Introduction to Philosophy and Critical Reasoning Introducing the field: What is philosophy and why it is important?

QUESTIONS TO CONCIDER: 1. How can we define Philosophy? o Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. o It is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions (such as mysticism or mythology) by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned argument. o It comes from the Greek [philosophia], which literally translates to love of wisdom. o Love or passion for deep knowledge and understanding of things. The real passion is for the ultimate goal: a reliable and accurate understanding of ourselves and of the world.

2. Which are the characteristics of a philosopher? o The philosopher thinks at a high level of generality: o The philosopher thinks in abstract ideas (concepts). o o o The philosopher goes beyond experience. The philosopher seeks the underlying meanings.

The philosopher has an explanatory ambition: o o o The philosopher gives reasons for why something is the way it is. The philosopher gives reason as justification. Explanatory ambition leads to proper true and consistent argumentation.

The philosopher is always ready for argumentation.

3. Which are the most common issues that philosophy deals with? o The fact that many of the questions properly raised within philosophy so-called in earlier days are now raised and answered by special sciences is true but it changes nothing about the fact that human beings are such as to lead themselves by general ideas and values, and that one of the tasks that remains philosophical. However many of earlier philosophical questions have now turned into problems of some specific science, is to try to integrate whatever specialized knowledge different sciences produce into one comprehensive view of reality and humanity. o Some of the most common questions are the following:

Logic: What are the foundations and principles of sound reasoning? Science: What are the foundations of our scientific and technological knowledge? Language: What does language have to do with human thought? Meaning: What is meaning and how do we succeed in representing one thing by another?

Ethics: What are the foundations of the judgments that acts or the men who commit them are good or bad, and in what sense are such judgments true or different from mere matters of taste? Aesthetics: What makes beautiful things appear beautiful or ugly, and what is the use of having an aesthetical capacity? Self: Whether there is a self, and if so, what it is and what is its foundation, or, if not, what is the reason for this popular delusion? Free will: Whether human beings are in any sense free to act as they please and responsible for the consequences, or only determined to falsely believe they are free to believe as they please. Death: Whether death indeed is final, what is the point of fearing something one will never experience, and whether there is anything else than self-contradiction in the belief in a life or a judgment after death. Happiness: What is happiness; how does one find it; and why should one look for it, especially if everyone seems naturally to know what feels good and what does not feel good? The good life: What a human individual should and should not do, believe and desire to lead a good life? The good society: What relations between human individuals contribute to the good life?

4. Why is philosophy important? o o o o Many think that philosophy is an idle and purely academic pursuit, which does not have any practical value. Many times, people call something philosophical, in order to describe it as theoretical, or call a discussion philosophical in order to underline that it is of limited importance. The main questions of philosophy, are the same for centuries: does this mean that philosophy leads to nowhere? In Platos Apology, Socrates is saying that philosophy is a necessary component in obtaining wisdom and knowledge. He argues that if it werent for philosophy, he would not question or disagree with ones thinking, he would just go with the flow and assume that whatever he sees, hears, or reads is correct. He says, as long as I lead an unexamined life, Im very unlikely to catch my errors and Im very likely to go on fooling myself.

5. Do we actually need philosophy in our life? o All human beings orient their lives around ideas about what reality is like, that they believe explain their experiences, and ideas about what reality and human beings should be like, that they use to guide their behaviour. The first of these kinds of ideas is a metaphysical theory, the second an ethical or moral theory. o Human beings seem to need metaphysical and moral ideas because they are not born with instincts that determine for them what they should think and want, and are born with the capacities to make up their own minds and to question any belief they have or meet.

It is evident that most of the ideas in history that people have used to explain human experiences have been false or unfounded in many respects, and it is also evident that most of the ideas in history or direct human behaviour have been harmful to other human beings or to themselves. On the other hand, it is also evident that whatever adequate understanding people have of themselves, of others, and of their environments and possibilities, is based on the asking and answering of the type of general questions that are philosophical and scientific, and that there seems to be no way of being human without trying to ask and answer such questions. All ideas about philosophy or science, including those that ridicule or condemn philosophy or science, are themselves philosophical ideas, and such as declare all philosophy useless, trifling, or impossible are little better than a refusal to do any serious philosophical or scientific reasoning. The ideas people live and die for, go to war for and kill each other for, or let themselves be inspired to the making of great art or science, are all philosophical ideas.

6. Which are the benefits from studying philosophy? o Problem solving skills: Philosophy is about asking difficult questions and developing answers which can be reasonably and rationally defended against hard, skeptical questioning. We learn how to analyze concepts, definitions and arguments in a way conductive towards developing solutions for particular problems. Reason, consistency and well-founded/systematic arguments. o Communication skills: A person who is capable of communicating in the field of philosophy can also excel at communication in other areas. When debating, we need to express our ideas clearly and precisely, both in speaking and writing. And it is very important for somebody to be able to communicate exactly what he/she is thinking. o Self knowledge: It isnt just a matter of better communication with others that is helped by the study of philosophy, but understanding yourself is also improved. The very nature of philosophy is such that you get a better picture of what you actually believe through working those beliefs in a systematic fashion. o Persuasive skills: The development of problem solving and communication skills leads to an advanced ability of persuasion by making others agree with you. Good persuasive skills are important in the field of philosophy because a person needs to defend his or her views and offer insightful critiques of the views of others.

Metaphysics: Whats out there? QUESTIONS TO CONCIDER:

1. What is metaphysics?
o Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the fundamental nature world. The word derives from the Greek words (met) (meaning beyond or after) and (physik) (meaning physical). As with most branches of philosophy, metaphysics is a theoretical approach to various objects of interest, based on the understanding and the argumentation of the philosopher.

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2. Why metaphysics is called metaphysics?

o The word metaphysics is derived from a collective title of the fourteen books by Aristotle that we currently think of as making up Aristotle's Metaphysics. Aristotle himself did not actually use the word, as he had four names for the branch of philosophy that is the subjectmatter of Metaphysics: first philosophy, first science, wisdom, and theology. At least one hundred years after Aristotle's death, an editor of his works (in all probability, Andronicus of Rhodes) entitled those fourteen books Ta meta ta phusikathe after the physicals or the ones after the physical ones, the physical ones being the books contained in what we now call Aristotle's Physics. The title was probably meant to warn students of Aristotle's philosophy that they should attempt Metaphysics only after they had mastered the physical ones, the books about nature or the natural world that is to say, about change, for change is the defining feature of the natural world. This is the probable meaning of the title because Metaphysics is about things that do not change. In one place, Aristotle identifies the subject-matter of first philosophy as being as such, and, in another, as first causes. Moreover, beyond the physics, means the things that are beyond the world that can be experienced with the human senses. The things that go beyond vision, touch, hearing, mouth taste and smell, and are connected with the nature of being and the nature of the world, can be described as metaphysics.

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3. Which are the sub-branches of metaphysics?

o Cosmology: It is concerned with the origins and nature of the universe that can be examined interdisciplinary, from different points of view and from different start points (religion, science, tradition, mysticism etc). After the emergence of scientifically based methods for the study of the origins of the world, the field was categorized as a part of physics, because its examination could be practical instead of just theoretical (i.e. astrophysics, paleontology, etc). But metaphysical cosmology can be described as holding the universe in your hand as if it was a single intelligible object, for the purpose of defining Man's place in the universe, not to mention the place of the person holding the universe. Physics takes the world apart, piece 4

by (ever smaller) piece, trying to figure out the puzzle of existence. Metaphysical cosmology puts the universe into one comprehensible object so that it may be examined as the whole. From this method, the "first science" of metaphysics can generate theories, but not science. Ontology: is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally, as a part of metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences. The principal questions of ontology are "What can be said to exist?" and "Into what categories, if any, can we sort existing things?" Various philosophers have provided different answers to these questions. One common approach is to divide the extant entities into groups called categories. Of course, such lists of categories differ widely from one another, and it is through the coordination of different categorical schemes that ontology relates to such fields as library science and artificial intelligence.

4. In which categories is Aristotles Metaphysics divided?

Aristotle's Metaphysics was divided into three parts: o o Ontology: The study of Being and existence; includes the definition and classification of entities, physical or mental, the nature of their properties, and the nature of change. Natural Theology: The study of a God or Gods; involves many topics, including among others the nature of religion and the world, existence of the divine, questions about Creation, and the numerous religious or spiritual issues that concern humankind in general. Universal science: The study of first principles, which Aristotle believed to be the foundation of all other inquiries. An example of such a principle is the law of noncontradiction and the status it holds in non-paraconsistent logics.

