Quiz_Ethics 115.fa23
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Quiz:
On Epicurus, Aristotle, Mill & Kant
Ethics 115
The Quiz is due no later than
11pm on Saturday, October 14
. The Quiz accounts for
15%
of your overall grade in Ethics.
This Quiz is comprised of essay questions designed to test your knowledge of Epicurus,
Aristotle, Mill and Kant. You will be able to access the Quiz for approximately one week.
Please respond to all essay questions and save your responses in a single
Word or PDF
document. Once you complete the Quiz, please upload your responses to Canvas (See
Assignments; Quiz). After the deadline (11pm on Saturday 10/14) you will be unable to
upload your responses, so please be sure to complete the assignment on time.
Support your responses with textual evidence. Note: No outside sources required—Please
only use assigned readings as sources when responding to quiz questions. When citing
sources, use author’s last name and page number. For example: (Epicurus, 41).
Grading: Your responses will be graded on the following:
- Relevance, Clarity, and Quality: The student’s responses answer the questions asked;
The student makes an effort to be as clear as possible (e.g., offers explanations,
examples, etc.); The student’s responses are well written.
- Interpretation & Analysis: The student provides adequate reasons to justify his/her
claims & support his/her interpretation/analysis of the material covered; The student’s
responses are thoughtful and demonstrate an ability to think critically about the material.
- Knowledge & Insight: The student’s responses demonstrate his/her knowledge of the
material covered; The student’s responses are insightful.
Quiz Questions:
Please save your responses
only in Word or PDF format
. Read each question carefully and respond
only to the question(s) being asked. Be sure to cite/reference source material whenever
quoting/paraphrasing. As a general guideline, your response
to each question
should be
no more than
200-300 words
.
1.
In Epicurus’ view, how can justice be the same for all when considered as a general principle, but
vary when applied to specific situations? Explain. (4 points)
In Epicurus’s view justice can the same for all situations as a general principle but
different or vary when applied to specific situations. Epicurus believes that justice is simply
nothing other than making people or society safe and unharmed, and basically just there to keep
peace in society or between people. there are situations in which justice can vary, and other
situations in which it can be applied as a general principle, for example in situation of things like
“mutual pledge is the only time in which justice can be a general principle. However, if this
“mutual pledge” is not there then justice cannot be applied as a general principle. Justice can
vary in situations for example in situations in self-defense may have caused harmed or even
killed another person, you are not going to be what some would say guilty of harm or murder
because you were defending yourself based on the actions of another towards you. In situations
Quiz | Ethics 115
Daniel Garro | Fa23
2
of such justice is used to impose the idea of things being fair and defending behavior that was
used to protect yourself or others around. Justice can be both used as a general principle when
there is justice or otherwards peace to be provided on both sides, but it can also vary depending
on situation.
2.
Kant argues that a
categorical
imperative is an objective rule for acting, whereas a
hypothetical
imperative is a subjective rule for acting.
Briefly explain why Kant distinguishes between these
imperatives or rules for acting.
(4 points)
The reason
3.
In Aristotle’s view, habituation plays an important role in our virtuous development. Explain the
role habituation plays. (3 points)
Aristotle’s view on habituation is that our virtues come from habituation. Aristotle’s view
argues that we have two different types of virtues which are intellectual along with moral.
He argues that virtues are types of actions and choices that we ruinously do or practice in
habituation. Habituation and practicing these virtues he believe allow us to become
virtuous by practicing these thing daily. This is the reason as to why he believes that
habituation plays a large role in virtuous development, he believes that through practice
our virtues come to us, through our practice, rather than against nature or even by nature.
Artistole believes that practice of virtues is attainable by any person, and this would
allow all people to sustain some sort or degree of happiness.
4.
About the “Feeling for Humanity,” Mill writes, “The deeply rooted conception which every
individual even now has of himself as a social being, tends to make him feel it one of his natural
wants that there should be harmony between his feeling and aims and those of his fellow
creatures,” (p. 168). Explain. What is Mill suggesting? Why is this feeling for humanity
important in Mill’s view? (4 points)
The feeling for humanity is important in Mill’s view because he states that the two kinds
of pleasure that bring the most happiness are the intellectual and moral pleasures, and he
also argues that these pleasures are of greater values than those the give us more physical
pleasure and that those pleasure are of lesser value. A large argument of Mill’s is that of
Utilitarianism which is the idea of the connections that we have between actions and our
feelings. This idea is mainly focused on the potential happiness and pleasure that an
action might bring us, therefore in Utilitarianism there are cases in which actions that
could potentially be morally wrong or bad would be okay because of the happiness and
pleasure it might bring to one. The importance of Utilitarianism is that it is centered
around actions and what the actions might bring to one who is preforming them,
essentially looking for the actions that bring the highest value of pleasure and happiness.
This is also why the feeling for humanity is important to Mill because having the greatest
happiness value would be considered a moral act if it follow and promoted Utilitarianism
but not moral if it did not follow it.
