DR. STERLING HARWOOD'S HOMEPAGE

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: Set 1

Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) 1: For all courses, how can I most easily use this website?

For all classes, the keys to most easily using our website are to have a positive attitude toward our website and to use Control + F -- and the table of contents below -- to search for key words or phrases in our website. I have tried to put the most important questions and answers toward the top of the website, to minimize the scrolling you have to do. Using Control + F minimizes scrolling, too. Avoid printing out the website, for these reasons: 1) the website is over 225 pages long in Font size 12; 2) much or even most of the website will be irrelevant to your work in the course, since most of the website consists of quotations you can use in your paper; but there is only one paper due and there are about 7 topics with up to 147 quotes on each topic; 3) importantly, relying on one printout means you miss all updates after you print out the website; 4) printing out the website, especially more than once to get updates, is environmentally wasteful of paper; 5) most importantly, a printout can't give you the crucial Control + F window to search the website with pushbutton ease; and 6) the pages of your printout might not be numbered (since the website lacks page numbers) and so the printout may be hard to organize. Avoid being intimidated by the size of our website, since every part of our website is designed to help students. So having a large website is like having a large friend or a large library. Besides, you don't let the large size of the library on campus intimidate you; you see that as a great resource due to its large size. The same applies here. Anyway, whatever your attitude, you can read the table of contents below (29 FAQs) to find what you want in fewer than 5 minutes and you can search this website with pushbutton ease for key words or phrases by holding down the Control key and then hitting the F key. A window will then appear and then you should type in the word or phrase for which you wish to search. If that fails, simply use the table of contents below to find your way around this website. Scroll to the FAQ that gives you the answer you seek or simply use Control + F to search for the FAQ. It's pushbutton easy and as easy as reading the TV Guide or a comic book. Indeed, in some ways it is easier to read than a comic book, since you won't be distracted by pictures and since the font is typed and thus easier to read than a comic book's handwritten font.

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS WEBSITE

Here is the absolutely crucially important table of contents for the website:

FAQ1: For all courses, how can I most easily use this website?

FAQ2: For all courses, what is Dr. Harwood's contact info and when did Dr. Harwood last revise this website, and what were his latest revisions?

FAQ3: What's my grade?

FAQ4: What's the syllabus for PHIL 60 EVC Spring 2009?

FAQ5: For all courses, what are Dr. Harwood's CRUCIALLY important Guidelines A-Z for Creating & Grading Papers & Presentations?

FAQ6: For all courses, what is the best sample paper for us to read to help us write our term paper in ABC format?

FAQ7: For all courses, what is the required ABC format for organizing papers (unless otherwise stated on the greensheet or syllabus)?

FAQ8: For all courses (and for all paper topics except moral relativism versus moral realism in PHIL 65 Spring 05 @ EVC), what are the 5 moral principles we should use AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE if we write on any moral or political topic such as affirmative action, gun control, abortion, euthanasia, prostitution, or surrogate motherhood?

FAQ9: For all courses, what are the 7 truth tips we should try to use to discover truth generally and try to use in section C of our ABC sets in our term papers?

FAQ10: For all courses, what are 33 fallacies to avoid committing and to expose and disagree with when others commit them?

FAQ11: For all courses, what is Dr. Harwood's introductory lecture in philosophy?

FAQ12: For all courses, what are some arguments on euthanasia (mercy killing) that students have the option of evaluating in a paper?

FAQ13: For all courses, what are some arguments about abortion that students have the option of evaluating in a paper?

FAQ14: For all classes, what are more than 175 quotations on human nature that students may choose from to use in the A sections of their papers to evaluate (and in the C sections of their papers to help them evaluate quotations in their A sections)?

FAQ15: For all courses, what are some arguments on gun control that students may use in a paper on gun control?

FAQ16: For all courses, what are some affirmative action quotes students may use in a paper on affirmative action?

FAQ17: For all courses, what are some quotations on prostitution students may use in a paper about whether or not to legalize prostitution?

FAQ18: For all courses, what are some quotes on the Baby M/Surrogate Motherhood case which students can use in a paper about surrogate motherhood?

FAQ19: For all courses, what are more than 100 miscellaneous, assorted quotes we may choose from to use in any approved paper topic for which they are relevant (ask Dr. Harwood if there is any doubt about their relevance for an approved paper topic and note that your paper must be on only one of the approved paper topics; avoid combining paper topics)?

FAQ20: For all courses, what are some arguments on capital punishment that students may use in a paper on capital punishment?

FAQ 21: [coming soon to a screen near you]

FAQ22: For all courses (except those excluded below), how may we view videos and earn extra credit on our exams, quizzes & tests (40% of your course grade at EVC & SJCC)?

FAQ23: For PHIL 10 and PHIL 60 students only, what are some quotes on rationalism versus empiricism that students may use in a paper on rationalism versus empiricism?

FAQ24: For all courses, what quotes show that the Golden Rule is accepted in at least 7 different cultures or religions?

FAQ25: For all courses, what guidelines should I follow to make email communication with Dr. Harwood most helpful to all concerned?

FAQ26: For all courses, how can I rewrite my paper to try to get a higher grade (though not all COMM 100W or COMM 41 papers may be rewritten)?

FAQ27: What are the 8 requirements for earning 3 extra credit points for every American War (note that one student seems to have found 48 American wars I list at the end of FAQ27 and thus seems to have earned 144 extra credit points)?

FAQ28: For all courses, how can we get our work back after the course is over?

FAQ29: For all courses, what is Dr. Harwood's essay published as "Is Inheritance Immoral?" chapter 44 in Louis P. Pojman's book Political Philosophy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002)?

FAQ30: For all classes, how can students earn up to 15 extra credit points on an approximately 30-foot bronze and white marble statue of Confucius?

FAQ31: For all classes, what videos have we seen in class so far?

FAQ32: For all classes, what are some pros and cons of capital punishment?

FAQ33: For all classes, what are some pros and cons of moral relativism?

FAQ34: For all classes, what are some pros and cons of affirmative action?

FAQ35: For all classes, what is Dr. Harwood's overview of Philosophy of Religion?

FAQ36: For all classes, what is Dr. Harwood's essay "Why Be Moral? A Definition and Defense of Humanism"?

FAQ37: What is the syllabus for PHIL 60 Logic: Critical Reasoning, Spring 2007, 2 sections, W night and Sat. morning, both @ SJCC?

FAQ38: For PHIL 65 Introduction to Ethics; M&W 1045am-1210pm; room C102 EVC; Spring 2007, what is the syllabus?

FAQ39: What are 7 possible contradictions in Buddhism?

FAQ40: What are more than 20 quotations by or about Confucius that students may use in the A-sections (and the C sections) of a term paper?

FAQ41: What are some quotations on the paper topic of legalizing currently illegal drugs that students may use in the A-sections (and C-sections) of their papers?

FAQ42: What are some quotes by or about Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) that students may use in a term paper on Nietzsche?

FAQ43: What's a test bank and what's the test bank for PHIL 60 Logic and Critical Thinking, EVC, Fall 2007?

FAQ44: What is a test bank and what is the test bank for PHIL 65 Introduction to Ethics, Spring 2008, EVC?

FAQ45: What is Chief Seattle's letter concerning environmentalism?

FAQ46: What is the syllabus for PHIL 65 Spring 2009 EVC?

FAQ47: What videos have we seen in PHIL 65 Spring 2009 @ Evergreen Valley College (EVC)?

FAQ48: What videos have we seen in PHIL 60 Spring 2009 @ Evergreen Valley College (EVC)?

FAQ49: What course is Dr. Harwood scheduled to teach at Lincoln Law School during the summer of 2009?

FAQ50: What courses is Dr. Harwood scheduled to teach at Evergreen Valley College (EVC) during the Fall of 2009?

FAQ51: What's a sample paper (but still an imperfect paper) on abortion?

FAQ52: What's the weirdest thing that Dr. Harwood thinks just might surprise us by being true, and the most unlikely conspiracy theory that Dr. Harwood thinks still rewards investigation, and what are 23 reasons to start questioning President Richard Nixon's claim that all 6 landings of humans on the moon in human history occurred 1969-1972 during his first presidential term?