5. Cosmology and cosmogony:

o Cosmology is the branch of metaphysics that deals with the world as the totality of all phenomena in space and time. Historically, it has had quite a broad scope, and in many cases was founded in religion. The ancient Greeks did not draw a distinction between this use and their model for the cosmos. In modern use it addresses questions about the Universe which are beyond the scope of physical science. It is distinguished from religious cosmology in that it approaches these questions using philosophical methods (e.g. dialectics). Cosmogony deals specifically with the origin of the universe. Modern metaphysical cosmology and cosmogony try to address questions such as: What is the origin of the Universe? What is its first cause? Is its existence necessary? (i.e. monism, pantheism, emanationism and creationism) What are the ultimate material components of the Universe? (i.e. mechanism, dynamism, hylomorphism, atomism) What is the ultimate reason for the existence of the Universe? Does the cosmos have a purpose? (see teleology) 5

6. Objects and their properties:

o The world seems to contain many individual things, both physical, like apples, and abstract such as love and the number 3; the former objects are called particulars. Particulars are said to have attributes, e.g. size, shape, color, location and two particulars may have some such attributes in common. Such attributes, are also termed Universals or Properties; the nature of these, and whether they have any real existence and if so of what kind, is a longstanding issue, realism and nominalism representing opposing views. Metaphysicians concerned with questions about universals or particulars are interested in the nature of objects and their properties, and the relationship between the two. Some, e.g. Plato, argue that properties are abstract objects, existing outside of space and time, to which particular objects bear special relations.

The ten categories, or classes, are:

1. Substance (ousia, "essence or "substance).

Substance is defined as that which neither can be predicated of anything nor be said to be in anything. Hence, this particular man or that particular tree are substances. Later in the text, Aristotle calls these particulars primary substances, to distinguish them from secondary substances, which are universals and can be predicated. Hence, Socrates is a primary substance, while man is a secondary substance. Man is predicated of Socrates, and therefore all that is predicated of man is predicated of Socrates.

2. Quantity (poson, how much).

This is the extension of an object, and may be either discrete or continuous. Further, its parts may or may not have relative positions to each other. All medieval discussions about the nature of the continuum, of the infinite and the infinitely divisible, are a long footnote to this text. It is of great importance in the development of mathematical ideas in the medieval and late Scholastic period.

3. Quality (poion, of what kind or quality).

This is a determination which characterizes the nature of an object.

4. Relation (pros ti, toward something).

This is the way in which one object may be related to another.

5. Place (pou, where).

Position in relation to the surrounding environment.

6. Time (pote, when).

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Position in relation to the course of events.

7. Position (keisthai, to lie).

The examples Aristotle gives indicate that he meant a condition of rest resulting from an action: Lying, sitting. Thus position may be taken as the end point for the corresponding action. The term is, however, frequently taken to mean the relative position of the parts of an object (usually a living object), given that the position of the parts is inseparable from the state of rest implied.

8. State (echein, to have).

The examples Aristotle gives indicate that he meant a condition of rest resulting from an affection (i.e. being acted on): shod, armed. The term is, however, frequently taken to mean the determination arising from the physical accoutrements of an object: one's shoes, one's arms, etc. Traditionally, this category is also called a habitus (from Latin habere, to have).

9. Action (poiein, "to make or "to do).

The production of change in some other object.

10. Affection (paschein, to suffer or to undergo).

The reception of change from some other object. It is also known as passivity. It is clear from the examples Aristotle gave for action and for affection that action is to affection as the active voice is to the passive. Thus for action he gave the example, to lance, to cauterize; for affection, to be lanced, to be cauterized. The term is frequently misinterpreted to refer only or mainly to some kind of emotion or passion.

Aesthetics: What is beautiful? QUESTIONS TO CONCIDER:

1. What is aesthetics?
o o The word aesthetics derives from the Greek word esthanome (), which means I feel or I sense, or I perceive. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It can be defined narrowly as the theory of beauty, or more broadly as that together with the philosophy of art.

2. What is the difference between aesthetics and taste?

o o o o Viewer interpretations of beauty possess two concepts of value: aesthetics and taste. Aesthetics is the philosophical notion of beauty. Taste is a result of education and awareness of elite cultural values; therefore taste can be learned. Taste varies according to class, cultural background, and education. The contemporary view of beauty is not based on universal qualities, but rather on cultural specifics and individual interpretations.

3. What is an aesthetic judgment of taste?

o o Judgments of aesthetic value rely on our ability to discriminate at a sensory level. Aesthetics examines our affective domain response to an object or phenomenon. Philosophers since antiquity have been interested in our experiences of and judgments about beauty and ugliness. They have tried to understand o the nature of these experiences and judgments, o and they wanted to know whether these judgments were legitimate. These projects took a sharpened form in the twentieth century, when this part of our lives came under a sustained attack in both European and American intellectual circles. Kant isolated two fundamental necessary conditions for a judgment to be a judgment of taste: subjectivity and universality. Other conditions may also contribute to what it is to be a judgment of taste, but they are consequential on, or predicated on, the two fundamental conditions. Subjectivity: The first necessary condition of a judgment of taste is that it is essentially subjective. What this means is that the judgment of taste is based on a feeling of pleasure or displeasure. It is this that distinguishes a judgment of taste from an empirical judgment. Central examples of judgments of taste are judgments of beauty and ugliness. Universality: Kant's idea is that in a judgment of taste, we demand or require agreement from others in a way we do not in our judgments about an individual preference. In matters of taste and beauty, we think that others ought to share our judgment, because the judgment of taste has such an aspiration to universal validity that it seems as if [beauty] were a property of things.

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4. Which factors are involved in aesthetic judgments?

o Unconscious reactions: Judgments of aesthetic value are quite complex. Responses such as disgust show that sensory detection is linked in instinctual ways to facial expressions, and even behaviours like the gag reflex. Yet disgust can often be a learned or cultural issue too; as Darwin 8

o o o o

pointed out, seeing a stripe of soup in a man's beard is disgusting even though neither soup nor beards are themselves disgusting. Cultural conditions: Aesthetic judgments can also be culturally conditioned to some extent. Desirability: Evaluations of beauty may well be linked to desirability, perhaps even to sexual desirability. Social value: Thus, judgments of aesthetic value can become linked to judgments of economic, political, or moral value. Intellectual and interpretative: Aesthetic judgments seem often to be at least partly intellectual and interpretative. It is what a thing means or symbolizes for us that is often what we are judging.

5. How can something be beautiful or ugly at the same time?

o We can call a person, a house, a symphony, a fragrance, and a mathematical proof beautiful. What characteristics do they share which give them that status? What possible feature could a proof and a fragrance both share in virtue of which they both count as beautiful? What makes a painting beautiful is quite different from what makes music beautiful, which suggests that each art form has its own language for the judgment of aesthetics. At the same time, there is seemingly quite a lack of words to express oneself accurately when making an aesthetic judgment. An aesthetic judgment cannot be an empirical judgment. Therefore, due to impossibility for precision, there is confusion about what interpretations can be culturally negotiated. Due to imprecision in the standard English language, two completely different feelings experienced by two different people can be represented by an identical verbal expression. Wittgenstein stated this in his lectures on aesthetics and language games.

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6. What is art and how can we define the value of art?

o Art can act as a means to some special kind of knowledge. Art may give insight into the human condition. Art relates to science and religion. Art serves as a tool of education, or indoctrination, or enculturation. Art makes us more moral. It uplifts us spiritually. Art is politics by other means. Art has the value of allowing catharsis. But to approach the question of the value of art systematically, one ought to ask: For whom? For the artist? For the audience? For society at large, and/or for individuals beyond the audience? Is the "value" of art different in each of these different contexts? Working on the intended value of art tends to help define the relations between art and other acts. Art clearly does have spiritual goals in many contexts, but what exactly is the difference between religious art and religion per se? The truth is complex - Art is both useless in a functional sense and the most important human activity.

7. Are there any aesthetic universal in art?

o The philosopher Denis Dutton identified seven universal signatures in human aesthetics: Expertise or virtuosity: Technical artistic skills are cultivated, recognized, and admired. Nonutilitarian pleasure: People enjoy art for art's sake, and don't demand that it keep them warm or put food on the table. Style: Artistic objects and performances satisfy rules of composition that place them in a recognizable style. 9

Criticism: People make a point of judging, appreciating, and interpreting works of art. Imitation: With a few important exceptions like music and abstract painting, works of art simulate experiences of the world. Special focus: Art is set aside from ordinary life and made a dramatic focus of experience. Imagination: Artists and their audiences entertain hypothetical worlds in the theater of the imagination.

It might be objected, however, that there are rather too many exceptions to Dutton's categories. For example, the installations of the contemporary artist Thomas Hirschhorn deliberately eschew technical virtuosity. People can appreciate a Renaissance Madonna for aesthetic reasons, but such objects often had (and sometimes still have) specific devotional functions.