Extra Credit (Optional)
Quiz | Ethics 115
Daniel Garro | Fa23
3
In Kant’s view, why are consequences or possible results irrelevant when assessing the moral worth of a
given action? Do you agree or disagree with Kant? Explain. (1 points)
Although our main witness for Epicurus’ views on the evolution of human society is Lucretius’
poem (5.925–1457), there is no doubt that Lucretius was following, in the main, the ideas of the
founder himself, as recorded in Epicurus’
On Nature
and other treatises. In the beginning, human
beings were solitary; they reproduced haphazardly, could not communicate verbally, had no social
institutions, and survived because they were physically hardier than their modern descendants. With
time, the race softened, thanks in part to the discovery of fire, in part too to the emergence of the
family and the gentler sentiments toward spouses and offspring to which the family gave rise. At
this stage, human beings were in a position to unite in order to fend off natural dangers, such as wild
beasts, and they developed various kinds of technical skills, such as agriculture and the building of
houses, as well as language. Epicurus explains (
LH
75–76) that names at first arose naturally, in the
sense that as human beings experienced different affects (
pathê
) or received various images
(
phantasmata
) they emitted air corresponding to these stimuli; since human physical characteristics
vary somewhat from place to place, however, the sounds people produced in response to any given
stimulus similarly differed, which explains why there are many tongues. Upon this basis, people
later, nation by nation, established certain terms by convention for the purpose of improving clarity
and brevity in communication. Finally, certain individual experts further augmented the vocabulary
by the introduction of new and specialized words, to explain the results of their theoretical
investigations. Once language reached a developed state, people began to establish alliances and
friendships, which contributed further to collective security.
This early form of social life had various advantages: among others, the relative scarcity of goods
prevented excessive competition (sharing was obligatory for survival) and thereby set limits on
those unnatural desires that at a later, richer phase of society would lead to wars and other
disturbances. It would appear too that, before language had developed fully, words more or less
conformed to their original or primitive objects, and were not yet a source of mental confusion. But
thanks to a gradual accumulation of wealth, the struggle over goods came to infect social relations,
and there emerged kings or tyrants who ruled over others not by virtue of their physical strength but
by dint of gold. These autocrats in turn were overthrown, and after a subsequent period of violent
anarchy people finally saw the wisdom of living under the rule of law. This might seem to represent
the highest attainment in political organization, but that is not so for the Epicureans. For with law
came the generalized fear of punishment that has contaminated the blessings of life (Lucretius
5.1151; cf. [Philodemus]
On Choices and Avoidances
col. XII). Lucretius at this point gives an
acount of the origin of religious superstition and dread of the gods, and although he does not relate
this anxiety directly to the fear of punishment under human law, he does state that thunder and
lightning are interpreted as signs that the gods are angry at human sins (5.1218–25). While primitive
people in the presocial or early communal stages might have been awed by such manifestations of
natural power and ascribed them to the action of the gods, they would not necessarily have
explained them as chastisement for human crimes before the concept of punishment became familiar
under the regime of law. People at an early time knew that gods exist thanks to the simulacra that
they give off, although the precise nature of the gods according to Epicurus remains obscure (for
contrasting intepretations, see Konstan 2011 and Sedley 2011); but the gods, for him, do not interest
themselves in human affairs, since this would compromise their beatitude (see Obbink 1996: 321–
23).
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Quiz | Ethics 115
Daniel Garro | Fa23
4
If one does not fear the gods, what motive is there for living justly? Where law obtains, Epicurus
indicates, it is preferable not to commit crimes, even secret ones, since there will always be anxiety
over the possibility of detection, and this will disrupt the tranquillity or ataraxy that is the chief basis
of happiness in life (see
Principal Beliefs
=
KD
34–35). Justice, for Epicurus, depends on the
capacity to make compacts neither to harm others nor be harmed by them, and consists precisely in
these compacts; justice is nothing in itself, independent of such arrangements (
KD
31–33).
According to Epicurus (
LM
132,
KD
5), someone who is incapable of living prudently, honorably,
and justly cannot live pleasurably, and vice versa. Moreover, prudence or wisdom (
phronêsis
) is the
chief of the virtues: on it depend all the rest. This again sounds calculating, as though justice were
purely a pragmatic and selfish matter of remaining unperturbed. Epicurus does not entertain the
thought experiment proposed by Plato in the
Republic
(359C–360D), in which Plato asks whether a
person who is absolutely secure from punishment would have reason to be just. Did Epicurus have
an answer to such a challenge? He may simply have denied that anyone can be perfectly confident
in this way. Perhaps, however, he did have a reply, but it was derived from the domain of
psychology rather than of ethics. A person who understands what is desirable and what is to be
feared would not be motivated to acquire inordinate wealth or power, but would lead a peaceful life
to the extent possible, avoiding politics and the general fray. An Epicurean sage, accordingly, would
have no motive to violate the rights of others. Whether the sage would be virtuous is perhaps moot;
what Epicurus says is that he would live virtuously, that is prudently, honorably, and justly (the
adverbial construction may be significant). He would do so not because of an acquired disposition
or
hexis
, as Aristotle had it, but because he knows how to reason correctly about his needs. Hence
his desires would be limited to those that are natural (not empty), and so easily satisfied, or at least
not a source of disturbance if sometimes unsatisfied.