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FAQ2: For all courses, what is Dr. Harwood's contact info, when did Dr. Harwood  this website, and what were his revisions?

Here's Dr. Harwood's contact info:
Dr. Harwood's email = svharwood1@aol.com
phones = 408-259-7777, 408-687-8199 & 408-289-5800
faxes = 408-254-7777
mailing address =
Dr. Sterling Harwood, Esq.
Law Office of Sterling Harwood
5445 Alum Rock Ave.
San Jose, CA 95127-2613
USA

Dr. Harwood last revised this website on 5/3/09 when he did the following:

A) added many grades to the answer to FAQ3;

B) moved to the answer to FAQ43 the test bank for use in his PHIL 60 Logic: Critical Thinking course @ EVC 1045am to 1210pm, and added some test bank questions higher than Question #500;

C) rephrased the FAQ about the conspiracy theory, now FAQ52, about the moon landing in the last FAQ on this site;

D) eliminated about 14 FAQs from old courses Dr. Harwood is not teaching this semester

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FAQ3: What's my grade?

Here are the answers to the final exam for PHIL 60 and PHIL 65, Spring 2009, so you can unofficially grade your own final exam if you followed Dr. H's instructions to use 2 Scantron 882 forms at the final exam, one for me (official) and one for you (unofficial):

PHIL 60 FINAL EXAM ANSWERS, SPRING 2009

Final exam 5/21/09

1.     507T

2.     508T

3.     509F

4.     510T

5.     511F

6.     512F

7.     513F

8.     514T

9.     515T

10.                        516T

11.                        517F

12.                        518F

13.                        519F

14.                        520T

15.                        521F

16.                        522T

17.                        442T

18.                        443T

19.                        444T

20.                        445T

21.                        446T

22.                        447T

23.                        448T

24.                        449T

25.                        450T

26.                        451T

27.                        452T

28.                        453T

29.                        454T

30.                        455T

31.                        456T

32.                        457T

33.                        458T

34.                        459T

35.                        460T

36.                        461T

37.                        462T

38.                        463T

39.                        464F

40.                        465F

41.                        466T

42.                        467T

43.                        468T

44.                        469T

45.                        470T

46.                        471T

47.                        472T

48.                        473T

49.                        474T

50.                        475F

51.                        476T

52.                        373T

53.                        374T

54.                        378T

55.                        379F

56.                        394T

57.                        395T

58.                        409T

59.                        410T

60.                        425T

61.                        426F

62.                        439T

63.                        440F

64.                        441F

65.                        241F

66.                        242F

67.                        243T

68.                        244F

69.                        245T

70.                        438F

71.                        1F

72.                        25F

73.                        26T

74.                        27F

75.                        28T

76.                        29F

77.                        31F

78.                        34T

79.                        35F

80.                        36F

81.                        41T

82.                        42F

83.                        43T

84.                        44F

85.                        46T

Here are the codenames and grades for them. To learn the codename that Dr. Harwood has assigned to you, simply see him and show him your authentic photo ID.

Codes & Grades

To read your extra credit and attendance, note that the letters refer to the months and the numbers after the letters refer to the date of the month on which the assignment was submitted and the points earned. '/' indicates a quiz, test, or exam was involved (I use those 3 terms interchangeably). The number before the '/' (which is called a virgule or slash) is the number of questions you answered correctly on the exam, and the number after the '/' is the number of questions on the exam in question. Note the following examples as a key to translation: '1j30' means 1 extra credit point earned on January 30th; '1/1f2' means you answered 1 of 1 question right on Feb. 2; '27/30m31' means you answered 27 of 30 questions right on march 31; '2/3may1' means you answered 2 of 3 questions right on may 1; ‘2S19’ means 2 extra credit points received on Sept. 19, ‘1S27’ means 1 extra credit point received on Sept. 27, ‘3O6’ means 3 points received on Oct., ‘4D1’ means 4 points received on December 1, 2006, ‘0S27’ means attended on September 27, 2006; ‘0O18’ means attended on October 18, 2006, etc. Call me @ 408-259-7777, email me or ask me in class if you need help in understanding these abbreviations or anything else on the website or in the course. Note: perhaps not all the cards graded and returned to you have been entered into my computer yet (I sometmes have handwritten notes), but if you want to speed this process or double check by showing me your graded cards that fail to appear below, then just see me after class or perhaps during a video or other class exercise in class. If your codename is not listed below, then you will need to fill out another code card before I can post your grades.

Here are the grades so far, but avoid being alarmed if you fail to see all of your grades yet, since Dr. H is catching up on the grading and most students who attend almost every class and take almost every test are doing A-quality work:

DR. STERLING HARWOOD; PHIL 60 & PHIL 65 SPRING 2009; GRADES & ANSWERS TO TESTS

‘MD’ = MISDATED; PROMPTLY CONTACT DR. HARWOOD IF THE LIST OF GRADED WORK IS INCOMPLETE OR INCORRECT.  BRING ANY UNRECORDED YET RETURNED WORK TO DR. HARWOOD, SO HE CAN MAKE SURE HE RECORDS IT BY THE END OF THE FINAL EXAM.

DR. STERLING HARWOOD; PHIL 60 & PHIL 65 SPRING 2009; GRADES

1.      1. ALGERIA 27; 3M25; 3M25

  1. ARGENTINA 29; 3M26; 6M12; 6M5; 6F19; 0F12; 3M17; 6M12;

3.      3. THE BAHAMAS 46; 5J26;0A1; 2F10; 4F11; 0M30; 3A20; 3/3A13; 13A13; 0M16; 0A1;