8. What are the divine proportions/golden ratio?

o In mathematics and the arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to (=) the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. The golden ratio is an irrational mathematical constant, approximately 1.6180339887. Other names frequently used for the golden ratio are the golden section (Latin: sectio aurea) and golden mean. Beginning in the Renaissance, a body of literature on the aesthetics of the golden ratio has developed. As a result, architects, artists, book designers, and others have been encouraged to use the golden ratio in the dimensional relationships of their works. The golden ration is present everywhere around us, and maybe it is a good answer for the question of beauty.

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Ethics: What is right? QUESTIONS TO CONCIDER: 1. What are ethics? o The field of ethics (or moral philosophy) involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behaviour. o Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: Metaethics: Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Metaethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves. Normative ethics: Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behaviour on others. Applied ethics: Applied ethics involves examining specific controversial issues, such as abortion, infanticide, animal rights, environmental concerns, homosexuality, capital punishment, or nuclear war.

2. Metaethics:
o The term meta means after or beyond and, consequently, the notion of metaethics involves a removed view of the entire project of ethics. We may define metaethics as the study of the origin and meaning of ethical concepts. When compared to normative ethics and applied ethics, the field of metaethics is the least precisely defined area of moral philosophy. It covers issues from moral semantics to moral epistemology. Two issues, though, are prominent, metaphysical issues and psychological issues.

3. Metaphysical and psychological issues in metaethics:

Metaphysical issues o The metaphysical component of metaethics involves discovering specifically whether moral values are eternal truths that exist in a spirit-like realm, or simply human conventions. There are two general directions that discussions of this topic take, one other-worldly and one thisworldly.

Psychological issues
o A second area of metaethics involves the psychological basis of our moral judgments and conduct, particularly understanding what motivates us to be moral. We might explore this subject by asking the simple question, Why be moral? Even if I am aware of ba sic moral standards, such as dont kill and dont steal, this does not necessarily mean that I will be psychologically compelled to act on them. Some answers to the question Why be moral? are to avoid punishment, to gain praise, to attain happiness, to be dignified, or to fit in with society. 11

4. Normative ethics: o Normative ethics involves arriving at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. In a sense, it is a search for an ideal test of proper behaviour. The Golden Rule is a classic example of a normative principle: We should do to others what we would want others to do to us. Since I do not want my neighbor to steal my car, then it is wrong for me to steal her car. Since I would want people to feed me if I was starving, then I should help feed starving people. Using this same reasoning, I can theoretically determine whether any possible action is right or wrong. o So, based on the Golden Rule, it would also be wrong for me to lie to, harass, victimize, assault, or kill others. The Golden Rule is an example of a normative theory that establishes a single principle against which we judge all actions. Other normative theories focus on a set of foundational principles, or a set of good character traits. o The key assumption in normative ethics is that there is only one ultimate criterion of moral conduct, whether it is a single rule or a set of principles. 5. Applied ethics: o Applied ethics is the branch of ethics which consists of the analysis of specific, controversial moral issues such as abortion, animal rights, or euthanasia. In recent years applied ethical issues have been subdivided into convenient groups such as medical ethics, business ethics, environmental ethics, and sexual ethics. o Generally speaking, two features are necessary for an issue to be considered an applied ethical issue. o First, the issue needs to be controversial in the sense that there are significant groups of people both for and against the issue at hand. The issue of drive-by shooting, for example, is not an applied ethical issue, since everyone agrees that this practice is grossly immoral. By contrast, the issue of gun control would be an applied ethical issue since there are significant groups of people both for and against gun control. o The second requirement for in issue to be an applied ethical issue is that it must be a distinctly moral issue. On any given day, the media presents us with an array of sensitive issues such as affirmative action policies, gays in the military, involuntary commitment of the mentally impaired, capitalistic versus socialistic business practices, public versus private health care systems, or energy conservation. o Although all of these issues are controversial and have an important impact on society, they are not all moral issues. Some are only issues of social policy. The aim of social policy is to help make a given society run efficiently by devising conventions, such as traffic laws, tax laws, and zoning codes. Moral issues, by contrast, concern more universally obligatory practices, such as our duty to avoid lying, and are not confined to individual societies. Frequently, issues of social policy and morality overlap, as with murder which is both socially prohibited and immoral.

6. Normative principles in applied ethics: o Arriving at a short list of representative normative principles is itself a challenging task. The principles selected must not be too narrowly focused, such as a version of act-egoism that might focus only on an actions short-term benefit. The principles must also be seen as having merit by people on both sides of an applied ethical issue. 12

For this reason, principles that appeal to duty to God are not usually cited since this would have no impact on a nonbeliever engaged in the debate. The following principles are the ones most commonly appealed to in applied ethical discussions: Personal benefit: acknowledge the extent to which an action produces beneficial consequences for the individual in question. Social benefit: acknowledge the extent to which an action produces beneficial consequences for society. Principle of benevolence: help those in need. Principle of paternalism: assist others in pursuing their best interests when they cannot do so themselves. Principle of harm: do not harm others. Principle of honesty: do not deceive others. Principle of lawfulness: do not violate the law. Principle of autonomy: acknowledge a persons freedom over his/her actions or physical body. Principle of justice: acknowledge a persons right to due process, fair compensation for harm done, and fair distribution of benefits. Rights: acknowledge a persons rights to life, information, privacy, free expression, and safety.

7. What is a code of conduct? o A code of conduct is intended to be a central guide and reference for users in support of dayto-day decision making. It is meant to clarify an organization's mission, values and principles, linking them with standards of professional conduct. As a reference, it can be used to locate relevant documents, services and other resources related to ethics within the organization. o A code is an open disclosure of the way an organization operates. It provides visible guidelines for behavior. A well-written and thoughtful code also serves as an important communication vehicle that reflects the covenant that an organization has made to uphold its most important values, dealing with such matters as its commitment to employees, its standards for doing business and its relationship with the community. A code is also a tool to encourage discussions of ethics and to improve how employees/members deal with the ethical dilemmas, prejudices and gray areas that are encountered in everyday work. A code is meant to complement relevant standards, policies and rules, not to substitute for them. o Codes of conduct offer an invaluable opportunity for responsible organizations to create a positive public identity for themselves which can lead to a more supportive political and regulatory environment and an increased level of public confidence and trust among important constituencies and stakeholders.

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Epistemology: How we learn? QUESTIONS TO CONCIDER:

1. What is epistemology?
o The word epistemology derives from the ancient Greek word episteme (), which means knowledge, science, and logos" () which means theory. So epistemology is the theory of knowledge and it is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of knowledge. It addresses the questions: What is knowledge? How is knowledge acquired? What do people know? How do we know what we know? Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims.

2. Is there a difference between knowing that and knowing how (belief, truth and
knowledge)? o In epistemology, the kind of knowledge usually discussed is propositional knowledge, also known as "knowledge-that" as opposed to "knowledge how." For example: in mathematics, it is known that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers. Many (but not all) philosophers therefore think there is an important distinction between "knowing that" and "knowing how", with epistemology primarily interested in the former.

Belief is a subjective personal basis for individual behavior, while truth is an objective state independent of the individual. Often, statements of "belief" mean that the speaker predicts something that will prove to be useful or successful in some senseperhaps the speaker might "believe in" his or her favorite football team. This is not the kind of belief usually addressed within epistemology. The kind that is dealt with is when "to believe something" simply means any cognitive content held as true. For example, to believe that the sky is blue is to think that the proposition "The sky is blue" is true. Knowledge entails belief, so the statement, "I know the sky is blue, but I don't believe it", is self-contradictory. On the other hand, knowledge about a belief does not entail an endorsement of its truth. For example, "I know about astrology, but I don't believe in it" is consistent. It is also possible that 14

someone believes in astrology but knows very little about it (it would be paradoxical to believe in something of which one knows absolutely nothing). For something to count as knowledge, it must actually be true. Whether somebody's belief is true is not a prerequisite for someone to believe it. On the other hand, if something is actually known, then it categorically cannot be false. For example, a person believes that a particular bridge is safe enough to support them, and attempts to cross it; unfortunately, the bridge collapses under their weight. It could be said that they believed that the bridge was safe, but that this belief was mistaken. It would not be accurate to say that they knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported their weight then they might be justified in subsequently holding that he knew the bridge had been safe enough for his passage, at least at that particular time.

3. What is a priori and what is a posteriori knowledge?

o The nature of this distinction has been disputed by various philosophers; however, the terms may be roughly defined as follows: A priori knowledge is knowledge that is known independently of experience (that is, it is non-empirical, or arrived at beforehand). A posteriori knowledge is knowledge that is known by experience (that is, it is empirical, or arrived at afterward).

