Midterm Study Guide
Midterm: March 6th

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Make sure to bring a pen to class.
The midterm will have 15 multiple-choice questions, and 2 short-answer questions. Make sure to read the whole question before answering. The short-answer questions have multiple parts. Make sure to fully answer every part of the question. The Midterm covers all the material discussed in class so far. What you need to know:

Logic
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You should know what the following are: proposition, argument, premise, conclusion, circular argument, conditional statement, antecedent, consequent.
You should be able to give precise definitions of validity and soundness, and be able to evaluate whether an argument is valid or sound.
You should be able to recognize the following forms of an argument, and know whether they are valid: Affirming the Antecedent (Modus Ponens), Denying the
Consequent (Modus Tollens), Denying the Antecedent, and Affirming the
Consequent.

Ethics
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You should know what the following words mean: ethics, right, wrong, permissible, obligatory, impermissible.
You should know the difference between ethics and axiology, and the difference between ethics and law.
You should understand: Ethical Relativism, Personal Relativism, and Cultural
Relativism.
o You should understand the objections to these views that we discussed in class. o You should understand and be able to assess the Cultural Differences
Argument and the Provability Argument.
You should understand: Divine Command Theory, the Euthyphro Dilemma, and the limitations of religious guidance in ethics.
You should understand: Ethical Darwinism, and the Naturalistic Fallacy.
You should understand: Utilitarianism. o You should be able to give the proper formulation of Utilitarianism, and be able to explain why the other formulations that Feldman considers don’t work. o You should be able to explain what utility is. o You should understand the objections to Utilitarianism that we covered in class, and how a utilitarian might respond to those objections.
You should understand: Rawlsian Contractualism, the Veil of Ignorance, and some potential problems with Rawlsian Contractualism.

Euthanasia
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You should know what the following are: euthanasia, passive euthanasia, active euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide.
You should understand: the argument from mercy. o Including: the different formulations of the argument we talked about in class, and objections to those arguments.
You should be able to assess various arguments against euthanasia: o the argument from nature o the argument from self-interest o the slippery slope argument.
You should understand the debate over passive vs. active euthanasia, including: o The argument from passive euthanasia o The argument from suffering and the argument from infant euthanasia. o The difference between killing and letting die, and how this bears on the debate over passive vs. active euthanasia. o The Smith and Jones case (and argument). o Nesbitt’s variant cases, and what they are supposed to show. o Kuhse’s objections to Nesbitt.
You should understand: the argument from playing God. o Including: the various definitions of “playing God” that Feldman considers, and his objections.
You should know the difference between voluntary, non-voluntary, and involuntary euthanasia. o Some potential factors in determining whether a case of non-voluntary euthanasia is permissible.

Scarce Resources
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[To be determined]

Some general advice about studying:
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We covered a lot of arguments in this class. I don’t expect you to memorize them all, but I expect you to understand the arguments, and know what objections might be raised against them.
A good rule of thumb: the more time we spent on something in class, the more important it is for you to know it in detail.

Some sample questions:
1) Consider the following argument:
P1. If a frog is a dog, then a cat is a bat.
P2. A frog is a dog.
C. Therefore, a cat is a bat.
Which of the following is not true of this argument:
A. P1, P2, and C are all propositions.
B. P1 is a conditional statement.
C. C is the consequent.
D. The argument is valid.
2) Utilitarianism is the theory that:
A. You should do X if and only if it’s compatible with the rules that would be agreed to by agents who were rational, self-interested, and behind the veil of ignorance.
B. You should do X if and only if doing X is the most useful thing to do.
C. You should do X if and only if X maximizes the number of people who get positive utility.
D. You should do X if and only if there is no other action you could have done instead that has higher utility than X.
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Consider the following case:
Case 1: Imagine two people, Smith and Jones, who are in similar situations. They each have a six-year-old cousin such that if the cousin dies they will receive a large inheritance. Smith sneaks into the bathroom where his cousin is bathing and drowns him, making sure it looks like an accident. Jones goes to do the same thing, but happily sees his cousin slip and hit his head. Jones stands by, ready to push the child's head back under if necessary, but the child dies without Jones’ intervention.
Rachels thinks that in this case:
A. What Smith did is worse than what Jones did.
B. What Jones did is worse than what Smith did.
C. What Smith did and what Jones did are equally bad.
D. We can’t know who is worse. The case is missing important details.

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Consider the following modification of Case 1:
Case 3: Smith acts the same as in Case 1. Jones goes into the bathroom, unwilling to kill his nephew, but willing to let him die. He happens to be on hand when his nephew slips, falls, and drowns, and Jones does not save him though he easily could.
Nesbitt uses this case to try to show that:
A. There is no morally significant difference between killing and letting die.
B. In this case, Smith is more reprehensible than Jones
C. In this case, Smith and Jones are equally reprehensible.
D. In this case, Jones doesn’t do anything wrong.

5) Which of the following claims does Feldman make in his discussion of ‘playing God’:
A. We cannot know what God’s plan is.
B. On the most plausible interpretation of ‘playing God’, it is morally praiseworthy to play God.
C. The Argument from ‘playing God’ cannot be used to show that if a person participates in a suicide, s/he does something wrong.
D. All of the above.

Answers: 1C, 2D, 3C, 4B, 5D