Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Quiz Feb.10


1. Which Stoic started out as a slave, and inspired a future American fighter pilot? LH 29

2. Which Stoic, a lawyer, politician, and noted orator as well as a philosopher, said experience, friendship, and conversation offset some of the problems associated with growing old? LH 30

3. Which Stoic said our problem is not how short life is, but how badly most of us use the time we do have (and then ironically had his own life shortened at Nero's command)? LH 31


 

4. Plato's Euthyphro Dilemma implies that either God is not the source of morality, OR morality is ______. P 41



5. For Immanuel Kant, a deontologist in ethics, a moral action is one performed from a sense of ________. (duty, fear, selfishness, inclination, sympathy, compassion) P 42

6. Name one of the two most famous 19th century English Utilitarian philosophers. P47 (One of them keeps losing his head.)



BONUS: The late 20th century Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick came up with a virtual reality thought experiment he called the _______ Machine. P 50

BONUS+: "It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the past," said _______.

DQ:

1. Do you think you could effectively adopt a Stoic mindset ("Our thoughts are up to us," we shouldn't be affected by circumstances beyond our control, etc.) that would enable you to endure captivity and torture? IDo you attempt to adopt that mindset in less extreme everyday circumstances (like a rainstorm just before class)?

2. Do you "hope [you] die before you get old" or do you look forward to the compensations of old age (memories, old friends, grandchildren etc.)? Do you think 100 become the new 65, in your lifetime? How long do you hope to live? If cryonics ever becomes plausible would you want to use it?

3. Are you a good time-manager, or a procrastinator? Do you usually approach life as if you had "all the time in the world"?  If Nero ordered YOU to take your own life, would you resist or comply? Why?

4. Do you agree with Dostoevsky?: "If God doesn't exist, anything is permitted." Why or why not? Do you think the only thing preventing you from being good is the fear of divine retribution for being bad? Or do you think that to be good one must simply believe in goodness and reciprocity ("Do unto others" etc.)?



5. Do you consider yourself a good person? If so, what motivates your goodness? If not, why not? 

6. Should we always try to "maximize the greatest happiness of the greatest number"? Does it matter what kind of happiness we maximize? Are some pleasures just intrinsically higher and better than others? Is it "preferable to be a sad but wise Socrates than to be a happy but ignorant fool"? P 49

1 comment:

  1. H01 Quiz Questions

    1. Which stoic wrote On Old Age?
    2. According to stoics, what does it mean to be philosophical? (LH 28)
    3. What is a Kartian Maxim supposed to represent?
    4. Did most people want to have illusions of good experiences as opposed to having real ones less often?

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.