4. Which are the most basic theories of knowledge acquisition?

o Empiricism: In philosophy, empiricism is generally a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience, especially experience based on perceptual observations by the five senses. Certain forms treat all knowledge as empirical while some regard disciplines such as mathematics, economics and logic as exceptions. Rationalism: Rationalists believe that knowledge is primarily (at least in some areas) acquired by a priori processes or is innatefor example, in the form of concepts not derived from experience. The relevant theoretical processes often go by the name "intuition". The relevant theoretical concepts may purportedly be part of the structure of the human mind (as in Kant's theory of transcendental idealism), or they may be said to exist independently of the mind (as in Plato's theory of Forms). The extent to which this innate human knowledge is emphasized over experience as a means to acquire knowledge varies from rationalist to rationalist. Some hold that knowledge of any kind can only be gained a priori, while others claim that some knowledge can also be gained a posteriori. Consequently, the borderline between rationalist epistemologies and others can be vague. Constructivism: Constructivism is a view in philosophy according to which all knowledge is "constructed" in as much as it is contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience. Constructivism proposes new definitions for knowledge and truth that form a new paradigm, based on inter-subjectivity instead of the classical objectivity, and on viability instead of truth.

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LECTURE ON PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

I.

Definition of Religion According to anthropologist Clifford Geertz, religion is: (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic. Written religions are linked to a sacred text (like the Koran) or a collection of sacred texts (like the Bible) and the believers are expected to have at least minimal knowledge of the contents of the works. Such religions regard their content as tied to the text and not to a particular cultural context. Since they are text-bound, these religions can be spread throughout the world to people who in other regards live very different kinds of lives. These can also be seen as religions of conversion or systems of belief to which one can be converted and in which one has to affirm ones faith. They tend to be exclusive and do not accept syncretism. The kinds of religion studied by anthropologists, however, are quite different to these ones based on text. Oral religions are characterized by: 1. Being locally confined. Gods are frequently physically associated with revered places in the tribal area. 2. They are embedded in the social practices of the society, whereas written ones are often more detached from other social institutions. They enter into every realm of life: birth, rites of passage, fertility and politics. 3. A relative lack of dogma. Two kinds of arguments for theism: 1. Traditional, epistemic arguments that God exists. Includes arguments stemming from cosmology, design, ontology and experience. 2. Modern, pragmatic arguments that hold that believing in God is good for us or is the right thing to do regardless of whether he exists or not.

II.

The Wager Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal (1623 1663) was a French philosopher and mathematician. His Penses was to have been a sustained and coherent examination and defense of the Christian faith. Pascal's Wager (or Pascal's Gambit) is a suggestion posed by Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because living with that belief that person has everything to gain and nothing to lose. Begins with the premise that we as human beings are incapable of knowing through reason either what he (God) is or whether he is. Also, God is infinite (with no end) and indivisible (cannot be divided). Either God is or he is not but which view will you pick? Reason alone cannot decide this question. It is like choosing head or tails when a coin is thrown up into the air. Our 16

understanding as human beings is limited so we must wager. Obvious choice would be to not choose at all but in this case this is not possible. Since a choice must be made, we have to see which one has the least to offer you. The possibilities defined by Pascal's Wager can be thought of as a decision under uncertainty with the values of the following decision matrix. God Does Not Exist (~G) -N (None) +N (None)

God Exists (G) Living as if God Exists (B) Living as if God Does Not Exist (~B)

+ (Heaven) Not Specified by Pascal Perhaps N (Limbo/Purgatory/Spiritual Death) or (Hell)

Given these values, the option of living as if God exists (B) dominates the option of living as if God does not exist (~B). In other words, the expected value gained by choosing B is always greater than or equal to that of choosing ~B regardless of the likelihood that God exists. IN-CLASS ACTIVITY: Apply this wager to global warming! (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ&feature=fvw) Keep in mind that this is not a proof but a motive for believing. Essentially, it is better to believe that God exists because the expected value of believing (which is infinite) is always greater than the expected value of not believing. Criticisms to Pascals Wager: 1. Argument that if you wager to believe in God but he does not exist then you are in fact losing something your ability to live a worldly life. 2. To believe in God simply for the payoff is the wrong motive for belief. Self-seeking individuals would not properly serve God.

III.

Why God Allows Evil Richard Swinburne Richard Swinburne is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years, Swinburne has been a very influential proponent of natural theology, that is, philosophical arguments for the existence of God. In his work, Swinburne presents arguments intending to show that the presence of evil (natural and moral) is not evidence against the existence of God. This poses the fundamental questions: If God is all-knowing, benevolent and all-powerful, then why does he allow evil to occur?

The existence of evil is consistent with the existence of an omnipotent, perfectly good God. 17

The amount of good in the world requires the possibility of substantial evil. Need to differentiate between moral evil (evil that stems from human beings acting in morally bad ways) and natural evil (pain and suffering that comes from anything other than human action).

IN-CLASS QUESTION: Can you give me examples of moral and natural evil? Natural evil is seen as punishment inflicted upon us by God for our sins. We cannot complain about these because we deserve what we get. The main issue with regards to natural evil is the fact that it is a cruel instrument of revenge as it is often too cruel to those who sin the least. As for moral evil, a generous God gives us certain goods such as pleasure, contentment and responsibility for ourselves, each other and the world, and thus a share in his own creative activity of determining what sort of world it is to be. This responsibility comes with free will since without free will we would not be responsible for choosing our actions. Likewise, to be responsible for something means we must have the opportunity to harm that thing as well as benefit it. And human beings must be to a certain extent inclined to do evil because if we didnt then we wouldnt have a choice between good and bad. If we only had an inclination to act rightly, then thered be no use for free will or responsibility. Essentially, Swinburne suggests that God would have made humans inclined to act wrongly in order to facilitate/assist the responsibility necessary for a good life. Natural evil provides human beings with the opportunity to have the complex responsibility necessary for good lives. o Natural processes that result in evil allow humans to either exploit them to harm others (moral evil) or fight them to do good. Example Disease! o The existence of natural evil gives humans the opportunity to act in morally significant ways. For instance, pain may make us help others. Good and evil are relative terms and one cannot have one unless one has both. Furthermore, evil is necessary for certain types of good to exist. Think of bravery, courage and compassion. If evil did not exist, thered be no need for these traits and hence the world would be inferior.

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LECTURE ON CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE AND MORAL RELATIVISM

I.

Immanuel Kant and The Categorical Imperative Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher who focused most of his work on the argument that actions are right or wrong regardless of the consequences and that the motive from which an action is performed is crucial to our assessment of its moral worth. The Golden Rule is an ethical code that states one has a right to just treatment and a responsibility to ensure justice for others. It is also called the ethic of reciprocity. It is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights. A key element of the golden rule is that a person attempting to live by this rule treats all people, not just members of his or her in-group, with consideration. The golden rule has its roots in a wide range of world cultures and is a standard which different cultures use to resolve conflicts; it was present in the philosophies of ancient Judaism, India, Greece, and China. Principal philosophers and religious figures have stated it in different ways, but its most common English phrasing is attributed to Jesus of Nazareth in the Biblical book of Luke: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Kants categorical imperative is similar to the Golden Rule. Kant claims that an actions moral worth is based on the motive from which the action is performed. Kant thought that: 1) humans occupy a special place in creation, and; 2) morality can be summed up in one command of reason (or imperative) from which all duties and obligations derive. An imperative is any proposition that declares a certain action (or lack of action) to be necessary. 1. A hypothetical imperative would force an action in a specific circumstance. For example: If I wish to satisfy my hunger, then I must eat something. 2. A categorical imperative shows an absolute and unconditional requirement that uses its authority in all circumstances. The categorical imperatives are the universal laws that will conform to all people who can rationally/logically think and make morally correct decisions that are not based on their own desires. The essence of the categorical imperative is universalisability. For an action to be morally valid, it should be able to become a universal law. Maxim 1: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." The moral proposition A It is permissible to steal would result in a contradiction in conceivability. The notion of stealing presupposes the existence of property. However, if moral proposition A (it is permissible to steal) were universalized, then there could be no property and so the proposition has logically negated itself. Lets also look at lying. If one believes lying is a moral and valid act, then one should be happy if everybody lied. This, however, would mean that no one would ever be able to

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communicate effectively since one would always expect people to be lying. The advocating for lying would defeat itself as it would render communication impossible. Another example is breaking promises. If it is ok to break promises, then one should be able to advocate for breaking promises for all. However, this would mark the end of the social institution of making promises. It would be self-defeating and henceforth morally wrong or invalid. Maxim 2: "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end." As a slave-owner would be effectively asserting a moral right to own a person as a slave, they would be asserting a property right in another person. But this would violate the categorical imperative because it denies the basis for there to be free rational action at all; it denies the status of a person as an end in themselves. One cannot, on Kant's account, ever suppose a right to treat another person as a mere means to an end. Maxim 3: "Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends." We ought to act only by maxims which would harmonize with a possible kingdom of ends. We have perfect duty not to act by maxims that create incoherent or impossible states of natural affairs when we attempt to universalize them, and we have imperfect duty not to act by maxims that lead to unstable or greatly undesirable states of affairs. Question: What if you were hiding Jews during WWII and Nazis came to your house and asked you whether you were providing shelter to Jews? The imperative would say that you should not lie and you should tell the truth. However, this is not morally right since you would be sending people to die. Ethics and logic are not always in agreement with one another.

