Students handed in translations of Meditations.
We discussed a few cool topics from the field of meta-ethics: the Utility Monster and Hume's Guillotine (also called the is-ought problem). Since the ideas are fairly subtle, they are summarized here.
Briefly, the Utility Monster causes suffering, but enjoys it more than the sufferer dislikes suffering. It really messes with classical utilitarianism, which says that you can figure out an ethical decision by looking for the decision that maximizes total happiness... The Utility Monster maximizes total happiness at the expense of causing suffering in all others. It is similar to this comic:
SMBC Utility Comic.
Students are expected to understand this idea.
Hume's Guillotine was David Hume's observation that prescriptive statements don't logically follow from descriptive statements. Prescriptive statements are statements like "you shouldn't jump off that," "you ought to be nice," "one should always wash one's hands after using the bathroom," and "we all should do what God says to do in this book." Descriptive statements are statements like "that shirt is blue," "that table is broken," "God wrote this book," "ninjas are cool," and "Atty is cute."
That is, prescriptive statements are instructions, descriptive statements are explanations. Neither need be true; that is, "the sky is green" is still a descriptive statement, as is "the Earth is 6,000 years old."
If I were to say, "Barack Obama is black, so no one should wear pants anymore," you may say, "Sam, that conclusion doesn't really logically follow." Hume's Guillotine is the observation that NO prescriptive statement follows logically from a descriptive statement.
Though this idea might not have fully sunk in yet, students are expected to be able to identify prescriptive and descriptive statements.
Here is the homework, due January 22. It is a midterm review.
We discussed a few cool topics from the field of meta-ethics: the Utility Monster and Hume's Guillotine (also called the is-ought problem). Since the ideas are fairly subtle, they are summarized here.
Briefly, the Utility Monster causes suffering, but enjoys it more than the sufferer dislikes suffering. It really messes with classical utilitarianism, which says that you can figure out an ethical decision by looking for the decision that maximizes total happiness... The Utility Monster maximizes total happiness at the expense of causing suffering in all others. It is similar to this comic:
SMBC Utility Comic.
Students are expected to understand this idea.
Hume's Guillotine was David Hume's observation that prescriptive statements don't logically follow from descriptive statements. Prescriptive statements are statements like "you shouldn't jump off that," "you ought to be nice," "one should always wash one's hands after using the bathroom," and "we all should do what God says to do in this book." Descriptive statements are statements like "that shirt is blue," "that table is broken," "God wrote this book," "ninjas are cool," and "Atty is cute."
That is, prescriptive statements are instructions, descriptive statements are explanations. Neither need be true; that is, "the sky is green" is still a descriptive statement, as is "the Earth is 6,000 years old."
If I were to say, "Barack Obama is black, so no one should wear pants anymore," you may say, "Sam, that conclusion doesn't really logically follow." Hume's Guillotine is the observation that NO prescriptive statement follows logically from a descriptive statement.
Though this idea might not have fully sunk in yet, students are expected to be able to identify prescriptive and descriptive statements.
Here is the homework, due January 22. It is a midterm review.
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