1. At the very beginning of the First Meditation, Descartes describes an experience he had had not many years before, the result of which is that he is currently in a completely unacceptable situation concerning all of his beliefs. What was the experience, and what is that situation? What is his strategy for getting out of it, and what better situation does he hope to get into by means of that strategy?
2. Descartes claims, almost casually, that our senses have sometimes deceived us (which just means that some of the beliefs we have formed about the world as a direct result of observation have been false). Explain why it would appear to be impossible, by the very high standards of proof Descartes adopts, for him to prove that our senses deceived us on any particular occasion. (Recall the mirage example.)
3. What is Descartes's "Evil Demon" or "Evil Genius" hypothesis? Why does he bring it into his investigations? What conclusions does he draw from his belief that it could conceivably be true?
4. Describe briefly the three main views various philosophers have held concerning the problem of free will and determinism, making clear their basic points of agreement and disagreement.
5. (i) Briefly describe the two sorts of causation - transeunt and immanent - that Chisholm distinguishes. (ii) If I take a book from the shelf, what has to have happened in the world, according to Chisholm, in order for it to be true that I did it of my own free will?
6. What is Ayer’s argument for compatibilism?
7. Everyone agrees that in order for it to be true that Sylvia did A of her own free will, it must be true that she could have done something else. (i) According to the compatibilists, what does that italicized statement mean? (ii) What argument was offered in lectures to try to show that, in that sense, even a piece of chalk could have done something else than whatever it did on a particular occasion?
8. Euthyphro accepts the definition, suggested to him by Socrates, that "x is right" means "all of the gods approve of doing x." But Euthyphro also has a belief about why the gods approve of certain things, and Socrates points out that his definition and his belief, taken together, lead to a serious problem. What is Euthyphro’s belief, and what is the problem that Socrates points out?
9. What is Peter Singer's argument for his claim that our way of drawing the distinction between duty and charity cannot be defended
10. What is the "original position of equal liberty" that Rawls appeals to in his theory of justice, and what, according to Rawls, is its role in determining whether a given society is just?
11. Under what conditions is civil disobedience justified, according to Rawls, even in a reasonably just society?