  1. CANADA 04; 3M12; 3M5; 3F3; 3M10; 3M19; 3M5; 3A14; 5/5A14;
  2. CHILE 88; 4M10; 0J29; 3M19; 2/2F3; 4M5; 3A14; 5/5A14; 2F5;
  3. CHINA 01; 1F26; 2M5; 2M10; 6F19; 5/5A14; 3M19; 2M26; 2M5; 5/5A14;
  4. ESTONIA 52; 3M5; 3A14; 4/5A14; 2M26; 3M19; 1/2F3; 3F3; 3A14; 4/5A14;
  5. FORMOSA 50; 5J27; 6M5; 0/2F3;
  6. GERMANY 06; 3M10; 3/3F12; 2/2F3;
  7. GREECE 98; 5J27;  
  8. HAITI 49; 7/8M18; 2M18; CP+M18; 7F18; 11F25; 4F3; 1A1; 2M30; 0M9; 2/5M9; good cp M2 & generally with use of test banks; 1A15; 4/4A15 (CORRECTED SCORE); VERY LATE A20; 1A20; 4A20; 7A13; 5F11; 9/9F11; 3M11; 3M11; CP+M11; 6/6M11; 3M25; 3M2; 1A1; 3F9;
  9. NORTH VIETNAM 92; 6M10; 4M12; 2/3F10; 4M19; 4M17; 3M26; CP+A14; 5/5A14; 3A14; 4M12;
  10. YEMEN 89; 2/2F3; 2F10; 3A14; 5/5A14; 2/3F10; 2M19; 1J29; 5/5A14; 3A14; 3F5;
  11. SOUTH VIETNAM 33; 3/3F12; 3M19; 3M10; 3M31; 5/5A14; 2A14;
  12. THAILAND 44; 1A2; 1/1A2; 2/3F10; 3F5;  3F3;
  13. COSTA RICA 22; 2M26; 0/2F3; 5J27; 2/3F10; 3M10; 6F19; 2M20; 2/3F12; 1F25; 1J29;
  14. NICARAGUA 11; 1F25; 2/2F3; 4M10; 5J27; 2M19; 6F19; 2/3F10; 2A14; 5/5A14;
  15. IVORY COAST 31; 2M10; 1M10; 3/3F12; 1J20; 3M19; 1F26; 3A14; 4/5A14; 1F4; 3M12; 3M12;
  16. JAPAN 30; 5J27; 4M17; 1J29; 3M10;
  17. MONACO 41; 3M10; 2/2F3; 3M17; 1J29;
  18. MOROCCO 43; 1/1A2; 2A14; 5/5A14; 2/3F12; 3F3; 1/2F3; 3M5; 2A14; 3F5; 1M12;
  19. CONGO 51; 1F26; 1/1A2; 7/8F24; 1M5; 0J29;  2/3F12; 2/2F3;
  20. RUSSIA 61; 0/2F3; 0F10; 6M12; 3M17; 0F19; 3A14; 4/5A14; 1F26; 1J29; CP+J29; 3A14; 4/5A14; 6M12;
  21. LUXEMBOURG 71; 1F26; 0J29; 3/3F10; 3A14; 5/5A14; 6M31; 4M10; 2/2F3; 3A14; 5/5A14; 3F5;
  22. INDIA 82; 6M5; 3/3F10; 2/3F12; 5/5A14; 3A14; 1F26; 3M19; 1/2F3; 3A14; 5/5A14; 1F5;
  23. MOZAMBIQUE 00; 2/2F3; ABSENT A14; 3M17; 1J29; 3M19; 5J27; 1F3; 1F3; 1F3; 3/3F10; 6F19;
  24. US 10; 3M26; 5M5; 3M10; 1F26; 3A14;  8/8F24; 3A14; 4/5A14;
  25. PAKISTAN 91; 3M26; 2/2F3; 5J27; 5M9; 3M5; 5M5; 1F5;
  26. PERU 97; 1/1A2; 3A2; 3M10; 5/5M10; 3A14; 4/5A14; 3/3F12; 1J29; 3F3; 2/2F3; 3A14; 4/5A14; 3M10; 5/5M10; 3F5;
  27. FRANCE 83; 3M10; 4M26; 5J27; 2/3F10; 4M19; 0J30; 1F5; 1F5; 1F5; 1F5; CP+A30;
  28. SPAIN 66; 0/1A2; 3M10; 3/3F12; 1J29; EXCUSED FROM CLASS AROUND A26: GREEN SLIP IN LEATHER BRIEFCASE; 3M19; 2/2F3; 1/1A2; ADD 1 TO SCORE TO CORRECT GRADING ERROR; 3A14; 4/5A14; 1F5; 3M12; 3M12;
  29. PORTUGAL 23; 0/1A2; 3M17; 5J27; 3A14; 3/5A14; 3M19; 2/2F3; 3F3; 2M5; 2M5; 2A14; 3/5A14; 3F5;
  30. HOLLAND 24; 5J27; 3M5; 6F19; 3F5;
  31. THE NETHERLANDS 39; 1A2; 0M31; 3M19; 2/2F3; 3F3; 2F5; 3/3F10; 1J29; 3M17; 0A14; 1F5; 2F5;
  32. DENMARK 38; 4M26; 5J27; 3M19; 2/2F3; 1F5; 1F5; 1F5; 1F5; 3M12; 3M12;
  33. FINLAND 37; 3M10; 1J28; 3/3F10; 3M19; 2M31; 2/2F3; 2A14MD; 1F5; 1F5; 1F5; 1F5; 3M12; 3M12;
  34. IRAQ 19; 3M10; 3/3F12; 3M19; 1J30; 1/2F3; 3/5A14; 2A14; 3M12; 1F5; 1F5; 1F5; 1F5; 3M12;
  35. MONGOLIA 02; 5M12; 3F5; 5/5A14; 3A14; 3/3F10; 4M19; 2/2F3; 5J27; 1F26; 5/5A14; 3A14; 3F5;
  36. RHODESIA 88; 3M10; 2M12; 6F19; 0M19; 3M19; 3M6MD?; 2/3F10; 1A14; 5/5A14; 2M12;
  37. SWEDEN 18; 1A2; 1/1A2; 0F26; ABSENT A14; 4/5A14;
  38. AUSTRALIA 17; 3M10; 5/5A14; 3F3; 3/3F12; 1J29; 5J29; 3M31; 3A14; 5/5A14;
  39. SOUTH AFRICA 87; 3A2; 1/1A2; 3M10; 3A14; 2/5A14; 3M19; 6M5; 3A14; 2/5A14; 3F5; 5M12;
  40. JAMAICA 44; 3F3; 2/2F3; ABSENT A16; 4/5A14; 3F5;
  41. NEW ZEALAND 16; 3M10; CP+GENERALLY; CP+A23; CP+1 CLASS BEFORE A23 (CARDS); 1J29; 3M26;
  42. INDONESIA 29; 1/1A2; 1A2; 0M17; 1M10; 3M31; 2/2F3; 2/3F10; 5/5A14; 1A14; 3F5;
  43. LATVIA 38; 3/3F10; 0M12; 5/8F24; 1J29; 1F26; 5J27;  6/6M3; 2/2F3; 0M12;
  44. SIAM 40; 7/8F24; 1J27; 2/2F3; 3F3; 1J29; 3/3F12; 1/3F10;
  45. USA 90; 2/2F3; 3/3F10; 4M10; 3/3F12; 1J29; 3M19; 7/8F24;
  46. UKRAINE 42; 1M26; 6F12; 2/3F12; 7/8F29; 3M5; 3M5; 1F23; 0A14;
  47. TIBET 61; 1M10; 1F25; 2/2F3; 1J29; 1M31; 4/5A14; 1A14;
  48. NEPAL 72; 2/2F3; 2/3F10; 3M10; 1F26; 1M12;
  49. BANGLADESH 84; 1F3; 1F3; 1F3; 2/3F10; 2M10; 3M31; 1F5; 3M12;
  50. SAUDI ARABIA 76; 1/3F10; 3M10; 1J29; 1M19; 6F19; 5M5; 3M17; 1F10; 2/2F3;
  51. IRAN 73; 4M10; CP+J29; 4M12; 3/3F10; 2/2F3; 1M14; 4/5A14; 4M12;
  52. EGYPT 68; 0/1A2; 2M10; 6/6M3; 2F5; 2/2F3; 1F5; 2F5;
  53. CHAD 65; 1F26; 5M10;  2M31; 3A14; 4/5A14; 3/3F12; 2M19; 6/8F24; 5J27; 3A14; 4/5A14;
  54. SUDAN 67; 5M5; ABSENT A14; 0F12; 4/6M3; 0J29; 1F26; 0/3F12;
  55. RHODESIA 63; 3M12; 3M5; 3M12; CP+J29; 1J29; 3M19; 5J29; 3M5; 1/2F3; CP+F3; 3/5A14; 3A14; 3M12; 3M12;
  56. HOLLAND 02; 5J26; 5J28; 11F25; 2A15; 4/4A15; 10M13; 5M25; 1F9;
  57. MEXICO 03; 3M10; 3/3F12; 3M19; 3M5; 1F26; 3A14; 4/5A14; 1F5; 3M12; 3M12;
  58. PARAGUAY 05; 3M10; 2/2F3; 3/3F10; 3M17; 3/3F12; 1J29; 3F5;
  59. URUGUAY 08; 4M10; CP+A23; 3M19; 3M5; 3M5; 3F3; CP+A30;
  60. ITALY 07; 1F26; 2M10; 2/2F3; 3M19; 3M31; 3F3; 5/5A14; 3A14;
  61. CANADA 03; 3/3F4; 3/3F4; 5F2; 3/3F4;
  62. THE PHILIPPINES 04; 5J28;
  63. JAPAN 05; 5J28; 1F9; 11F25; 3A1; 2/4A15; 3A15; 4A20; 3A1; 7/10M4; 3M4; 1M18; 5/8M18; 6/9F11; 3M9; 4/5M9; 3/7M16; 5/8M18; 1/3F4; 4M25; 3A1;
  64. NIPPON 06; 5J26; 5J28; 0/3F4; 1F9; 4F11; 11F25; 0M9; 0/5M9; 2M30; 1M30; 1A1; 3A15; 1/4A15; 13A13; 3/3A13; 1F4; 3M25; 3M25; 6M10; 6/8M10; 1M30; 2M30; 1A1;
  65. HUNGARY 07; 5J26; 3/3F4; 1F9; 2M2; 3M4; 8/10M4; 3M25; 3M25; 5/8M18MD; 5/8M18;

