I. Identifications
Select just seven (7) of the following items. Tell me briefly (a) what each is and (b) why it is important.
ethics & values, moral theory, deontology, virtue theory, Plato's cave, Jiddhu Krishnamurti,Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott, bell hooks, Aristotle, the doctrine of the mean, Marcus Aurelius,Alasdair MacIntyre, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Immanuel Kant, the categorical imperative
II. Short Essays
Answer any three (3) of the following questions in 1-3 paragraphs. Be sure that your answer provides historical information showing clearly how it is correct.
1. The person who leaves Plato's cave has a transformation that changes that person's relationships with other people. What other examples can you think of where an educational experience changes a person's relationships with others?
2. To what extent do you think that institutions, traditions, culture, society, government, and so on,shape and control us and our conceptions of morality? Explain your answer with details from your own experience.
3. What is the purpose of university education? Why do you attend the university?
4. Do you think someone deserves praise for performing an act of kindness if it can be shown that the situation explains the action better than the character of the person? Why or why not?
Explain carefully how the situationist [someone who thinks the situation matters more than character] and the globalist [some who assigns more importance to character than to any particular situation] would answer this question.
5. Many people believe that Kant's theory [deontology, positing the categorical imperative] is usually but not always right, asserting that they need more flexibility in their decision making.
Others reply that if we are going to make exceptions, the point of having a theory is lost,asserting that the reason to have such a theory as Kant's is that it is the only way to avoid rationalizations. Who is right and why?