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II.

Moral Relativism Moral relativism may be any of several descriptive, meta-ethical, or normative positions regarding the differences in moral or ethical judgments between different people and cultures: Descriptive relativism is merely the positive or descriptive position that there exist fundamental disagreements about the right course of action even when the same facts are present and the same consequences seem likely to arise. Common among anthropologists and sociologists. In other words, this type of relativism is the observation that different cultures have different moral standards. Meta-ethical relativism, on the other hand, is the position that all moral judgments have their origins either in societal or in individual standards and that no single objective standard exists by which one can assess the truth of a moral proposition. In other words, they believe not only that, given the same set of verifiable facts, some societies or individuals will have a fundamental disagreement about what one ought to do based on societal or individual norms; but further, that one cannot adjudicate these using some independent standard of evaluation the standard will always be societal or personal. Normative relativism, further still, is the position that as there is no universal moral standard by which to judge others, we ought to tolerate the behavior of others even when it runs counter to our personal or cultural moral standards. Argument Against Moral Relativism Cross-Cultural Comparisons To make cross-cultural comparisons, we need cross-cultural standards. Cultural relativism, though, is nothing more than the view that there are no such things. Cultural relativism therefore makes cross-cultural comparisons impossible since we cannot judge one culture to be either morally superior or inferior to another. Some such judgments, though, are valid, and there must therefore be cross-cultural standards. Cultural relativism must therefore be false. Moral Progress Not only does moral relativism entail that we cannot make legitimate moral comparisons of different cultures, it also entails that we cannot make legitimate moral comparisons of a single culture across timewe cannot judge whether a changing society is getting better or worse. Generally, though, we do think that we have made moral progress. Moral relativism, arguably, cannot make sense of this. Great Reformers Further, when we consider the great reformers that have helped to bring about those changes that we take to constitute moral progress, e.g. the abolition of slavery, or granting the working classes and women the right to vote, we generally think these reformers are moral exemplars. According to cultural relativism, though, these great reformers were bad people; they acted in opposition to the values of their particular cultural contexts.

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Arguments For Moral Relativism The Argument from Disagreement The argument from disagreement is the argument that the fact of moral disagreement implies moral relativism. If we look at the world around us, we find that different people and different cultures have different, in some cases radically different, moral codes. If there were one true morality then we would not expect to find this; rather, we would expect to find individuals in agreement about morality, and a cross-cultural consensus on moral issues. The fact of moral disagreement thus implies that morality is a product of personal opinion or culture, that there is no one true morality. The Argument from Flexibility The argument from flexibility is the argument that it is only moral relativism that can explain why different people in different situations have different moral duties. For any proposed moral rule (e.g. dont kill, or dont steal), there appear to be exceptions. Killing in self defense, or theft in order to feed ones starving family, are perhaps acceptable. The dogmatic view that there are absolute moral rules therefore seems to be too simplistic; we should accept that morality varies depending on circumstances, that it is relative. The Argument from Tolerance The argument from tolerance attempts to establish that moral relativism is true on the basis that the alternative--moral absolutism--is intolerant. We ought to be tolerant, the argument runs, but to morally criticize other cultures or individuals is intolerant. We should therefore recognize that moral criticism of others is inappropriate; we should become moral relativists.

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LECTURE ON POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

I.

Definition of Political Philosophy What is political philosophy? Two fundamental questions to define political philosophy: 1. Who gets what? 2. Says who? Question 1 refers to the distribution of material goods and of rights and liberties. Question 2 refers to the distribution of political power. According to John Locke, political power is the right of making laws with penalties of death and consequently all less penalties. Hence, political power includes the right to command others and to subject them to punishment if they disobey. Political philosophy is a normative discipline, meaning that it tries to establish norms (rules or ideal standards). Descriptive studies, instead, attempt to find out how things are. Normative studies try to discover how things should bewhat is right, just or morally correct. A political philosopher will not ask how is property distributed?, but what would be a just or fair distribution of property? Not what rights and liberties do people have?, but what rights and liberties should people have? When discussing political philosophy, there is no hiding place. Agnosticism (or skepticism/doubt/disbelief) is not a viable position in political philosophy. In every society, someone (or no one) holds political power and property is distributed in one way or another.

II.

On the Natural Condition of Mankind (Thomas Hobbess Leviathan, 1651) Imagine human life outside of society without any overall authority or power keeping anyone in check. What would life be in this world or State of Nature? The Leviathan refers to a Biblical sea monster found in the Old Testament. This word has become synonymous with any large sea monster or creature. In Christianity, it is often considered to be a demon or monster associated to the Devil. 1. Nature made men equal in the faculties of the body and the mind. 2. The clearest sign that there is equal distribution of any thing is that every man is contented with his share. 3. If two men desire the same thing, which they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies. Their goal is then to destroy or subdue the other. 4. Three causes for men to fight each other: a) competition; b) diffidence, and; c) glory. 5. Competition makes men fight for gain. Diffidence makes men fight for safety. Glory makes men fight for reputation. 6. When men live without a common power to keep them in control, they are in a condition which is called WAR.

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7. During a condition of WAR, there is no room for industry, agriculture, navigation, building, transportation, knowledge, arts, letters and society. It is a state of continual fear and the life of man is reduced to being solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. 8. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where there is no law, there is no injustice. Concepts of right or wrong have no space in this State of Nature. 9. What inclines men to peace are the fear of death, the desire for things that are necessary for comfortable living, and hope that by hard work and industry they will be able to obtain them. Men come to agreement through convenient articles of peace or the Laws of Nature under a common authority. IN-CLASS QUESTIONS: a. Do you think people would be able to live in a society where there is no common power looking over them? b. What is the best type of government to rule over a society?

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LECTURE ON JUST WAR THEORY

Just War Theory (or Bellum iustum) is a doctrine of military ethics of Roman philosophical and Catholic origin, studied by moral theologians, ethicists and international policy makers, which holds that a conflict can and ought to meet the criteria of philosophical, religious or political justice, provided it follows certain conditions.

Criteria of Just War theory Just War Theory has two sets of criteria. The first establishing jus ad bellum, the right to go to war; the second establishing jus in bello, right conduct within war. Jus ad bellum Just cause The reason for going to war needs to be just and cannot therefore be solely for recapturing things taken or punishing people who have done wrong; innocent life must be in imminent danger and intervention must be to protect life. A contemporary view of just cause was expressed in 1993 when the US Catholic Conference said: "Force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights of whole populations." Comparative justice While there may be rights and wrongs on all sides of a conflict, to overcome the presumption against the use of force, the injustice suffered by one party must significantly outweigh that suffered by the other. Some theorists such as Brian Orend omit this term, seeing it as fertile ground for exploitation by bellicose regimes. Legitimate authority Only duly constituted public authorities may wage war. Right intention Force may be used only in a truly just cause and solely for that purposecorrecting a suffered wrong is considered a right intention, while material gain or maintaining economies is not. Probability of success Arms may not be used in a futile cause or in a case where disproportionate measures are required to achieve success; Last resort Force may be used only after all peaceful and viable alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted or are clearly not practical. It may be clear that the other side is using negotiations as a delaying tactic and will not make meaningful concessions. Proportionality The anticipated benefits of waging a war must be proportionate to its expected evils or harms. This principle is also known as the principle of macro-proportionality, so as to distinguish it from the jus in bello principle of proportionality. 25

