Please answer one from group A and two from group B. The total length for the 3 essay answers taken together should be around 3-4 pages, roughly the same length as a paper. (Please put all three answers in one attachment.)
The sources are to be any of the readings we have covered as a class, class discussion and the bright light of your own intellects. No outside sources, please! (Of course, you may draw on personal experiences.) Formal footnotes aren’t necessary, but be sure to give page numbers/quotes where appropriate. (Not crediting sources where you should will hurt your grade.) You may be creative in the way you shape the issues and your analyses of them.
Enjoy!
Group A
1. Does consciousness pose a real problem for the view that everything in the world, including the mind, can be explained in principle by physics? Be sure to explain the famous mind body problem. Make liberal use of any of the relevant texts we’ve covered. Organize clearly.
2. Descartes and Hume give quite different accounts of what we can know. Give a general description of the most important elements of each view concerning what we can know. What are the most important differences between them that we explored in our class? Is one view more attractive to you? Why? Organize clearly.
Group B
3. Work on one of the two main moral issues we covered in class: (a) world poverty or (b) our moral obligations to other species. Naturally you will include Singer’s view in your discussion. But don’t simply give a rehashing of his view. Your own view should be the focus of this one. Support your position. Organize clearly.
4. Are there universal moral standards? Utilize any views we’ve discussed. Organize clearly.
5. Is the study of philosophy valuable? Support your view. Organize clearly.
Here are all the sources needed:
Consciousness: Chalmers’ Ted Talk
Dennett’s Ted Talk: The illusion of Consciousness
Singer’s view: “Famine, Affluence and Morality” (p. 495)
Singer and Animal Liberation
https://nwveg.org/files/Singer_The_Animal_Liberation_Movement.pdf
Don’t use any other sources.