Midterm Intro to Philosophy – Flashcards
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Who is a philosopher, in the original sense of the world?
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A lover and pursuer of wisdom, regardless of the subject matter.
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What fallacy is it when an argument assumes only two options when in fact there are more?
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Black or White Fallacy
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What fallacy is it when an argument attacks the person rather than the person's beliefs?
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Argumentum ad Hominem
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The term "metaphysics" comes from Pythagoras.
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FALSE
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The dialectic method is a search for the essential definitions of important concepts.
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TRUE
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What is asserted by the principle of noncontradiction?
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A proposition and its contradictory opposite can't both be true at the same time.
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What was the essence of reality for Heraclitus?
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Change
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What did Socrates hope to achieve by practicing the Socratic method?
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He wanted to discover adequate definitions that would give knowledge of the essential nature of things.
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What do Pyrrhonic skeptics maintain?
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People should suspend judgment about all things.
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What did Aristotle say about all change?
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It is a movement from potentiality to actuality.
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What must be the case for an argument to succeed with a rational person?
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The premises must be acceptable and they must logically support the conclusion.
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What are Thales, Anaximenes and Anaximander collectively known as?
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The Milesians
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What does the branch of philosophy called epistemology study?
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Knowledge
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In philosophy, what is an argument?
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Giving reasons for a belief.
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What does the branch of philosophy called metaphysics study?
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Being
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Traditionally, philosophy has been divided into four main branches.
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TRUE
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When the Delphi Oracle pronounced Socrates to be the wisest of people, Socrates thought the pronouncement referred to the fact that he:
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was aware of his own ignorance.
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Which is the branch of philosophy that studies issues concerning art and beauty?
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Aesthetics
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"I don't agree with Jones when she says we should wait for a trial, and I'll tell you why. I don't approve of letting someone get away with murder! That's why I say let's hang him now!" What fallacy does this most clearly illustrate?
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Red Herring
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The answer to what made it? is what Aristotle called the material cause.
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FALSE
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Existence and substance make up essence.
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FALSE
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Platonic dualism was utterly rejected by early Christianity.
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FALSE
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Plato thought that physical objects are totally unreal.
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FALSE
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The Third Man Argument is an extension of the Theory of Forms.
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FALSE
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Cratylus thought you couldn't step into the same river even once.
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TRUE
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Some Forms are higher than others, according to Plato.
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TRUE
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Aristotle's primary area of interest was
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metaphysics.
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How are the Forms apprehended, according to Plato?
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By reason.
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Protagoras was rejecting absolute knowledge when he said that man is the measure of all things.
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TRUE
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A particular is the sort of being that can be in more than one thing at the same time.
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FALSE
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The answer to what purpose does it serve? is what Aristotle called the formal cause.
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FALSE
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What did Aristotle say about all change?
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It is a movement from potentiality to actuality.
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Socrates did not merely engage in sophistry - he was not interested in arguing for the sake of arguing.
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TRUE
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Aristotle defined humans as irrational animals.
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FALSE
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Socrates' Theory of Knowledge came well before his Theory of Forms, so much so that they aren't considered to be related.
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FALSE
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How many souls did Aristotle believe humans have?
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three
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According to Plato, true knowledge cannot be of changeable things.
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TRUE
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If you want to say what a thing is, which of Aristotle's four causes must you provide?
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The formal cause.
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Three of Plato's more enlightening and well-known dialogs are:
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Apology, Republic and Meno
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Plato believed that it is enough to know the truth.
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FALSE
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In Aristotle's opinion each thing is a combination of matter and form.
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TRUE
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The dialectic method is a search for the essential definitions of important concepts.
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TRUE
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Aristotle believed that logic and language could show the structure of reality.
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TRUE
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According to Aristotle, matter is what makes a thing the kind of thing it is.
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FALSE
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For Aquinas, what a thing is (its essence) does not entail that it is (its existence).
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TRUE
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What did Aquinas maintain concerning the human soul?
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It is a direct creation of God.
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How did St. Thomas Aquinas distinguish philosophy from theology?
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Philosophy is based on reason while theology is based on divine revelation and faith.
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Hypatia rejected Ptolemy's earth-centered astronomy.
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FALSE
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According to Aquinas, the great truths of Christian theology are both contrary to and beyond human reason.
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FALSE
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What is asserted by the principle of noncontradiction?
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A proposition and its contradictory opposite can't both be true at the same time.
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Plotinus believed in a personal God as the source of all reality and truth.
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FALSE
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In the picture on the Announcement two ancient Greek philosophers are walking along together discussing philosophy. One is Plato and the other is Aristotle and they are discussing the nature of reality. Which one is Plato?
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The one pointing upwards is Plato.
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Which view of Aristotle's did Aquinas disagree with?
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The essence of a thing is the same as its existence.
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Sextus Empiricus believed that occasionally we perceive things as they really are.
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FALSE
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St. Augustine rejected this Neoplatonic claim.
