Answer any 3 out of the 8 questions below. The answer to each question should not exceed five double-spaced pages. (This bound is not meant to suggest that there will be a penalty for a longer response, but only to provide a ballpark idea of how much effort should be expended). Each question requires some thought, but any reasonable effort to engage with the matters raised by the questions will earn partial credit: you might think of a good answer to any of the questions as worth 50 points, where a total of 90 points counts as an A. (Naturally, the more coherent and insightful the thought, and the more strongly connected are the answers to the material presented in the lectures and in the readings assigned for the course, the more points will be earned).
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1)The ancient Greek philosopher and sophist Protagoras agreed to teach law to an impoverished student Euathlus, with the firm understanding that Euathlus would pay Protagoras his teaching fee after Euathlus had won his first case in court. After completing his education, Euathlus decided not to to pursue a career in law, in favor of entering politics. After a long time had elapsed, Protagoras became impatient and asked for his fee. Euathlus refused, stating that according to their agreement, he was obligated to pay his fee only after he had won his first case, and that this condition had not yet been fulfilled. Thereupon Protagoras sued Euathlus for payment; both argued their own cases in court.
Taking into account the terms of the agreement between Protagoras and Euathlus, and the fact that this case is in fact the first Euathlus is arguing in court, sketch (utilizing the kind of reasoning involved in Russell’s Paradox and the Liar’s Paradox as your model)
a)an argument that Euathlus — both in the event he wins the case and in the event he doesn’t — is not legally obligated to pay the amount of the agreed fee to Protagoras
b)an argument that Euathlus — both in the event he wins the case and in the event he doesn’t — is legally obligated to pay the amount of the agreed fee to Protagoras.
2)Summarize the argument developed in Sections 1-5 of Carl Hempel’s Studies in the Logic of Confirmation, specifically that part of the paper than deals with Nicod’s characterization of the confirmation relation and the example of the Ravens that undermines it. Discuss the following situations:
a)The urn in front of you either contains 100 white balls (H1), or 75 white balls and 25 black balls (H2). Assume that these are the only two hypotheses that are at play. Does the blind extraction of a white ball confirm H1? H1 and H2? Neither? Discuss.
b)Granted the logical equivalence of “All ravens are black” and “All non-black objects are non-ravens”, what accounts for our intuition (or illusion) that the observation of a white piece of chalk, or a green leaf, or a blue pen, confirms the latter but not the former statement?
c)Granted that any observation that confirms one of the two universal generalizations must confirm the other, why is it that the observation of a white piece of chalk confirms (or perhaps just seems to confirm) the two logically equivalent generalizations to a lesser degree than does the observation of a black raven? Can you define a universe in which the observation of a white piece of chalk confirms “All ravens are black” to a greater degree than does the observation of a black raven?
3)Summarize (using your own words) Keynes’ analysis of the conditions under which it is appropriate to attribute the occurrence of an event to chance. Consider, in particular, the difference between the way we think of the problem of predicting the outcome of a coin toss and the way we think of the problem of predicting the position of Mars in the year 2050.
4)Summarize and discuss Keynes’ critique of the notion that “a law [or hypothesis] is more probable if it is proposed before the examination of some or all of the available instances than if it is proposed after their examination”.
5)There are three desserts A, B and C, where it is assumed that the agent X prefers both A and B to C.
Suppose a coin in our possession is biased 2-to-1 in favor of Heads (i.e., it has a 2/3 chance of landing Heads and a 1/3 chance of landing Tails when tossed), and that (concerning this coin) the statement “The coin lands Heads” functions as an ethically neutral proposition for X (that is, a proposition, whatever its probability, to whose truth or falsity X is indifferent).
a)Design a series of pairs of lotteries (utilizing this biased coin) that demonstrates that X’s preference for A over B is more than two times but less than ten times his preference for B over C.
b)What role is played by the supposition of the existence of an ethically neutral proposition in the employment of a scheme of lotteries in calibrating an agent’s preferences?
6)In their paper Picking and Choosing, Edna Ullmann-Margalit and Sidney Morgenbesser argue that i)that there are no fundamental impediments to the existence of picking situations proper; ii)that picking situations are quite common; iii)that there are no systematic rules for the transformation of a choosing situation into a picking situation that do not involve the pick of one rule rather than another. Summarize their argument and evaluate their position.
You might consider, in particular, the following questions: Is there any reason that the chance device suggested by Nicholas Rescher for selecting among alternatives among which one is indifferent need to be unbiased? Can one argue that any selection situation, whether a choosing or a picking situation, invariably resolves at some stage of implementation into a picking situation?
7)In Russell’s “On the Notion of Cause”, Russell makes the famous claim “The Law of Causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the [British] monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm”. Russell’s argument for this claim proceeds by a demonstration that the succession of events in nature fails in general to satisfy the conjunction of conditions associated with any of the standard definitions of the relation of cause and effect. After summarizing his argument, discuss Russell’s notions of “relatively” and “practically” isolated systems, and how the prevalence of the latter in our environment helps explain the utility of the language of “causes” and “effects” in making sense of the regularities we normally encounter.
8)This is a question about “Newcomb’s Problem”.
Two boxes, one transparent and visibly containing $1,000 (A), and one opaque (B) are placed before an agent X at time t. The contents of A are supposed fixed, the contents of B known by the agent to have been determined by the prior action of a highly accurate Predictor that has placed $1,000,000 in box B if it predicted that X will select only box B and has placed nothing in box B if it predicted that X will select both boxes.
A)Assume (for the sake of argument) a universal acceptance of the in fact completely discredited hypothesis that the strong statistical correlation between smoking and a host of serious diseases including lung cancer is accounted for by a genetic factor that is the common cause of both. In your view, can someone who believes that these statistics should not in themselves present a deterrent to smoking reconcile this view with an advocacy of the “one-box” solution to Newcomb’s Problem?
B)Suppose that the back of box B is transparent, and that a completely trustworthy and reliable friend of X is able to see whether $1,000,000 is in box B. Assume that the Predictor can predict what if anything the friend will say and what X will hear, and that it has factored this into its prior analysis and decision. If the friend were able to communicate with X, does it matter whether i)the friend simply recommends a selection (“Take both boxes!”) or ii)reveals the actual contents of box B to X (e.g., “Box B is empty”)? Why or why not? If the friend were able to announce out loud the contents of box B, would it be advantageous for X to place himself in a situation in which he is unable to make out what his friend says? Explain.