69.  69. CHILE 81; 1F9; 2A1; 3/3F4; 3M2; 11F25; 2M30; 2M11; 2A15; 2/4A15; 4A20; 3/3A13; 13A13; 6/6M11; 6/7F11; 3M25; 2M11; 2M30; 2A1;

70.  70. THE CZECH REPUBLIC 09; 4F3; 5J28; 0F4; 1F4?UNDATED WORK; 5/6F18;1/3F4; 1/3F4; 5/6F18;

71.  71. SLOVAKIA 10; 5J26; 5J28;

72.  72. UZBEKISTAN 11; 2M2;

73.  73. UKRAINE 12; 5J26; 3/3F4; 1F9; 4F11; 11F25; 5F28; 1M30; 3A1; 1/4A15; 3/3A13; 13A13; 4/7M16; 4M16; 3/3A13; 1/4A15; 1M18; 5/8M18; 1M30; 2M25; 3M25; 3A1;

74.  74. RUSSIA 13; 5J26

75.  75. POLAND 14; 5J26; 11F25; 3M30; 3F9; 3M4; 3/6F18; 2M18; 6/8M18; 3F9; 3M30; 5F2; 3F18; 0A1; 4/5F23; 8/12M4; 3M11; 5/6M11; 2M18; 6/8M18; 3M4; 3/3F4; 3/3F4; 2M18; 3F9; 3M30; 5/6F18; 2/6F18;

76.  76. LATVIA 15; 5J26; 5/6F18; 5J28; 3/3F4; 3M11; 5/6M11; ABSENT M16; 1/5F23; 5/6F18; 6/9F11; 3/3F4;

77.  77. ESTONIA 16; 5J26; 5J28; 5F2;

78.  78. BULGARIA 17; 1F9; 3/3F4; 5/6F18; 1F9; 3F18; 5/6F18; 1f9; 1F9; 5/6F18; 1F9;

79.  79. WAKE ISLAND 59, 5J26; 1A1; 3M30; 3M18; 3M9; 4A20; 10M13; 2/3A13; 6/9F11; 4/8M18; 2M4; 8/11M4; 3M16; 5/7M16; 2M11; 1/3F4; 0M25; 3M2; 3M9; 3M30; 5/6F18; 2F9; 1A1;

80.  80. ALBANIA 18; 5J28;  

81.  81. FORMASA 67; 5J26; 1/3F4; 4/6F18; 3F18; 3M2; 3M11; 1A1; 4A20; 2M18; 5/8M18; 1A1; 3M4; 8/11M4; 4/7M16; 3M16; 3M2; 1A1; 3M11;

82.  82. YUGOSLAVIA 19; 1F9; 3M2; 5M16; 3/5M23; 3M2;

83.  83. GREAT BRITAIN 44; 2A1; 11F25; 4M30; 2A15; 2/4A15; 2/4A15; 6/7M16; 4A20; 4M30; 2A1; 3M2; 1F9; 4F11; 3M2;

84.  84. S. AFRICA 20; 5J26; 5F2; 3F9; 3F9; 3/5F23; ABSENT M16; 3F9;

85.  85. FINLAND 22; 5J26; 5/6F18; 3M4; 6M30; 3A1; 0A15; 0/4A15; 4A20; 5/6F18; 3/3A13; 13A13; 5/6M11MD; 0/5M9; 3M9; 3M2; 3M16; 6M18; 3M11; 6M25; 6M30; 5/8M18; 3A1; 8/9F11; 3/5F3; 3M4; 5/6M11; 6M25; 3A1; 6M30; 4F11; 4F11; 5/6F18;

86.  86. ANGOLA 21; 3M2; 5F18; 10F25; 5/6F10; 5F2; 3A15; 1/4A15; 8/9F11; 3M2; 5M16; 4/8M18; 3M4; 8/11M4; 5F11; 3M11; 5/6F18; 4M25; ABSENT A13; 5F11; 3/3F4; 3M2;

87.  87. USSR 98; 5J26; 0M21; 2F10; 4F11; 3/3F4; 2M4; 11F25; 1A1; 2M2; 2M11; 4/6F18; 3A15; 2/4A15; 4A20; 3/3A13; 13A13; 6/6M11; 2M9; 2M9; 3/5M9; 4/6F18; 2M11; 2M2; 1A1; 0M31MD30?;

88.  88. ISRAEL 23; 5J26; 5J28; 7/9F11; 3/3F4;

89.  89. SAUDI ARABIA 17; 5J26; 3A1; 2F18; 5M30; 11F25; 4F3; 5J28; 3M2; 3A15; 3/4A15; 4A20; 2A20; 3A13; 3/3A13; 3A13; 7A13; 6/9F11; 6/7M16; 5M25; 3M2; 3M2; 5M3; 3A1;

90.  90. IRAN 24; 5J26; 5J28; 3/3F4; 3/3F4;

91.  91. KUWAIT 25; 5J26; 5J28; 3M4; 3M2; ABSENT M16; 3/5F23; 8/11M4; 6/9f11; 3/3F4; 3M4; 3/3F4;

92.  92. QATAR 26; 5J26; 5J28; 3/3F4; 1F9; 11F25; 3M2; 1M11; 1M16; 7/7M16; 6/6M11; 1M11; 3/3F4;

93.  93. DUBAI 27; 5J26; 5F2; 1F9; 1F9; 3/6F18; 3F18; 11F25; 3M2; 6/9F11; 3M4; 6/11M4; 3M11; 4/6M11; 1F9; 3/6F18;

94.  94. BRUNEI 28; 2F9; 4/5F23; 3M2; 3M2; 3M4; 6/11M4; 3M25; 6/9F11; 2F9; 3/3F4; 3M25; 4/5F23; 3/3F4; 3M2; 2F9;

95.  95. SOMALIA 29; 2F10; 3/3F14; 4F11; 3F9; 11F25; 3A20; 3M2;

96.  96. CHAD 30; 3M9; 3M11; 3M30; 3A15; 6/8M18; 3A22; 6/7M11; 3M9; 3M11; 3M30;

97.  97. IVORY COAST 31; 2F10; 1/3F4; 1M2; 7/9F11; 2M30; 4F11; 1M2;

98.  98. ZIMBABWE 32; 5J27; 5J27; 2/3F12;

99.  99. RHODESIA 33; 5J26; 2/5M23; 2F2;

       100.  EAST GERMANY 34; 1/3F4;  1/3F4MD; 1M25; 0M2; 1A1; 1M30;

       101.     WEST GERMANY 35; 5J26; 2F9; 11F25; 1M30; 1A1; 0M2; 0M9; 0/5M9; 1A15; 3/4A15; 1M30; 6/9F11; 1M25; 0M2; 1A1; 1M30;

102.                      TOGO 77; 5J26; 3M2; 3/3F4; 3M9; 0A1; 3M30; 4/6F18; 3M4; 3M11; 6/8M18; 1A20; 4A20; 1/3A13; 10M13; 4/5M9; 1A20; 1A20; 1A20; 1A20; 1A20; 1A20; 1A20; 3M11; 3M4; 3M25; 4/6F18; 3M30; 0A1;

103.                      GERMANY 36; 5F18; 1M30; 10F25; 4F3; 5J28; 6M30; 3A15; 4/4A15; 8/9F11; 13A13; 3/7M16; 5/6M11; 5F11; 0/3F4; 5F11; 3M25; 6M30; 1M30; 5F18;

104.                      ICELAND 37; F3 & F4?; 4F3; 3/3F4; 3F9; 6/6F18; 7F18; 11F25; 1M16; 6/7M16; 1M18; 6/8M18; 0M30; 1A15; 3/4A15; 7/11M4; 2M4; 1M9; 2/5M9; 1M16; 6/7M16; 2M25; 2M2; 6/6F18; 0M30;

105.                      DENMARK 38; 5J26; 5J28; 3M4; 3M30; 3M30; 3F18; 4/8M18; ABSENT M16; 4/5F23; 10M13; 3M30;

106.                      SWEDEN 39; 5J26; 10F25; 3F9; 3M30; 3A15; 4/4A15; 8/9F11; 3/3A13; 13A13; 3M9; 3/5M9; 3M11; 5/6M11; 3M18; 7/8M18; 5F11; 5F11; 3/3F4; 4M25; 3M2; 3M30;

