Philosophy

1. Philosophy A Short Introduction

2. What is Philosophy? • Philosophy is about: • Finding answers to serious questions about ourselves and about the world we live in: • What is morally right and wrong? And why? • What is a good life? • Does God exist? • What is the mind? • What is art? • Is the world really as it appears to us? • What can we know? • …and much, much more • Questioning existing knowledge and intuitions to get closer to the truth

3. What will you do when studying Philosophy? • Philosophy is different from many other arts subjects: • To study philosophy you have to do philosophy • We analyze and criticize existing arguments • We construct our own arguments • We use fun thought experiments too

4. What will you get out of Philosophy? • Skills that will help you: • With your other studies • Good career prospects • Understand yourself and the world around you • Prevent being conned and duped

5. What will you get out of Philosophy? • The skills are: • Critical thinking, • Argument skills, • Communication, • Reasoning, • Analysis, • Problem solving… • Which allow you to: • Justify your opinions • Spot a bad argument, no matter what the topic • Explain to people why they are wrong and you are right • Philosophy basically teaches you to think!

6. Health & Safety Warning: • Philosophy can be dangerous! • You’ll have the skills to poke holes in just about everything anyone says • (which often doesn’t go down so well) • With great power, comes great responsibility • Make sure that you use your powers for good!

7. Ground Rules: • Philosophy is not angry debating or arguing • Don’t make others feel bad by arguing them into a corner • Don’t pick holes just because you can • Be charitable (it’s what good philosophers do) • Be constructive – work together to find the truth! • If you all respect each other (and me!), then you’ll all get the chance to have your say

8. The Philosophy Subjects • What is it to know something (and how can we come to know something)? • Epistemology, philosophy of science, logic • What is there (and what are the natures of these things)? • Metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion • What has value (and why)? • Aesthetics, moral & political philosophy

9. Knowledge • What can we have knowledge about? • What does it mean to have knowledge about something? • Where can we get knowledge from? • How can we get knowledge? • Are we just brains in vats? • Can we be sure we know anything?! • Descartes: “I think, therefore I am”

10. Metaphysics • What is time? • Is time travel possible? • Was there time before the universe? • How did the universe start? • What happened before the universe? • Is everything in the universe caused? • Is it possible for us to have free will? • What is the meaning of life?

11. Philosophy of Religion • What are the arguments for believing in a god? • Do those arguments give good reason to believe in a God? • What are the arguments that certain kinds of Gods cannot exist? • Do those arguments give good reason not to believe in a certain type of God? • Why would a God who is all powerful, and all good let bad things happen to innocent people?

12. Aesthetics • How can we tell what is art and what isn’t? • Is popular art bad for us? • Why do people enjoy watching scary movies?

13. Moral & Political Philosophy • Are there universal moral facts? • What is the best possible life someone can have? • What makes actions morally right or wrong? • What is the best form of government? • Are human rights real? • When, if ever, is it permissible to go to war?

14. Applied Ethics • Applying moral theories to current real life situations to assess what we should do • Topics include: • Animal rights • Environmental ethics • Euthanasia • Abortion • Cloning and genetic engineering • Business ethics (e.g. is advertising immoral?) • Global poverty

15. Let’s do Some Philosophy: Two Thought Experiments • The Trolley Bus Problem and the Spare Parts Surgeon are examples of problems you will find in ethics courses • We can use thought experiments like these to work out what is going on when we make a moral judgement and… • Give insight into what makes moral judgements right and wrong

16. The Tram Dilemma • An out of control tram will soon kill 5 people who are stuck on the track. • You can flick a switch to divert the tram to another track where only one person is stuck. • Should you flip the switch? • Should you kill one person to save five? SWITCH

17. The Surgeon’s Dilemma • You are a surgeon with six patients. • Five of them need major organ transplants. • The sixth, an ideal donor for all the relevant organs, is in hospital for a minor operation. • Should you kill one person to save five?

18. What’s going on here? • Should you kill one person to save five? • Trolley Dilemma = “yes” • Surgeon Dilemma = “no” • If you have two conflicting intuitions then either: • there must be some morally relevant difference between the two cases, or • One or more of your intuitions is wrong • So which is it?

19. Philosophy #2: Moral Theory

20. The Philosophy Subjects (Again) • What is it to know something (and how can we come to know something)? • Epistemology, philosophy of science, logic • What is there (and what are the natures of these things)? • Metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion • What has value (and why)? • Aesthetics, moral & political philosophy

21. Back to Moral Theory • We want to know what makes actions morally right or wrong… • And, how can we know? • Moral ‘common sense’ might not be enough

22. (Remember) The Tram Dilemma • An out of control tram will soon kill 5 people who are stuck on the track. • You can flick a switch to divert the tram to another track where only one person is stuck. • Should you flip the switch? • Should you kill one person to save five? SWITCH

23. (Remember) The Surgeon’s Dilemma • You are a surgeon with six patients. • Five of them need major organ transplants. • The sixth, an ideal donor for all the relevant organs, is in hospital for a minor operation. • Should you kill one person to save five?

24. What’s going on here? • Should you kill one person to save five? • Trolley Dilemma = “yes” • Surgeon Dilemma = “no” • If you have two conflicting intuitions then either: • there must be some morally relevant difference between the two cases, or • One or more of your intuitions is wrong • So which is it?

25. Morally Relevant Differences? • You guys try to spot some • And I’ll try to explain them away

26. Did Our Moral Common Sense get it Wrong? • Should you kill one person to save five? • Trolley Dilemma = “yes” • Surgeon Dilemma = “no” • Does anyone think one answer is wrong?

