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Answer any two questions
1. Evaluate the following argument:
A. Every event has a cause.
B. Every human action is an event.
C. Therefore: Every human action is caused.
D. Any event that is caused could not have happened otherwise than it did.
E. Therefore: No human action could have happened otherwise than it did.
(from D.J. O'Connor)
2. "A scientific conception of human behaviour dictates one practice, a philosophy of personal freedom another..." (B.F. Skinner) Do you agree?
3. If a machine were ever to pass the Turing test, would you have to think of it as having free will?
4. Do you think societies evolve according to a fixed pattern? Give a critical exposition of the line of argumentation which carries you with it.
5. Evaluate the following argument:
A. 'Free' doesn't mean 'uncaused' - it means 'unconstrained'.
B. There are plenty of acts that are unconstrained and therefore free.
C. Therefore, determinism does not undermine our belief in human freedom.
6. What is meant by saying that one event is the cause of another? Expound
and evaluate either one, or two, answers to this question.
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Prepared by VP Revised 07:04:06 A module of the BA Philosophy programme Center for Professional Ethics | University of Central Lancashire | e-mail hhoughton@uclan.ac.uk |