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The highest reality is the One, an impersonal, indefinable, and indescribable god.
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Platonism and Neoplatonism caused Augustine to reject skepticism and prepared him for Christianity.
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TRUE
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St. Augustine used the principle of noncontradiction to refute Academic skepticism.
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TRUE
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Augustine thought that God was in time, which is an objective feature of the world.
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FALSE
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Neither Plato nor Plotinus accepted the doctrine of creation ex nihilo.
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TRUE
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What do Pyrrhonic skeptics maintain?
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People should suspend judgment about all things.
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Which ancient philosophical tradition did Plotinus represent?
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Neoplatonism
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Which view did Aquinas accept?
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A physical thing is matter plus form.
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What did Hypatia think about the study of mathematics and astronomy?
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They were part of a way of life and a means of testing the implications of Platonic and Neoplatonic metaphysics and epistemology.
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Which argument did St. Augustine use to refute total Academic skepticism?
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When we are in doubt we can at least know that we exist as a doubter.
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Both Academic and Pyrrhonic skeptics are modified skeptics.
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FALSE
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Which claim did Descartes use to establish the certainty of his own existence?
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I think, therefore I am.
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Hume believed that experience reveals not only a constant conjunction but also a necessary connection between certain events.
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FALSE
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What does Kant mean by the noumenal world?
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The world as it really is, independently of our experiences of it.
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What did Benedict Spinoza think a person is?
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A mode of God/Nature.
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David Hume wrote the Critique of Pure Reason.
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FALSE
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Which statement would Thomas Hobbes have accepted?
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All psychological states derive ultimately from perception.
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What did George Berkeley mean about such things as tables and chairs when he denied the existence of matter?
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There are no unperceived tables and chairs.
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According to Schopenhauer, the will structures the phenomenal world.
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TRUE
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The absolute idealists refused to accept Kant's belief in an unknowable reality.
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TRUE
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Kant did not believe that it is possible to know anything about the world as it is in itself, independent of our experiences of it.
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TRUE
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Hume believed that, since physical objects are directly experienced in sense perception, the mind can come to know a world of physical objects existing beyond itself.
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FALSE
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For Hegel, nothing is completely real or true except the whole of reality, the Absolute.
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TRUE
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Schopenhauer believed humans are rational in their actions.
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FALSE
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What is the self, according to Hume?
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A sequence of perceptions.
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What did John Locke believe about perception?
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Knowledge of the external world is based on the fact that some of the ideas we get through sense impressions represent the way things actually are in the external world.
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For Hegel, reality consists in the unfolding of the material laws of nature to produce more and more complex physical systems.
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FALSE
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Kant believed that, because the world of experience is only made possible by the mind's own organizing principles, and because the mind can come to know the principles governing its own operations, the mind can come to know a world of experienced objects existing beyond itself.
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TRUE
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What is the highest reality (the Absolute), for Hegel?
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Infinite thought thinking itself.
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What is perception, for Immanuel Kant?
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The application of the organizing principles of the mind to sense impressions.
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What do we directly observe, according to David Hume?
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Sense impressions
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Which piece of advice would be more likely to come from a stoic?
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Become self-reliant and accept your fate in life with serenity and calm indifference.
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St. Thomas Aquinas held that there were two sets of virtues, one set directing us to happiness on earth and the other directing us to eternal happiness.
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TRUE
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Socrates believed that non-virtuous conduct is usually the result of willing evil.
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FALSE
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How is goodness apprehended, according to Plato?
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By reason.
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According to John Stuart Mill, why should we seek to raise the general happiness rather than just our own?
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By its very nature morality must assume the perspective of an impartial spectator.
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What is morality ultimately based on, according to Immanuel Kant?
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Reason
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In what does human happiness consist, according to Aristotle?
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All of the above.
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Thomas Hobbes thought that peace requires justice which, given human nature, requires compulsion under the threat of force.
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TRUE
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Aristotle's and Aquinas' method for making moral judgments usually involved choosing between two extremes.
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TRUE
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Aristotle thought that the key to happiness is having a soul that is well-ordered.
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FALSE
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David Hume believed that moral judgments are based on reasoning from the observed facts of a situation.
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FALSE
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Plato held that the ultimate source of reality and goodness lies beyond the physical, natural world.
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TRUE
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St. Augustine believed that the existence of the Devil is the best explanation of why there is evil in a world created by a totally good God.
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FALSE
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What is evil, according to Socrates?
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Ignorance of the good.
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Where does moral evil come from, according to St. Augustine?
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Misdirected love.
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Which desires did Epicureans say you should occasionally satisfy?
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Those that are natural but not necessary.
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Epicureans and stoics agreed that the good life is the pleasant life.
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TRUE
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What are people naturally like, according to Thomas Hobbes?
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They are fundamentally selfish.
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Unlike the utilitarians, who based morality on consequences, Kant held that morality is categorical and thus must be based solely on reason.
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TRUE
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The just or well-ordered soul manifests which virtue, according to Plato?
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Wisdom