107.                      LICHENSTEIN 40; PERU 07; 0A1; 7F18; 2M9; 11F25; 4F3; 5J28; 1/4A15MD; 6/9M16; 4A20; 7A13; 4/8M18; 1M9; 0/5M9; 8/11M4; 0M4; 9/9F11; 5F11; 0M25; 1M25; 3/3F4; 0A1;

108.                      LUXEMBOURG 41; 5J26; 3M2; 3F9; 4M11; 3M25; 3M25; 6/9F11; 4/6M11; 3M25; 3M25; 3/3F4;

109.                      FRANCE 42; 5J26; 5J28; 1F9; 1F9; 2F10; 5/6F18; 3/5F23; 6/9F11; 4/8m18; 1A20; 1A20; 1A20; 1A20; 1A20; 1A20; 1A20; 1A20; 1F9; 5/6F18; 3/5F23; 1M2;

110.                      USA 47; F10 & F11?; 5J26; 1F10MD; 9/9F11; 11F25; 6M30; 2/4A15; 3A15; 4A20; 3A1; 6M25; 4M11; 6M25; 1/3F4; 4F11; 6M30; 3A1;

111.                      SPAIN 43; 5J26; 3F9; 3F9; 3F9;

112.                      BANGLADESH 32; 5J26;3A1; 2M30; 5J28; 4/6F18; 11F25; 1M9; 2/5M9; 1A15; 0M18; 3/8M18; 4A20; 2/3A13; 10M13; 3M4; 7/11M4; 0F9; 4/6F18;

113.                      NORWAY 44; 5J26; 3A1; 5J28; 3M2; 2M30; 3A1; 4M11; 3M25; 3A1; 3F18; 10M13; 6/8M18; 5/7M16; 4M11; 3M25; 3A1; 2M30;

114.                      BERMUDA 45; 5J26; 11F25; 3F9; 0A1; 5J28; 3/3F4; 3F9; 3M11; 0A20; 4A20; 3F9; 0A1;

115.                      INDONESIA 11; 5J28; 2F10; 3/3F4; 11F25; 4F11; 1M30; VERY LATE A20 & OTHER CLASSES; 4A20; 3/3A13; 13A13; 2/5M9; LATE A22; 6/6M11; 3M18; 1M25; 3M9; 2M11; 1M25; 1M30; 3M18;

116.                      NEW ZEALAND; 95; 3/3F4; 5F2; 0A1; 2M30; 4A20; 3/3A13; 13A13; 2M16; 2M2; 0M30; 2M30; 0A1;

117.                      GUATEMALA 86; 2F10; 1F9; 11F25; 4F11; 1M30; 4A20; 0M2; 3/5M23; 2M11; 6/6M11; 5/6F18; 2M25; 1M30; 3/3F4;

118.                      SIAM 02; 5J28; 5F2; 1/3F4; 1F9; 5/6F18; 3F18; 3M4; 3/5M9; 3M9; 2M18; 0/7M18; 1A1; 6/9F11; 4A20; 1/3A13MD; 10M13; 2M2; 3M25; 3M25; 1A1;

119.                      JAMAICA 47; 1A1; 5F18; 10F25; 5F2; 8/9F11; 13A13; 4/5F23; 3M18; 1/3F4; 3/6M11; 7/7M16; 4/5F23; 3M9; 1/5M9; 6/8M18; 5M16; 3M2; 5F11; 6M25; 6/6F18; 5F11; 6M25; 1/3F4; 3M2; 1A1;

120.                      THE VIRGIN ISLANDS 48; 0A1; 2M30; 4M30; 4A20; 0A1; 2M30; 2/3A13; 4/6M11; 3M11; 5M16; 3M25; 2M25; 4M30; 2M30; 0A1;

  1. VIETNAM 99; 3M26; 3M5; 1F26; 2/3F12; 2M19; 5J27; 0/2F3;

PHIL 65: Answers to Quizzes

1/26/09: gambling essay worth 5 pts

2/4/09 QUIZ: 1. Bentham was a utilitarian.T; 2. Mill rejected utilitarianism.F; 3. Mill lived 1806-1873.T

2/11/09 QUIZ: 14T; 16F; 19F; 20T; 22F; 25F; 26T; 27T; 29F = 9 PTS

2/18/09 Quiz: 256 F; 219T; 220T; 237T; 239F; 56T = 6 PTS

2/23/09 QUIZ: 1F; 2F; 3F; 4T; 5F

3/4/09 QUIZ; 52T; 63T; 53T; 70T; 81F; 89T; 91T; 106T; 127T; 130T; 141F = 11 PTS

3/9/09 QUIZ; 393F; 392T; 387F; 390F; 275F

3/11/09 Quiz; 368T; 369T; 370T; 395T; 396F; 176T = 6 PTS

3/16/09 QUIZ; 64F; 55F; 89F; 102F; 103T; 104T; 106T = 7PTS

3/18/09 QUIZ; 147T; 148T; 289T; 302T; 1T; 2F; 419T; 3F

4/13/09 QUIZ; 156T; 147T; 106T

4/15/09 QUIZ; 410F; 322F; 323F; 324F

 

PHIL 60: Answers to Quizzes

2/3/09 QUIZ:

  1. SOCRATES SAID THE UNEXAMINED LIFE IS STILL WORTH LIVING.F
  2. THALES OF MILETUS WAS THE FIRST WESTERN PHILOSOPHER ON RECORD.T

2/10/09 QUIZ: 4T; 317F; 318T

2/12/09 QUIZ: 20T; 30T; 24T;

2/24/09 QUIZ: 1F; 9T; 65T; 69F; 15T; 99F; 100F; 16T; ; DIFF ORDER 1,9,15,16,65,69,99,100?

3/10/09 QUIZ; 45; 49; 138; 131; 17;

4/2/09; 160F;

4/14/09; 162T; 161T; 160F; 173T; 175T
 

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FAQ4: What's the syllabus for PHIL 60 EVC Spring 2009?

PHIL 60: Logic and Critical Thinking; Spring 2009

1. INSTRUCTOR: Sterling Harwood, J.D., Ph.D, Attorney at Law. For a bio of Dr. Harwood, see near the end of the syllabus.

2. PHONE: 408-259-7777 (home office & 24-hour voicemail; leave all phone messages on this voicemail). Feel free to call me anytime, since I simply turn off my phone when I can't take any more calls. So you won't disturb my beauty sleep!

3. FAX: 408-289-5375 and backup fax 408-254-7777

4. WEBSITE (Homepage): www.sterlingharwood.com. This will fill in for our textbook until it arrives at the campus bookstore. Our site has hundreds of pages of material to help you answer frequently asked questions, help you write your term paper, and generally help you excel. So remember to use Control + F to search it for key words and remember to use the table of contents, too. Guidelines A-Z on this website are crucial to writing and your term paper. I plan to put them on reserve @ the request of any student. Students who see me to establish a code can have their grades regularly posted on this website, though I grade scantrons only once they are completed at the final exam. I plan to post the answers to all previous tests on the site so you can unofficially grade yourself by keeping track of your answers, as I require you to do by keeping a fully completed backup scantron form at all times after the first class. Never submit your last backup of your work.

5. EMAIL: svharwood1@aol.com Do NOT email me any attachments, since viruses are too often unintentionally spread that way, especially while we are at war with terrorists, including cyberterrorists. Thanks for helping me help you by avoiding delays in my service to you due to viruses. For faster response, call me after emailing me to let me know there's an email from you waiting for me to answer.

6. OFFICE HOURS & OTHER TIMES AVAILABLE: Office hours are by appointment only and the best times are Monday through Friday, especially Friday, 1215-115pm. I’m also usually after each class for a few minutes and any other time by appointment. It is important to call me promptly if you have any questions on how to do your assignments that are not answered by this syllabus, sample papers on reserve in EVC library, or www.sterlingharwood.com . For ease and efficiency for you please check those 3 other sources first before calling me, since they usually explain matters in more detail and with more clarity than I can off the cuff or on the phone. I answer calls much faster than emails, which I often check only late at night. I will be happy to return your call with instructions if leave your number and the question you want me to answer. I am always happy to answer any remaining procedural questions during breaks and after class, but especially after the add period ends I try to reduce somewhat answering procedural questions during valuable class time because we have so much of substance to cover during that time.

7. REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS:
a) W. Kent Wilson, Logic: The Essentials of Logic (REA publishers; www.rea.com, 2003); available in our campus bookstore for about $8 or less.
b) Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Random House/Bantom, 1996), available in our campus bookstore for about $12 or less.

8. REQUIRED MATERIALS:
a) Students must bring at least 2 blank scantron 882 (the same as 882ES) forms to every class after 9/5/07;
b) Students must bring at least 1 5”x8” blank index card to every class after 9/5/07.

9. GRADED COURSE ASSIGNMENTS:
1. Class Participation; attendance & speaking; every class = 15% but the total number of acceptable absences without a good excuse is 2 (more than 2 such absences means you will fail the course); tardiness reduces one’s class participation grade in proportion to the amount one’s tardiness I observe (for example, 85 overall minutes of tardiness spread over several classes is equivalent to missing an entire class)
2. Term Paper; ABC format; approved topic; due @ our final exam = 45%
3. True/False Tests, Exams & Quizzes, all extra credit; every class after 9/5/07 = 40%
Note: since the term paper is worth 45%, a failing grade on the term paper means a failing grade for the course (the remaining 55% is insufficient to get the minimum of 60% to earn at least a D). I cannot remember any student ever failing a class of mine after the student submitted a term paper that qualifies to get a grade (submitted on time, on an approved paper topic, etc.).

10. GRADING CRITERIA: Page 134 of the course catalog lists only letter grades (‘L’) for course grades and makes no provision for any C/NC grading option. Any missed time in class (for example, arriving late to class at the start, arriving late to class after a break, or leaving early before the start of the quiz or exam at the end of every class) reduces your class participation grade to the extent that you miss class time. Further, good class participation raises borderline grades, which are common. Perfect attendance will still get a class participation grade of only C- if you never speak in class. Perfect attendance with only 1 unexcused absence will get a class participation grade of D+ if you never speak in class. Perfect attendance with only 2 unexcused absences will get a class participation grade of D if you never speak in class. Perfect attendance except for less than 3 hours of unexcused absences gets a grade of D+ if you never speak in class. Perfect attendance except for only 3 hours of unexcused absences will get a class participation grade of D if you never speak in class. Perfect attendance with more than 3 hours of unexcused absences will get a class participation grade of D- if you never speak in class. If you speak in class, then I will use my judgment about the quality and quantity of your speaking to help you make up for unexcused absences in your class participation grade and to raise your class participation grade generally. (Obviously, I will make reasonable accommodations for disabilities and so you may communicate in class in another way if you are physically unable to speak.) The more you speak in class, following my classroom management rules, the higher your class participation grade will be. Arriving late or leaving early lower your class participation grade in accordance to how much classtime you miss without excuse. You have the option to earn an A on class participation if you give a class presentation of 3 ABC sets on one of the approved paper topics. See my 26 guidelines A-Z on www.sterlingharwood.com for more info on how I grade your papers. These guidelines are to be read within the context of any applicable Faculty Handbook guidelines for grading and are meant to be a supplement to them to give you more specifics and help.

Requirements for an Incomplete: The student must have the excuse of an unavoidable circumstance preventing completion of the course on time, and the student must use my voicemail or email to notify me of this circumstance on the earliest possible day. Only I will make the initial determination on what circumstances were/are unavoidable. Students may appeal to our Dean, Dean Mark Gonzales, if necessary.

11. MAKE-UP POLICY: I allow some students to make up missed exams by answering extra questions at the final exam, but only if those students have written an alleged excuse for missing those exams and submitted that writing to me more than 24 hours before the start of the final exam. Further, you may make up work only if the excuse of an unavoidable circumstance prevents you from submitting your work on time and you use my voicemail or email to notify me of the unavoidable circumstance on the earliest possible day. Only I make the initial determination on what circumstances were/are unavoidable. Students may appeal to our Dean, if necessary. Papers submitted late without excuse mean that the student cannot receive a grade of A in our course, but it is generally better to submit the paper late than never to submit it. Papers submitted late by more than 24 hours without excuse mean the student cannot receive a grade higher than C in our course. Papers submitted more than 48 hours late without excuse mean the student cannot receive a grade higher than D in our course. Papers submitted without excuse after grades are due to be submitted to admissions and records cannot count at all toward your grade.

12. GRADING SCALE: I use letter grades on a 0 (F) to 4.0 (A) scale on papers and I use points for tests (quizzes or exams). Convert points on tests into letter grades as follows: 0-59% = F; 60-62% = D-; 63-66% = D; 67-69% = D+; 70-72% = C-; 73-76% = C; 77-79% = C+; 80-82% = B-; 83-86% = B; 87-89% = B+; 90-92% = A-; 93-100% = A. EVC does not allow course grades using a plus or a minus (for example, A+), but I informally keep track of them, so that I can use them only in writing a letter of recommendation for you if you receive a course grade of A and ask me to write one for you. I hope everyone earns an A. I avoid grading on a curve where students compete with each other for spaces along the curve. Everyone can earn an A. Another student earning an A does not make it any less likely that you will earn an A. We have cooperation rather than cut-throat competition in this course, but of course you may not cheat or plagiarize. I plan to give a failing grade for the course to any student I catch committing plagiarism. The next section has the college honest policy.

13. COLLEGE HONESTY POLICY: The College and I expect students to write their own papers and to avoid copying from another student or author (which is plagiarism). Consequences of such actions will lead to a reduction of your course grade to F for the class, suspension from the class, and may lead to expulsion from the college. Violations of standards include but are not limited to the following: altering grades; altering or forging college documents, records or identification; copying from someone's test or allowing someone to copy your test; copying from an author's work without giving credit (plagiarism; and Dr. Harwood adds that changing a few words here and there does not prevent plagiarism); doing an assignment (for example, a term paper or essay) for another student or asking, paying, bribing, or blackmailing someone to do an assignment for you; sitting in for someone in class or on a test or having someone sit in class for you if not authorized by the instructor; submitting work previously presented in another class if not authorized by the instructor; during an exam, using or consulting other test or course material not authorized by the instructor; possession of an examination or materials not authorized by the instructor. Consequences may include one or more of the following actions by appropriate college officials: receiving a failing grade on the test, paper or exam; course grade lowered, possibly resulting in course failure (and Dr. Harwood adds that he will fail for the course any student caught cheating or plagiarizing); verbal or written reprimand/warning; suspension for a longer specified time; expulsion from college. See pages 167-168 of the course catalog on Student Disciplinary Procedures and Complain/Grievance Policy, which I incorporate by reference here.

14. ATTENDANCE POLICY: "Students are expected to maintain regular and prompt attendance in all classes. Instructors shall maintain a record of students' attendance in class." VI. Instruction Policies 6070.1 12/19/89. Similar policies apply to all colleges and universities where I teach. See your counselor for details. Class participation is 15% of your course grade. Missing the last 2 classes before Census Day (9/17/07), that is missing class on 9/10/07 and 9/12/07, without letting me know by phone by 9/12/07 310pm will lead me to line out your name on the Census Roster and that will probably lead admissions and records to drop you from the class. See Class Participation under grading above.

15. WITHDRAWAL/DROP POLICY: There is a typo in the hardcopy version of the schedule of classes. The correct deadline to drop without receiving a ‘W’ is 9/28/07. Sunday 9/16/07 is the last day to add via an add code. It is the ultimate responsibility of the student to formally drop the class. You should not rely on the instructor to drop you from a class for non-attendance. At EVC, you may drop by telephone using the StaReg (408-223-0300) or by completing the proper forms in the Office of Admissions and Records. To be eligible for a refund of fees and/or prevent a recording grade of 'F' or 'W,' you must drop the class on or before the deadline. See your counselor or admissions and records for important details. Wed. 11/21/07 is the deadline to drop (in-person) our class with a ‘W’ on your record. Just telling Dr. Harwood that you want to drop the class does not necessarily drop you from the class; you must take responsibility for meeting the deadlines to drop.

