Steven D. Hales - This Is Philosophy

3 Title page THIS IS PHILOSOPHY AN INTRODUCTION, SECOND EDITION STEVEN D. HALES Second Edition

4 Copyright

5 Dedication

6 Table of contents

7 Preface for Instructors

8 Preface for Students

9 Acknowledgments

10 1 Ethics: Preliminary Views1.1 Is Morality Just Acting on Principles?1.2 Divine Command Theory (Is Morality Just What God Tells Me to Do?)1.3 Egoism (Is Morality Just My Own Personal Code?)1.4 Moral Relativism (Is Morality Just How Society Says We Should Act?)

11 2 Ethics: The Big Three Theories2.1 Utilitarianism (Is Morality Doing What I Can to Make This the Best World Possible?)2.2 Deontology, or Kantianism (Is There an Absolute Moral Law?)2.3 Objections2.4 Virtue Ethics (Is Morality all about Having a Virtuous Character?)2.5 Objections

12 3 God3.1 The Attributes of God3.2 Why There is a God3.3 Why There is No God3.4 Atheist Responses to the Free Will Defense

13 4 Freedom4.1 Against Free Will, Part 1: Divine Foreknowledge4.2 Against Free Will, Part 2: A Regress of Reasons for Acting4.3 Against Free Will, Part 3: Determinism and the Dilemma Argument4.4 The Incompatibilist Argument4.5 The Dilemma Argument Against Free Will4.6 Free Will and Moral Responsibility4.7 Agent Causation4.8 Compatibilism4.9 The Feeling of Freedom

14 5 Self5.1 Preliminary Positions5.2 The Soul Criterion5.3 Objections5.4 The Physicalist Criterion5.5 The Psychological Criterion5.6 The Bundle Theory

15 6 Mind6.1 Substance Dualism6.2 Behaviorism6.3 Mind-brain Identity Theory6.4 Functionalism

16 7 Knowledge7.1 The Value of Truth7.2 The Value of Evidence7.3 The Sources of Evidence7.4 The Nature of Knowledge7.5 The Skeptic’s Challenge

17 8 Politics8.1 State of Nature8.2 Anarchy8.3 Contractarianism8.4 Leviathan and the Philosopher Kings8.5 The Minimal State8.6 The Liberal State

18 Postscript

19 Index

20 End User License Agreement

1 Chapter 1Figure 1.1 Marital satisfaction.

2 Chapter 2Figure 2.1 Comparative pleasure curves.Figure 2.2 People on a desert island.

3 Chapter 4Figure 4.1 Decision-making regress.

4 Chapter 5Figure 5.1 Abigail through time.Figure 5.2 Closest physical continuers.Figure 5.3 Kenny over time.Figure 5.4 Trading brains.Figure 5.5 Psychological continuity depicted as remembering every preceding moment.Figure 5.6 Psychological continuity depicted as moment-to-moment memory.Figure 5.7 Two different ropes connected by a thread or one rope severely frayed in the middle?Figure 5.8 Split brain surgery.

5 Chapter 7Figure 7.1 Balancing positive evidence.Figure 7.2 Balancing zero evidence.Figure 7.3 The Theater of the Mind.Figure 7.4 The Wheel of Money.Figure 7.5 The Wheel of Belief.

6 Chapter 8Figure 8.1 Prisoner’s Dilemma.Figure 8.2 Types of rights.Figure 8.3 Types of rights in the minimal state.Figure 8.4 Societies and salaries.

1 Cover

2 Title page THIS IS PHILOSOPHY AN INTRODUCTION, SECOND EDITION STEVEN D. HALES Second Edition

3 Copyright

4 Table of Contents

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No introduction to philosophy book can be all things to all instructors, because there are many ways one can introduce students to philosophy. One time-honored and very traditional method is to take an historical approach, to begin with the ancient Greeks and embark on a speedy and concise journey through 2500 years of intellectual history. There is certainly great value in this technique. Students ought to have some exposure to the treasure trove in the Aladdin’s Cave of the past, and encounter a few of the great names of history. There is also value in seeing how philosophical approaches have evolved and changed over time, and even how puzzles have appeared and dissolved, only to reappear in a new form. The sense of deep history helps promote a bit of intellectual modesty about our own place in the sweep of time. There are downsides to this strategy, though. One is that introductory students often find the great historical philosophers to be very difficult to read, with unfamiliar and technical vocabularies and archaic styles. It is the rare beginning student in philosophy who reads Kant and thinks, “this stuff is great! I’m buying all his books!” Another problem with an historical introduction is the risk of getting caught up in interminable disputes over the proper members of the canon, or at the very least of inadvertently giving a misleading sense of philosophical history through omission, as no course can possibly cover everything.