (8)

4. What's problematic about the hypothesis that altruism is not a naturally evolved trait in humans? (26)

5. What serious drawback initially faces the view that religion is the watershed of moral values? (27)

6. Just like prairie voles, humans have many ...? (32)

7. What is psychological determinism? (7)

8. Neurobiology can help us understand why humans have a moral conscience, but neuroscience per se does not do what? (35)

For Feb 6^th

1. Love and what seem to be similar phenomena? (39)

2. Early relationships determine adult relationships, according to what theory? (42)

3. Lewis says we can be attracted to others with whom we do not share what? (47)

4. Some worry that even if neuroscience doesn't really undermine morality, people might be incited to behave immorally if what? (55)

5. The study involving people who'd been hypnotized to report feelings of disgust shows what? (61)

6. Philosophers and psychologists might make more progress if they focused on what? (65)

7. Neuroscience can affect how we subdivide morality and, what? (64)

For Feb 11^th

1. What's the most important function of emotion? 71

2. We're built to be what? 73

3. A rational syntactically based reasoning system enables us to do what? 79

4. What is "sedimentation"? 87

5. Simone de Beauvoir's title The Ethics of Ambiguity refers to what fact? 92

6. What gets sedimented in the brain? 99

7. For Sartre the greatest threat to human flourishing is _____, for Marx it's ____.  103

From Ed’s presentation:

1. According to Cicero, true law is what?

2. According to Aquinas, what is the distinctive purpose of law?

3. According to Aquinas, how does a law fail to be a law?

4. Classical natural law theory claims that the content of law must be consistent with the moral order. What does it claim about the nature of the moral order?

For Feb 13^th

1. ____ may not exist, but we can still impose a degree of unity on ____. 111

2. Today almost all educated people accept the reality of what? 114

3. Does Levy consider the self a user illusion? 122

4. What are the 4Ms and 4Es? 126

5. How does Heidegger say we come to a true sense of ourselves? 133

6. In light of the 4Es, authenticity is not facing  up to nothingness but rather to what? 141

7. What is the ultimate source and foundation of value for Sartre? (113)

8. The existentialists call to authenticity remains powerful because we are all tempted to confuse convention with , and social facts with . (119)

For Feb 18^th

1. What's the First Principle of Existentialism?146

2. What are "distal intentions"? `149

3. What is the "causal exclusion problem"? 153

4. What does Neurofeedback demonstrate? 155

5. What makes actions meaningful? 159

6. Why, according to Jaegwon Kim, can't information be causal? 162

7. A given event, says Peter Tse, cannot be what at the same time? 166

8. What accounts of free will have given libertarianism a bad name? 171

9. What class of causation does Tse say led to biological systems and ultimately to the emergence of mind? 176

10. What allows us to make and execute choices, invent new things, reinvent ourselves, and "change the physical universe forever"? 189

From Heather’s presentation:

1. In response to his seemingly unfair and untimely cancer diagnosis, Christopher Hitchens says, “To the dumb question ‘Why me?’ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: ‘_______?’”

  “Why Not?"

2. In his memoir, Mortality, Christopher Hitchens says, “…I don't have a body, ________.”

  “I am a body."

3. Who came up with what Hitchens calls, “the notorious stage theory”?

Elisabeth Kühler-Ross

For Feb 20^th  

1. Pereboom's and Caruso's primary focus is on what? 193

2. What are some scientific threats to free will not posed by neuroscience? 197

3. FWS allegedly leaves what intact? 203

4. The core idea of fws is what? 207

5. We may in the near future be able to determine what? 215

6. Why are we responsible for our actions, according to Michael Gazzaniga? 223

7. What's Dennett's definition of free choice? 226

8. What becomes moot from the vantage point of a layered interacting system? 230

9. Because the brain is a _____ system, thought is not a delay after action. 231

10. Gazzaniga says personal responsibility is real but not in ____. 233

Additional QQs for chapters 11 and 12:

The concept of basic desert is that for an agent to be morally responsible for an action is for the action to be – what? (194)

Neuroscience discovered a special capacity in the brain, in a module in the left hemisphere, called – what? (227)

What restores the idea of personal and moral responsibility no matter how stringent a deterministic stance one adopts? (232)

From Jamil’s presentation:

1. What is the thesis or main idea driving Cameron's historical project?

2. Who are two figures that exemplify black freethought or atheism?

For Feb 25^th  

1. The idea of justice without retribution evokes what pressing questions? 236

2. According to Waller we can use scientific understanding of human behavior to do what? 238

3. Changing an agent's future behavior can focus on what? 241

4. What approach to crime "can meet our highest moral standards"? 247

5. What is the thesis of neuronaturalism? 252

6. The picture of the brain as a nexus of neural activity helps explain why each of us is what? 255

7. What kinds of causes typically have a "strong causal invariance relation with their effects"? 261

8. A "limited free-will view" has what advantages over pessimism? 266

Additional QQs for chapter 14:

A neuronaturalistic understanding of human nature does not take away the grounding that supports what? (253)

People who are amenable to whatever metaphysics makes sense of what matters to them are said to be what? (254)

For Feb 27^th

1. Nadelhoffer and Wright are focused on the potential ramifications of free will skepticism from what standpoint? 270

2. Francis Crick says "who you are is nothing but" what? 287

3. Do the authors of ch 15 think most people's attitudes towards free will are likely to change anytime soon? 294

4. The "clockwork" aspect of the classical Newtonian universe seems to imply what about life? 300

5. What is "weak emergence" and what can it underwrite? 304

6. What conclusion about absurdity and freedom would be hasty, and what existentialist theme seems refuted by modern physics and cosmology? 306

Additional QQs for chapter 15:

1. Empirical studies suggest that even if the skeptics are right and we don’t have free will, believing in free will could nevertheless be what? (271)

2. How can a humble person become grounded in a way that staves off the existential angst that could otherwise lead to nihilism or egoism rather than well-being? (275)

For Mar 3^rd

1. Who was Charles Guiteau, and what was his legal defense? 312

2. What is the rate of racial disparity in incarceration? 317

3. What are the two dimensions by which we normally understand and explain others'behavior? 321

4. Why is "therapeutic justice" a misnomer? 326

5.  Stephen Morse says the real issue is what? 334

6. What do compatibilists say about freedom and responsibility? 340

7. Why can we not intervene with responsible agents until they commit crimes? 348

8. How does Morse summarize his objections to Hard Incompatibilism (HI), and with which Christian apologist does he concur? 355

Additional QQs for chapters 17 & 18:

1. The fact that our desire to blame someone intrudes on our assessments of that person’s ability to control his or her thoughts or behavior is referred to as – what? (320)

2. What is the law’s concept of the responsible person? (335)