In modern terms, just war is waged in terms of self-defense or in defense of another (with sufficient evidence). Jus in bello Once war has begun, just war theory (Jus in bello) also directs how combatants are to act or should act: Distinction Just war conduct should be governed by the principle of distinction. The acts of war should be directed towards enemy combatants, and not towards non-combatants caught in circumstances they did not create. The prohibited acts include bombing civilian residential areas that include no military target and committing acts of terrorism or reprisal against civilians. Proportionality Just war conduct should be governed by the principle of proportionality. An attack cannot be launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality). Military necessity Just war conduct should be governed by the principle of minimum force. An attack or action must be intended to help in the military defeat of the enemy, it must be an attack on a military objective, and the harm caused to civilians or civilian property must be proportional and not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. This principle is meant to limit excessive and unnecessary death and destruction. Ending a war: Jus post bellum In recent years, some theorists, such as Gary Bass, Louis Iasiello and Brian Orend, have proposed a third category within Just War theory. Jus post bellum concerns justice after a war, including peace treaties, reconstruction, war crimes trials, and war reparations. Orend, for instance, proposes the following principles: Just cause for termination A state may terminate a war if there has been a reasonable vindication of the rights that were violated in the first place, and if the aggressor is willing to negotiate the terms of surrender. These terms of surrender include a formal apology, compensations, war crimes trials and perhaps rehabilitation. Alternatively, a state may end a war if it becomes clear that any just goals of the war cannot be reached at all or cannot be reached without using excessive force. Right intention A state must only terminate a war under the conditions agreed upon in the above criteria. Revenge is not permitted. The victor state must also be willing to apply the same level of objectivity and investigation into any war crimes its armed forces may have committed. Public declaration and authority

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The terms of peace must be made by a legitimate authority, and the terms must be accepted by a legitimate authority. Discrimination The victor state is to differentiate between political and military leaders, and combatants and civilians. Punitive measures are to be limited to those directly responsible for the conflict. Truth and reconciliation may sometimes be more important than punishing war crimes. Proportionality Any terms of surrender must be proportional to the rights that were initially violated. Draconian measures, absolutionist crusades and any attempt at denying the surrendered country the right to participate in the world community are not permitted.

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LECTURE ON BIOMEDICAL ETHICS Sources: 1) http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.com/pdf/13/9780199551927_chapter1.pdf 2) http://www.aboutbioscience.org/topics/bioethics Medical ethics is a branch of applied ethics, and it is principally concerned with how we should go about resolving particularly difficult questions that arise from the practice of medicine. For example: a) When is it acceptable for doctors to withhold lifesaving treatment from a profoundly disabled baby? b) Should parents be allowed to choose their childrens sex? c) What, if anything, would be wrong with paying someone to donate one of their kidneys? d) Should an anorexic teenager be force-fed? e) Should scientists be allowed to create animalhuman hybrid embryos? f) What limits, if any, should be placed upon womens access to abortion? g) Should voluntary euthanasia be legalized? Conventionally, medical ethics has been concerned with the ethics of good medical practice: that is, with what it means to be a good doctor. Ethical rules or codes of conduct were guidelines that the medical profession imposed upon itself in order to ensure that doctors behavior towards both their colleagues and their patients met appropriate standards of moral decency. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the vantage point was always that of the doctor himself: how the doctor should obtain consent; when a doctor can breach his duty of confidentiality; and so on. Bioethics remit is generally assumed to be much wider than that of traditional medical ethics. It emerged as a distinctive discipline in the 1960s in response to a number of different factors. First, rapid technological progress was posing some complex dilemmas, particularly at the beginning and end of life, which went beyond ethical conduct within the doctorpatient encounter. For example, once it became possible to (a) perform organ transplants, and (b) keep a patients heart beating after death, it was necessary to ask whether brain-dead but still breathing patients could be a legitimate source of organs for transplantation. Secondly, medical paternalism was beginning to be challenged, and the principle of patient autonomy was instead ascendant. Patients no longer automatically deferred to doctors superior medical expertise, but were increasingly willing to insist upon their rights. Depending on the creator of the definition, bioethics is defined as:

The study of the ethical and moral implications of new biological discoveries and biomedical advances as in the fields of genetic engineering and drug research. The branch of ethics, philosophy and social commentary that discusses the life sciences and their potential impact on society. The study of value judgments pertaining to human conduct in the areas of biology and biotechnology. The study and consideration of what is right and wrong in biological advances and activities such as genetic engineering, the transplantation of organs and the care of the terminally ill. The study of the moral and ethical choices scientists and doctors face in medical research and in the treatment of patients. The study of biology combined with diverse humanistic knowledge, forging a science that sets a system of medical and environmental priorities for acceptable survival. 28

The exploration of moral and ethical questions surrounding life, health, science, medicine and the environment. Bioethical Frameworks

To better evaluate medical cases and make decisions, medical ethicists have tried to establish specific ethical frameworks and procedures. One system, developed in the late 1970s by American philosopher Tom Beauchamp and American theologian James Childress, is known as principlism, or the Four Principles Approach. In this system, ethical decisions pertaining to biomedicine are made by weighing the importance of four separate elements: (1) respecting individuals autonomy and their right to their own decisions and beliefs; (2) the principle of beneficence, with helping people as the primary goal; (3) the related principle of nonmalificence, or refraining from harming people; and (4) justice, or distributing burdens and benefits fairly. While some medical ethicists follow principlism, others employ a system known as casuistry a casebased approach. When faced with a complex bioethical case, casuists attempt to envision a similar yet clearer case in which virtually anyone could agree on a solution. By weighing solutions to the hypothetical case, casuists work their way toward a solution to the real case at hand. Bioethical Decision-Making Decision-making in bioethics occurs when an individual or group of individuals confronts a bioethical dilemma that requires a choice be made between two or more seemingly conflicting outcomes. Often, there are both positive and negative consequences to each of these possible outcomes. In trying to reach decisions, bioethicists consider the following paradigms: Individual vs. Community In this paradigm, the needs and interests of the individual are weighed against the needs and interests of the community. Short-Term vs. Long-Term In this paradigm, the costs and benefits that will arise in the short-term are weighed against the costs and benefits that will arise in the long-term. Justice vs. Mercy In this paradigm, the need for exacting appropriate justice is weighed against the need to show appropriate mercy. Each of these paradigms characterizes a unique struggle between competing values. Strategies used to make decisions tend to fall into one of the following three broad categories:

Ends-Based Reasoning: Operates on the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number Rule-Based Reasoning: Guided by the rules that generally guide the actions of the people in the community Care-Based Reasoning: Uses concern for others as the guiding principle for a moral decision

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LECTURE ON PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE

Philosophy of Love: An Overview Adapted from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/love/ Love plays an enormous role in our several cultures. We find it discussed in song, film, and novels humorously or seriously. It is a constant theme of maturing life and a vibrant theme for youth. Historically, in the Western tradition, Platos Symposium presents the initiating text, for it provides us with an enormously influential and attractive notion that love is characterized by a series of elevations, in which animalistic desire or base lust is superseded by a more intellectual conception of love which also is surpassed by what may be construed by a theological vision of love that transcends sensual attraction and mutuality. In English, the word love, which is derived from Germanic forms of the Sanskrit lubh (desire), is broadly defined and hence imprecise, which generates first order problems of definition and meaning. These are resolved to some extent by the reference to the Greek terms, eros, philia, and agape. EROS The term eros (Greek erasthai) is used to refer to that part of love constituting a passionate, intense desire for something; it is often referred to as a sexual desire, hence the modern notion of erotic (Greek erotikos). In Platos writings however, eros is held to be a common desire that seeks transcendental beautythe particular beauty of an individual reminds us of true beauty that exists in the world of Forms or Ideas. The implication of the Platonic theory of eros is that ideal beauty, which is reflected in the particular images of beauty we find, becomes interchangeable across people and things, ideas, and art: to love is to love the Platonic form of beautynot a particular individual, but the element they posses of true (Ideal) beauty. PHILLIA Philia entails a fondness and appreciation of the other. For the Greeks, the term philia incorporated not just friendship, but also loyalties to family and polisones political community, job, or discipline. The English concept of friendship roughly captures Aristotles notion of philia, as he writes: things that cause friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done. The first condition for the highest form of Aristotelian love is that a man loves himself. Without an egoistic basis, he cannot extend sympathy and affection to others. Such self-love is not hedonistic, or glorified, depending on the pursuit of immediate pleasures or the adulation of the crowd, it is instead a reflection of his pursuit of the noble and virtuous, which culminate in the pursuit of the reflective life. AGAPE Agape refers to the paternal love of God for man and of man for God but is extended to include a brotherly love for all humanity. Agape arguably draws on elements from both eros and philia in that it seeks a perfect kind of love that is at once a fondness, a transcending of the particular, and a passion without the necessity of reciprocity. 30