27. Jungle Dilemma • You are trekking alone in the Amazon. • You discover an evil army officer and his troops rounding up villagers. • Unless you kill one, the troops will kill six. • Should you kill one person to save five?

28. Jungle Dilemma Cont. • What if there are 2 villagers? • What if there are 10 villagers? • What if there are 100 villagers? • Can you ever kill one innocent person to save many?

29. Two Main Methods • Consequences (consequentialism) • Fixed rules (deontological) • You can/can’t/must/mustn’t do X, Y & Z • Or a combination (this counts as deontological) • Are there any rules that will never need an exception?

30. Example: Pushing In Is pushing in generally wrong? What makes pushing in wrong? Is pushing in ever morally permissible? What can make it (morally) OK?

31. Deontological • Who decides what the rules are? • They need to be consistent • They can’t be too specific • Perhaps a rule for making rules?

32. Divine Command Theory Right acts are right because… They are the actions that God commands we perform Problem: The Euthyphro Dilemma…

33. The Euthyphro Dilemma Either (1) The act is right only because God commanded that we do it Or (2) God commanded that we do it because the act is right for independent reasons (1)= morality and God’s commands are arbitrary (2)= abandon Divine Command Theory

34. The Law Wrong acts are wrong because… They break the law Problem: Do we always feel like we have done something morally wrong when we break the law?

35. Cultural Relativism Right acts are right because… your culture approves of them Four Problems: • Can’t criticize other cultures • Can’t criticize your own culture • No moral progress • It’s just not how we decide in the hard cases

36. The Golden Rule Right acts are right because… they are the ones you would want done to you Problems: • People like different things (e.g. Masochists) • Is it how we decide in the hard cases?

37. Kantianism • What makes right acts right? • An act is right if its maxim treats humanity as an end in itself and not merely as a means • Maxims are: • Like policies • What you intend to do in certain situations

38. Consequentialism • Evaluate the likely consequences of each possible action • Then compare them • But what criteria to use to evaluate?? • Happiness? • Preference satisfaction? • A lot of things?

39. Philosophy #3: Philosophy of Religion

40. The Argument from Evil • (P1) If God exists, he is omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient. [By Christian Definition] • (P2) An omnibenevolent being would prevent any unnecessary evil if she could and knew how. • (P3) An omnipotent being could prevent all unnecessary evil. • (P4) An omniscient being would know all about unnecessary evils and how to prevent them. • (P5) Therefore, if God exists, there is no unnecessary evil. • (P6) But there is unnecessary evil. • (C) Therefore, God does not exist.

41. Defining Unnecessary Evil • Evil is suffering of an innocent • Unnecessary evil is the suffering of an innocent that does not create some compensating good • So, for P6 to be true, there just needs to be one occurrence of an innocent person suffering without some compensating good • For example: • A child being tortured • A child being horribly burned by a meteor strike

42. Potential Objections (to P6) • Suffering is not really a bad thing. • Suffering is always a form of deserved punishment. • Evil is an illusion; people don’t really suffer at all. • Evil is necessary for a greater good that our finite human minds could not hope to comprehend. • Evil is necessary so that we may know the contrast between good and evil. • Evil is necessary in order for us to exemplify virtues. • Evil is a necessary consequence of free will.

43. Evil is a Necessary Consequence of Free Will • God gave us free will • Some people use their free will to create evil • God could prevent all of us from wanting to do evil, • but then it wouldn’t really be free will • God could make ‘nature’ intervene somehow to stop us from doing evil, • but then the laws of nature would not be consistent and it would be very hard for us to predict consequences. • This would make having free will pointless (because we choose to do things based on what we expect the consequences to be) • Therefore, there is no unnecessary evil

44. Is All Evil Necessary for Free Will? • Recall the example: • A child being horribly burned by a meteor strike

45. A Common Atheistic Argument • (P1) There is no evidence for God’s existence • (P2) A lack of evidence is reason to believe there is a lack • (C) Therefore, there is reason to believe that God does not exist • So, no evidence is not neutral; no evidence of something is a reason against it

46. A Type of Reply: Cosmological Arguments • Cosmological arguments try to posit incredible things about the universe that need an explanation. • God is suggested as the best explanation. • Together, the argument and the suggestion are evidence that (some kind of) God does exist. • So, the atheistic argument is wrong.

47. A Type of Cosmological Argument:The Fine-Tuning Argument • (P1) It is an indisputable and yet remarkable fact that the universe appear to have been designed. • (P2) The best explanation for this appearance of design is that the universe really is designed. • (P3) Inference to the Best Explanation: it is rational to believe the best explanation for an observation. • (P4) Therefore, one should believe that a designer of the universe exists. • (P5) God is the designer of the universe. • (C) Therefore, one should believe that God exists.

48. Evidence for P1 of the Fine-Tuning Argument • If the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by as little as 1 part in 1060, the universe would have either quickly collapsed back on itself, or expanded too rapidly for stars to form. In either case, life would be impossible. • Calculations indicate that if the strong nuclear force, the force that binds protons and neutrons together in an atom, had been stronger or weaker by as little as 5%, life would be impossible.

49. Evidence for P1 of the Fine-Tuning Argument (Cont.) • Calculations by Brandon Carter show that if gravity had been stronger or weaker by 1 part in 1040, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. This would most likely make life impossible. • If the neutron were not about 1.001 times the mass of the proton, all protons would have decayed into neutrons or all neutrons would have decayed into protons, and thus life would not be possible. • If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger or weaker, life would be impossible, for a variety of different reasons.

50. Arguing Against P2 of the Fine-Tuning Argument • Some physicists believe in M-theory • M-theory explains big bangs and all phenomena we experience (without positing a designer) • What is the evidence for M-Theory? • It’s under construction