16. GENERAL EDUCATION STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES & LEARNING OBJECTIVES: These apply to EVC general education courses, which includes our course. General education is the college's commitment to provide students with a broad set of knowledge and skills that will help each student in their process of becoming a well-rounded healthy person equipped to participate wisely in the health of our community. It requires a carefully selected set of courses and activities on the part of the college and active reflection on the part of the student. This course participates in the general education process by including the following General Education Outcomes: improving the student's experience and abilities in the areas listed below. These outcomes contribute to the General Education areas of emphasis stated in the accreditation standards and District General Education Philosophy (pending) checked below:
civic responsibility (local, national, global); civility; computer literacy; critical analysis/logical thinking; cultural diversity; ethical principles; historical sensitivity; information competency; oral communication including speaking and listening; political involvement (local, national, global); social responsibility (local, national, global); teamwork (ability to work and solve problems as a team); written communication.

Learning objectives include acquiring or improving the ability to: 1) distinguish between formal and informal logic; 2) assess the basic forms of arguments; 3) demonstrate the basic skills in critical thinking through written and oral expression; 4) articulate the basic types of informal fallacies; 5) distinguish the basic misuses and abuses of argument forms and structures; 6) perform the basic operations of formal, sentential and symbolic logic; 7) demonstrate the basic skills in truth function logic; 8) distinguish between logical conditions; 9) describe the basic forms of formal logical fallacies; 10) articulate the basic forms of scientific, causal and statistical fallacies; 11) articulate, communicate, express and present a complete argument on a complex subject matter.

17. COURSE DESCRIPTION & OVERVIEW: Page 134 of the EVC course catalog says:
“This is an introductory course in informal logic and critical reasoning. Students are instructed in the practical applications of inferential, inductive and deductive reasoning, problem analysis/resolution, the logic systems entailed by language, word-functions, definition, and common fallacies of relevance and ambiguity. There is a strong emphasis on written expression and the application of critical thinking akills in a series of composition assignments.”

Here are some more specifics to try to build on the above course description. For a list of questions we plan to consider, see the list of term paper topics in this syllabus. We will learn 32 fallacies, errors in reasoning, to avoid. We will learn the definitions and applications of soundness, validity, strength, and truth in evaluating arguments as reliable or unreliable guides to the truth of their respective conclusions. We will study probability, including how it is applied to gambling and other games and problems of chance. Concerning practical applications of reasoning, when exploring reasoning in moral and political philosophy, we plan to examine and apply arguments using 5 sets of moral principles – 

, libertarianism, utilitarianism, perfectionism (also known as virtue ethics) and prima facie principles – to a wide variety of hot topics, including the current war in Iraq, the current war in Afghanistan, the current war against terrorism, abortion, surrogate motherhood, cloning humans, human stem cell research, gun control, euthanasia (also known as mercy killing), gay marriage, affirmative action, capitalism, socialism, globalization, NAFTA, illegal immigration, nuclear power, global warming, acid rain, endangered species, pollution, and much more.

18. APPROVED PAPER TOPICS FROM WHICH YOU MUST CHOOSE ONLY ONE TOPIC: Approved topics for your paper are announced below, but all papers must be done in the ABC format exemplified imperfectly but usefully in sample papers on reserve in EVC library, explained in class and on www.sterlingharwood.com . Approved topics: You must compare a minimum of 6 quotations from any published and named writer(s) (wikipedia does not count as published; anonymous quotes do not count as being from named writers) who try to give arguments or answers to the questions below. If you wish to use an anonymous quotation, then you must get Dr. Harwood’s written permission in advance. There is no maximum number of quotations or minimum or maximum requirements for the length of your paper. I hereby approve the following paper (and optional oral presentation) topics:
1) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com (which are also in Ch.4 of this book on reserve in our campus library: Sterling Harwood, Business as Ethical and Business as Usual), has America’s current war in Iraq been moral?;
2) Pick any two thinkers listed in the index of Sagan’s textbook listed above – or that you get Dr. Harwood to approve in writing in advance of your work on your paper – and argue that one of the two has a position on a philosophical issue that is more defensible than the other.
3) Is astrology logical?
4) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com has America's current war on terrorism been moral?
5) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, should prostitution be legalized, as it is in some counties of Nevada?;
6) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, should pornographic films and books be legal?;
7) Does God exist (that is, which is closer to the truth, atheism or theism)?
8) Is causal determinism compatible with human freedom and moral responsibility and, if so, how?
9) Which is closer to the truth, empiricism or rationalism?
10) Is moral relativism true?
11) Is relativism about all human knowledge true?
12) Is moral skepticism true?
13) Is skepticism about all human knowledge true?
14) Which is closer to the truth, materialism, dualism or idealism?
15) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is comparable worth moral?;
16) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is feminism moral?;
17) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is capitalism more moral than socialism?;
18) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is Rush Limbaugh right about environmentalism?;
19) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, what currently illegal drugs (if any) should the government legalize and under what circumstances?;
20) Based on facts and logic generally, is moral relativism more justified than moral realism?;
21) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is more gun control than we already have morally required?;
22) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is cloning of humans moral?;
23) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is capital punishment (also known as the death penalty or execution) moral?
24) What’s the best logical assessment of the evidence for and against Bigfoot’s existence?
25) Which is closer to the truth, Darwinism, creationism or Intelligent Design Theory?
26) What’s the most logical explanation of the evidence for extraterrestrial UFOs, and what would be the greatest significance philosophically of discovering the existence of alien life from other planets?
27) Addressing some philosophical issues of social or political concern, and using the assassination of President Kennedy as a test case to apply logical principles of weighing evidence and evaluating argument, what’s the most logical explanation of President Kennedy’s death (including whether there was a conspiracy and whether Oswald was guilty as charged)?
28) Addressing some philosophical issues of social or political concern, and using the death of Princess Diana as a test case to apply logical principles of weighing evidence and evaluating argument, what’s the most logical explanation of Princess Diana’s death, which is still under official government investigation 8 years after she died (including whether there was a conspiracy to kill her).
29) Based on the 5 moral principles on sterlingharwood.com, is abortion moral?;
30) Based on the 5 moral principles on sterlingharwood.com, is any form of affirmative action moral?;
31) Based on the 5 moral principles on sterlingharwood.com, is surrogate motherhood immoral?;
32) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is euthanasia (mercy killing) moral?;
33) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is gay marriage moral?;
34) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is gay adoption moral?;
35) Is existentialism logically defensible?
36) Is phenomenology logically defensible?
37) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is stem cell research moral?;
38) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is allowing gays in the military moral?;
39) Does human nature exist and, if it does, is it primarily good, primarily evil or primarily a mixed bag, and is it more fixed than flexible or more flexible than fixed?
40) Which of the theories in philosophy of art discussed on www.sterlingharwood.com is most defensible?
41) Based on the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com, is America's current war in Afghanistan been moral?
42) What is the meaning of life?
43) What’s the best logical assessment of the evidence for and against the abominable snowman’s existence?
44) What’s the most logical explanation of The Bermuda Triangle (aka, The Devil’s Triangle)?
45) What’s the most logical explanation of Crop Circles?
46) What’s the best logical assessment of the evidence for and against Chupacabra’s existence?
47) What’s the best logical assessment of the evidence for and against the New Jersey Devil’s existence?
48) What’s the best logical assessment of the evidence for and against the existence of a conspiracy to fake landing Americans on the moon?
49) What’s the most logical explanation of the JFK assassination, including whether Lee Harvey Oswald was guilty and whether there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy?
50) What’s the most logical explanation of the RFK assassination, including whether Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was a Manchurian candidate assassin through hypnosis and whether there was a conspiracy to kill Senator Kennedy?
51) Is the Martingale Betting Strategy, or any known variant of it, a logical approach to gambling?

