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PHI 1: Introduction to Philosophy

Winter Quarter 2017

Final Exam Review

1. Can a valid argument have a false conclusion?

a. Yes, because it might still have a false premise.

b. No, because it won’t count as valid unless all its premises and its conclusion are true.

c. Yes, because even if its premises are all true, its conclusion might still be false.

d. No, because in a valid argument the conclusion follows from the premises.

2. Is it possible that all of an argument’s premises are true while its conclusion is false?

a. No, because if all of its premises are true, then it is sound, which guarantees that its conclusion is

true.

b. Yes, because it might still be invalid.

c. No, because if all of its premises are true, then it is valid, which guarantees that its conclusion is

true.

d. Yes, because some of its premises might be true but invalid. In that case, even if the argument

itself is valid, the conclusion might be false.

3. According to the Divine Command Theory,

a. if God commanded us to keep our promises, then he did that because keeping our promises is the

right thing to do.

b. if keeping our promises is the right thing to do, then that’s because God commanded it.

c. blasphemy is wrong but slavery is not wrong.

d. adultery is just plain wrong, and God commanded us to not to commit it.

e. God exists for some cultures but not for others.

4. According to ethical egoism,

a. people always do what they believe to be in their own long-term best interest.

b. people always do what is in fact in their own long-term best interest.

c. people are morally required always to do what is in their own long-term best interest.

d. people are rationally required always to do what is in their own long-term best interest.

e. people are rationally required always to do what maximizes expected agentive utility.

5. According to normative cultural relativism,

a. different cultures have different views about what morality requires.

b. tolerance of and respect for the beliefs and practices of societies other than one’s own is the

supreme principle of morality.

c. morality is relative; there are no objective moral facts. For any given act A, that act is right

according to some frameworks and wrong according to others, and no framework is objectively

correct.

d. an act is morally permissible if and only if its agent believes that it is right.

e. if an act A is performed in society S, and that act violates the moral code of society S, then it is an

objective fact that act A is morally wrong. Anyone who believes that A is right is mistaken.

6. Utilitarianism

a. says that, morally speaking, you shouldn’t perform a given action unless no other action open to

you in the given situation has a higher utility.

b. is incompatible with the Divine Command Theory.

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c. says that the rational thing to do in any situation is the option that maximizes expected utility.

d. doesn’t make sense unless moral relativism is true.

e. is a form of Error Theory.

7. Is the Divine Command Theory compatible with utilitarianism? That is, could they both be true at

once?

a. Yes, because utilitarianism is a view about what it is rational for us to do, whereas DCT is a view

about what morality requires of us.

b. No, because utilitarianism requires us to reject religious practices.

c. Yes, at least if it’s possible that God’s only command to us is that we must maximize utility.

d. No, because if utilitarianism is true, there is no objective morality.

8. According to non-consequentialists:

a. the consequences of an action are irrelevant to whether the action is morally permissible.

b. it is never morally permissible to perform the action, of those available, that has the best

consequences.