THE NATURE OF LOVE Does it exist and if so, is it knowable, comprehensible, and describable? Love may be knowable and comprehensible to others, as understood in the phrases, I am in love, I love you, but what love means in these sentences may not be analyzed further. The epistemology of love asks how we may know love, how we may understand it, whether it is possible or plausible to make statements about others or ourselves being in love (which touches on the philosophical issue of private knowledge versus public behavior). Physical: Physical determinists, those who believe the world to entirely physical and that every event has a prior (physical cause), consider love to be an extension of the chemical-biological constituents of the human creature and be explicable according to such processes. Behavioral: Love is a series of actions and preferences which is thereby observable to oneself and others. The behaviorist theory that love is observable (according to the recognizable behavioral constraints corresponding to acts of love) suggests also that it is theoretically quantifiable: that A acts in a certain way (actions X,Y,Z) around B, more so than he does around C, suggests that he loves B more than C. Expressionist: Love is considered an expression of a state of affairs towards a beloved, which may be communicated through language (words, poetry, music) or behavior (bringing flowers, giving up a kidney, diving into the proverbial burning building), but which is a reflection of an internal, emotional state, rather than an exhibition of physical responses to stimuli. Others in this vein may claim love to be a spiritual response, the recognition of a soul that completes o nes own soul, or complements or augments it. ETHICS AND LOVE The subject area raises such questions as: o Is it ethically acceptable to love an object, or to love oneself? o Is love to oneself or to another a duty? o Should the ethically minded person aim to love all people equally? o Is partial love morally acceptable or permissible (that is, not right, but excusable)? o Should love only involve those with whom the agent can have a meaningful relationship? o Should love aim to transcend sexual desire or physical appearances? o May notions of romantic, sexual love apply to same sex couples? LOVE IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY In the area of political philosophy, love can be studied from a variety of perspectives. For example, some may see love as an instantiation of social dominance by one group (males) over another (females), in which the socially constructed language and etiquette of love is designed to empower men and disempower women.

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Socrates Apology by Plato [Translated by Benjamin Jowett] The jury finds Socrates guilty: Socrates' Proposal for his Sentence There are many reasons why I am not grieved, O men of Athens, at the vote of condemnation. I expected it, and am only surprised that the votes are so nearly equal; for I had thought that the majority against me would have been far larger; but now, had thirty votes gone over to the other side, I should have been acquitted. And I may say that I have escaped Meletus. And I may say more; for without the assistance of Anytus and Lycon, he would not have had a fifth part of the votes, as the law requires, in which case he would have incurred a fine of a thousand drachmae, as is evident. And so he proposes death as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my part, O men of Athens? Clearly that which is my due. And what is that which I ought to pay or to receive? What shall be done to the man who has never had the wit to be idle during his whole life; but has been careless of what the many care about - wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was really too honest a man to follow in this way and live, I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where I could do the greatest good privately to everyone of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the state before he looks to the interests of the state; and that this should be the order which he observes in all his actions. What shall be done to such a one? Doubtless some good thing, O men of Athens, if he has his reward; and the good should be of a kind suitable to him. What would be a reward suitable to a poor man who is your benefactor, who desires leisure that he may instruct you? There can be no more fitting reward than maintenance in the Prytaneum, O men of Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who has won the prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many. For I am in want, and he has enough; and he only gives you the appearance of happiness, and I give you the reality. And if I am to estimate the penalty justly, I say that maintenance in the Prytaneum is the just return. Perhaps you may think that I am braving you in saying this, as in what I said before about the tears and prayers. But that is not the case. I speak rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged anyone, although I cannot convince you of that - for we have had a short conversation only; but if there were a law at Athens, such as there is in other cities, that a capital cause should not be decided in one day, then I believe that I should have convinced you; but now the time is too short. I cannot in a moment refute great slanders; and, as I am convinced that I never wronged another, I will assuredly not wrong myself. I will not say of myself that I deserve any evil, or propose any penalty. Why should I? Because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes? When I do not know whether death is a good or an evil, why should I propose a penalty which would certainly be an evil? Shall I say imprisonment? And why should I live in prison, and be the slave of the magistrates of the year - of the Eleven? Or shall the penalty be a fine, and imprisonment until the fine is paid? There is the same objection. I should have to lie in prison, for money I have none, and I cannot pay. And if I say exile (and this may possibly be the penalty which you will affix), I must indeed be blinded by the love of life if I were to consider that when you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you would fain have done with them, others are likely to endure me. No, indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely. And what a life should I lead, at my age, wandering from city to city, 32

living in ever-changing exile, and always being driven out! For I am quite sure that into whatever place I go, as here so also there, the young men will come to me; and if I drive them away, their elders will drive me out at their desire: and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will drive me out for their sakes. Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living - that you are still less likely to believe. And yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. Moreover, I am not accustomed to think that I deserve any punishment. Had I money I might have proposed to give you what I had, and have been none the worse. But you see that I have none, and can only ask you to proportion the fine to my means. However, I think that I could afford a minae, and therefore I propose that penalty; Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thirty minae, and they will be the sureties. Well then, say thirty minae, let that be the penalty; for that they will be ample security to you.

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Cleopatra No Beauty Queen, Coin Suggests February 15, 2007 By Aalok Mehta

She was the legendary queen of Egypt who seduced two of the most powerful men in the ancient world. But a silver coin that went on display at a British university yesterday suggests Cleopatra's beauty may be Hollywood fiction. On one side the coin shows the Egyptian ruler with a shallow forehead, long nose, narrow lips, and a sharply pointed chin (at left above). On the other, her longtime lover, the powerful Roman general and politician Mark Antony, is depicted with a large hooked nose and thick neck (right).

The unflattering images suggest that fictional accountsfrom Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra to the HBO TV series Romeoverplay the attractiveness of the doomed couple. "The image on the coin is far from being that of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton," said Lindsay AllasonJones, director of archaeological museums at Newcastle University, in a statement. "Roman writers tell us that Cleopatra was intelligent and charismatic, and that she had a seductive voice but, tellingly, they do not mention her beauty. The image of Cleopatra as a beautiful seductress is a more recent image." However she looked in reality, Cleopatra's charm helped change the course of Roman history. In 48 B.C. she seduced Rome's first emperor, Julius Caesar30 years her seniorand bore him a son. But her relationship years later with Antony, with whom she had three children, ended in tragedy.

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After Antony's defeat by Octavian, Rome's soon-to-be second emperor, in 31 B.C., both Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. According to legend, Cleopatra chose to perish by an asp's bite.

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Mapping morality: the ethics of technology Jonathan Weber, 19 November 2007 A few weeks ago, NewWest.Net sponsored an event featuring the deputy editor of Wired magazine, and during the Q&A someone asked about Wired's coverage of military technology and the ethical implications thereof. The editor, Thomas Goetz, said that Wired considered technology itself to be valueneutral, i.e. neither good nor evil, though how it's used might be a different matter. That's the position that the Western scientists and engineers have always taken, and it's hard to debate the basic logic. A hammer is just a hammer; it's a person who uses it to hammer nails and build a house, or hammer somebody else down. On the other hand, some technologies nuclear fission, genetic engineering are so powerful that their very existence raises profound ethical and moral issues, and I've never been entirely comfortable with the idea that the human consequences of world-changing innovations will simply take care of themselves. In fact, we're about to enter some very interesting territory in this regard with the advent of commercial genetic profiling. Three different start-up companies are preparing to offer services in which you spit in a cup and get back an analysis of your DNA. By cross-referencing that data with the fast-growing body of research on genetics, you can learn a lot about your predisposition to certain medical conditions (not to mention your ancestry). The rub, though, is that proper interpretation of such testing requires quite a lot of expertise so what is the ethical obligation of the company to guide you through it, rather than simply offer you the data along with a very basic briefing? If you decide to get the testing and find out something potentially significant, what do you tell a sibling who has decided they don't want to know? And will this data really stay out of the hands of health insurance companies, the one group of entities that could clearly make very specific, practical use of it? Should there be a law about that? The democratic political system is ill-equipped to address these complicated, emotional and fast-changing issues. In the US, the one major political effort to regulate genetic engineering the Bush Administration's ban on many types of stem-cell research was driven by a narrow religious agenda having to do with abortion. Reproductive medicine, where the moral and ethical questions really come to a head is it OK to choose your baby's gender, or eye color? remains almost entirely unregulated. It's not that scientists and engineers don't wrestle with these issues; in a current Wired story, the aforementioned Goetz recounts some of the board-level discussions of these questions at one of the personal genetics companies, 23andMe. "There's no lack of caveats and in-context explanations on the [23andMe] site counseling customers to be cautious," he writes. "In fact, the board at times even urged the company to hedge less and embrace the technology's gee-whiz factor, including uncertainty, more decisively." And I'm hardly one to advocate government dictate over individual choice. Given the opportunity, I personally would love to know as much as I can about my genetic make-up, and make my choices accordingly. On balance, I think technological advances in general be they aimed at curing disease, or making our lives easier, or protecting the planet present incredible opportunities for humankind, and indeed are in some ways the very foundation of European Enlightenment thinking, which in turn is the foundation of modern Western society. That said, I'm still not very comfortable with the idea that the moral and ethical issues presented by new technologies are either non-issues, or ones that should be left strictly to scientists and capitalists. That's particularly the case at a time when rising economic inequality is widening the gap between what's available to the rich and what's available to everyone else. 23andMe will charge $1,000 (490) for a basic genetic analysis but a full map of your genome, which will be possible very soon, might cost $250,000. Hereditary wealth may soon have a whole new dimension. Legislating morality is dangerous territory, for 36

the obvious reasons. But we all have an obligation to take these issues very seriously, and to try to understand the social and political consequences of our inventions. Even the most conscientious companies and researchers, after all, have motivations other than the public good, and can't be expected to be impartial societal arbiters of how technologies are or are not used. That, inconveniently, is the job of the rest of us.

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Ten Writing Tips for Creating an Effective Code of Conducts By Jerry Brown [ERC Ethics Resource Center] Tip 1: Think in terms of values, beliefs and expectations rather than facts. People within an organization are inclined to feel that their situation in life is unique and that no other organization is faced with the same challenges, constraints and operational realities that they have to deal with on a daily basis. The sense of individual uniqueness is countered somewhat by a sense of group unity. The group is unified behind a core of shared beliefs that may be informally recognized within the organization or may codified in the form of an organizational values statement. The organization's values are the foundation upon which the code of conduct will grow. They express what a group of people drawn together as an organization believes in the words of Frank Navran, " to be right, good and fair." Once you recognize that you are not writing a report and that you may be called on to use language you usually avoid in formal reports because it may imply that you are judgmental or are assigning values to actions, you'll be able to start writing.

Tip 2: Put your thesaurus back on the bookshelf. In most hands a thesaurus is a dangerous weapon. Lock it away and resist the temptation to use it. Your code will benefit from common language usually employed in your organization and understood readily by employees at all levels. This doesn't mean you should become immersed in jargon. "Keep it simple," is the best advice for codes. In the words of a former professor of mine, "Eschew pomposity and verbosity assiduously." Tip 3: Choose to be concisewithin reason. Conciseness can be a virtue. It can also be boring and choppy. To find a happy medium, avoid long sentences with linked phrases. Instead write sentences that express one thought and vary in length. A mix of short and medium-length sentences tend to hold your readers' attention better than will long, complex sentences.

Tip 4: Use active voice rather than passive. While there is a place in writing for passive voice, active voice tends to convey ideas more clearly and with fewer words. In sentences written in active voice, the subject performs the action expressed in the verb. In passive voice, the subject is acted upon by the verb. Overuse of passive voice tends to make prose flat and uninteresting and passive voice sentences tend to be awkward. For example, "The code is required annual reading." [PASSIVE] "You are required to read the code annually." [ACTIVE]

Tip 5: Give examples when it is appropriate to do so.

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If there is any doubt about the meaning of a code provision, an example may help provide clarity. Codes may vary in length and content. Those that are more compliance-oriented than value-centered may be better understood if you provide good, generic examples of what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable conduct. Tip 6: Remember to write for your reader. By this point in the process, you have become your organization's expert on the code of conduct. Don't lose sight of your readers. Something obvious to you may not be obvious to them. Think about what you are writing in terms of readers who have NOT had your experience with the code.

Tip 7: Don't attempt to write polished prose when drafting. DREP - Draft; review; edit; and, polish. Draft the entire code without being overly concerned about grammatical errors, punctuation and word choice. Once you have a draft on paper, review it carefully for clarity, content, conciseness, grammar, spelling and punctuation and clean it up. Edit the cleaned copy paying special attention to word choices and meaning. Finally, polish your final draft with the understanding that the next tip may just bring you back to this tip one more time.

Tip 8: Read your work aloud to yourself. When you read your written work aloud, you will find errors and points of confusion because you have involved another of your senses. After all, you have thought about the code, written at least two drafts, edited a draft, and polished the text. Hearing the words may detect problems that your eyes, which are used to seeing the copy, have missed. If you find errors, repeat tips 7 and 8 until it sounds right as well as looks right.

Tip 9: Make your writing look easy to read. Take a look at your final draft and ask the critical question, "How does this look to me?" You want this final draft to look professional because the reviewers you will pass it to next will judge what you have done based on its appearance as well as what you have written. Avoid using words and phrases written all in capital letters unless they are acronyms or unless they are specialized terms that are always written in fully capitalized form. Avoid presenting material in lengthy stretches of italics. They are hard to read. Avoid odd type fonts, especially those that mimic handwriting.

Tip 10: Have others, especially your harshest critics, read what you have written. Once you are satisfied that what you have written makes sense and looks good, obtain the opinion of others. Sure, you can have some of your friends read what you have written. They may give you good feedback or they may sugarcoat their comments to you. I like to choose the critics who are the harshest judges of my work for a final review. If I can get what I have written past them, I have succeeded.

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How We Learn 16 January 2005, By ALISON GOPNIK o here's the big question: if children who don't even go to school learn so easily, why do children who go to school seem to have such a hard time? Why can children solve problems that challenge computers but stumble on a third-grade reading test? When we talk about learning, we really mean two quite different things, the process of discovery and of mastering what one discovers. All children are naturally driven to create an accurate picture of the world and, with the help of adults to use that picture to make predictions, formulate explanations, imagine alternatives and design plans. Call it ''guided discovery.'' If this kind of learning is what we have in mind then one answer to the big question is that schools don't teach the same way children learn. As in the gear-and-switch experiments, children seem to learn best when they can explore the world and interact with expert adults. For example, Barbara Rogoff, professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, studied children growing up in poor Guatemalan Indian villages. The youngsters gradually mastered complex skills like preparing tortillas from scratch, beginning with the 2-year-old mimicking the flattening of dough to the 10-year-old entrusted with the entire task. They learned by watching adults, trying themselves and receiving detailed corrective feedback about their efforts. Mothers did a careful analysis of what the child was capable of before encouraging the next step. This may sound like a touchy-feely progressive prescription. But a good example of such teaching in our culture is the stern but beloved baseball coach. How many school teachers are as good at essay writing, science or mathematics as the average coach is at baseball? And even when teachers are expert, how many children ever get to watch them work through writing an essay or designing a scientific experiment or solving an unfamiliar math problem? Imagine if baseball were taught the way science is taught in most inner-city schools. Schoolchildren would get lectures about the history of the World Series. High school students would occasionally reproduce famous plays of the past. Nobody would get in the game themselves until graduate school. But there is another side to the question. In guided discovery -- figuring out how the world works or unraveling the structure of making tortillas -- children learn to solve new problems. But what is expected in school, at least in part, involves a very different process: call it ''routinized learning.'' Something already learned is made to be second nature, so as to perform a skill effortlessly and quickly. The two modes of learning seem to involve different underlying mechanisms and even different brain regions, and the ability to do them develops at different stages. Babies are as good at discovery as the smartest adult -- or better. But routinized learning evolves later. There may even be brain changes that help. There are also tradeoffs: Children seem to learn new things more easily than adults. But especially through the school-age years, knowledge becomes more and more engrained and automatic. For that reason, it also becomes harder to change. In a sense, routinized learning is less about getting smarter than getting stupider: it's about perfecting mindless procedures. This frees attention and thought for new discoveries. The activities that promote mastery may be different from the activities that promote discovery. What makes knowledge automatic is what gets you to Carnegie Hall -- practice, practice, practice. In some settings, like the Guatemalan village, this happens naturally: make tortillas every day and you'll get good at it. In our culture, children rich and poor grow highly skilled at video games they play for hours. But in school we need to acquire unnatural skills like reading and writing. These are meaningless in themselves. There is no intrinsic discovery in learning artificial mapping between visual symbols and sounds, and in the natural environment no one would ever think of looking for that sort of mapping. On the other hand, mastering these skills is absolutely necessary, allowing us to exercise our abilities for discovery in a wider world. 40

The problem for many children in elementary school may not be that they're not smart enough but that they're not stupid enough. They haven't yet been able to make reading and writing transparent and automatic. This is particularly true for children who don't have natural opportunities to practice these skills, learning in chaotic and impoverished schools and leading chaotic and impoverished lives. But routinized learning is not an end in itself. A good coach may well make his players throw the ball to first base 50 times or swing again and again in the batting cage. That will help, but by itself it won't make a strong player. The game itself -- reacting to different pitches, strategizing about base running -- requires thought, flexibility and inventiveness. Children would never tolerate baseball if all they did was practice. No coach would evaluate a child, and no society would evaluate a coach, based on performance in the batting cage. What makes for learning is the right balance of both learning processes, allowing children to retain their native brilliance as they grow up.

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