19.EXPECTATIONS: IMPORTANT NOTE: One of the biggest mistakes students make in this class is writing on one of the topics above and failing to include any of the 5 moral principles. That mistake means you wrote on an unapproved topic and can get no credit for your paper. The same is true if you fail to put your paper into the required ABC format. If you want another topic approved, besides the topics approved above, see me to try to get approval before you begin writing, but all topics approved require discussing as many of the 5 moral principles as possible in your C sections of the ABC format. Sample papers in ABC format will be available for you to read in EVC Library. No assignment has any minimum or maximum length, but you must evaluate (using our ABC format) at least 6 -- and preferably as many more than 6 as you can -- quotations in the final version of your paper. I expect all students to do their best and to enjoy the course. Enjoy your work enough to take the time to think well about it, re-read it and proofread it carefully. See guideline R of guidelines A-Z on www.sterlingharwood.com . All written work must be typed (or word-processed) double-spaced with 1" margins on all 4 sides of regular (no onion skin) white 8 1/2" x 11" paper. This means that each page should have about 10 words per line and 25 lines per page (for a total of about 255 words per page maximum). Each page of your papers, except perhaps your last page, MUST have a minimum of about 245 words following the margins described above. I expect everyone to cooperate well in his or her learning team when we break into learning teams in class. I expect us to think critically and thus be logical and reasonable throughout the course. This obviously includes treating each other with patience and fairness.

20. EXPECTATIONS: SAVING YOUR WORK IS REQUIRED: I require that you save copies of all work you submit for a grade, and keep these copies for at least one year after you receive your grade for the course. Failing to get the required, signed receipt from me for submitting your term paper and your final exam answers would be a huge mistake. Lacking a receipt means you get no credit for submitting your term paper or your final exam answers if they are lost or stolen or missing when I do the grading of the term papers and final exams. Failure to save your work for one year means that you may lose any appeal of your grade for the paper and for the course. I require a copy of your paper, and all or almost all other graded work, to consider any appeal of your grade for the course. Protecting privacy prevents production of information about grades of any particular student by email, fax or phone. I already announced this policy in our syllabus and repeatedly announced this policy in our class. If you wish to discuss your grade, then you need to make an appointment to meet me and bring your student photo ID to our meeting. If a student has a problem, the problem is usually that 1) I never received a paper or 2) never received a paper on time or 3) I never received a paper in the proper format (for example, ABC format and with moral principles for papers on topics in moral philosophy such as, for example, affirmative action, euthanasia, capital punishment, abortion, gun control, surrogate motherhood, gay marriage, and cloning). So if – repeat if – your problem is that you think I lack your paper, then feel free to fax, mail or email -- no attachments accepted -- me your paper and ask me to update your grade in person by appointment, if possible.

21. EXPECTATIONS: CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT RULES INCLUDE:

A. No blurting = raise your hand and patiently wait for Dr. Harwood to call on you before speaking. I certainly plan promptly to call on everyone who raises his or her hand.
B. No murmuring = avoid side-conversations that are loud enough for Dr. Harwood to hear. Dr. Harwood has excellent hearing, so he recommends that you pass notes back and forth in a non-distracting way rather than murmur. Murmuring tends to distract you from what Dr. Harwood is saying and tends to distract other students and sometimes even risks distracting Dr. Harwood. Stay focused on the class presentation, take detailed notes (especially since all tests are open note), and face the front of the class.
C. No lumbering = stay in your seat during class, unless you need to leave the room to take a bathroom break of course. Obviously there's no need to ask permission to leave the room; just do so as quietly as you can.
D. No consuming of or engaging in outside material during class = for example, no quilting, no reading of newspapers or magazines that I haven't assigned, and no listening to headphones.
E. No impatience = patiently listen to and follow Dr. Harwood's directions, instructions, and announcements. Patience is indeed a virtue (and a key to happiness). If you have a question about instructions, then wait until the next break or after class to discuss it unless you raise your hand during or right after Dr. Harwood gives the instructions in class.
F. Bring several blank 5” x 8” index cards (lined or unlined doesn’t matter; color doesn’t matter) and at least 2 blank Scantron 882 forms to every class, starting with our second class. Do not try to use any differently sized index card or any other form instead of those specified above. Index cards must be of commercial quality and not homemade cards. 5” x 8” cards are generally available @ the campus store, Long’s Drugs, Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, etc.
G. I request all students to notify me if they need assistance because of a disability.
H. The required safety issues are identified on pages 172-173 of the EVC course catalog, which I hereby incorporate by reference. Dial 911 for all emergencies. Dial 408-277-5454 if 911 fails to work. Dial 408-270-6468 for nonemergency safety issues and for EVC campus police.

22. EXPECTATIONS & THE BOTTOM LINE: THE 16 BIGGEST MISTAKES STUDENTS MAKE IN THIS COURSE:

#1 Biggest Mistake: Failing to read carefully the instructions in this syllabus, and failing to get the required receipt for submitting your term paper, which means that if someone takes your paper from my inbox or your paper is otherwise misplaced that you will get no credit for submitting it. So get a hardcopy receipt from me – with my signature and the correct date of submission – when you submit your hardcopy or submit your paper by email early enough to get a receipt from me by return email. I require getting a signed receipt (or email receipt from my aol address) from me for submitting the paper; that’s the only evidence for submitting the paper that counts if I do not have your paper for whatever reason. We will not have a mini-trial or other proceeding where you try to bring witnesses or any other evidence instead of the receipt, which is required.

Second Biggest Mistake: Writing a paper on an unapproved paper topic. This will lead to an F in the course unless you correct this problem with another term paper on an approved paper topic (and meeting all other requirements) by the deadline of the end of the final exam.

Third Biggest Mistake: Failing to use ABC format for the term paper (and any optional oral presentation). This mistake includes using in your ‘A’ sections in ABC format a quotation that lacks question marks or lacks the name of the author of the quote, or that lacks a full citation (following Guideline O on our website) for the quote. You will fail the course if, lacking any good excuse, you fail to submit a term paper without at least 6 quotations in proper ABC format by the end of the final exam on 12/12/07 1040am PT.

Fourth Biggest Mistake: Failing to save your work, especially failing to keep a backup copy of your scantrons that you submit to Dr. Harwood for grading.

Fifth Biggest Mistake: Failing to ask me questions in a timely way after reading this syllabus and the FAQs on www.sterlingharwood.com. There are no dumb questions. What would be dumb is to have a question and then not ask it and expect me to be a mindreader and answer your question somehow. The syllabus and the table of contents to www.sterlingharwood.com are great to try to find the answers even faster and better than I can give them to you off the top of my head (relying on memory is imperfect; written rules are best).

Sixth Biggest Mistake: Missing time in class (absences, late arrivals, early exits that are not earned).

Seventh Biggest Mistake: Failing to include any of the 5 moral principles on www.sterlingharwood.com when doing assignments on a topic that includes the words “Based on the 5 moral principles.” You will fail the course if you submit such a paper by the end of the final exam.

Eighth Biggest Mistake: Failing to put a grid on all graded work. The grid = draw a cross & put as follows: upper left = name of student; upper right “PHIL 60” or “PHIL 1”; lower left = description of the work submitted; lower right = date submitted into my in-box (not the date you did the work or the date it was due if you are submitting it late; late work must say how many days late it is to get any credit at all; the later it is, the less credit you will receive but it’s always better late than never until the final deadline at the final exam, which will be during our last class).

Ninth Biggest Mistake: Combining more than one paper (or presentation) topic in the same assignment.

Tenth Biggest Mistake: Failing to read the sample paper on www.sterlingharwood.com and on reserve in the library. Note: on www.sterlingharwood.com, ‘FAQ’ = frequently asked question.

Eleventh Biggest Mistake: Failing to follow guidelines A & U by using a title and headings, respectively, as signposts to guide the readers of their papers and presentations.

Twelfth Biggest Mistake: Failing to follow guideline A by failing to make the title of their paper or presentation a claim that indicates an approved paper topic and the student’s stand on that topic.

Thirteenth Biggest Mistake: Failing to save the aol website as a word file & failing to use the Control + F search and the table of contents in FAQ2 to search the website

Fourteenth Biggest Mistake: Failing to realize that www.sterlingharwood.com clearly states that students may of course use the quotes I posted on www.sterlingharwood.com in the A sections of their papers & presentations in ABC format.

Fifteenth Biggest Mistake: Failure to take good notes, since all our tests, quizzes, and exams – including the final exam on 12/12/07 from 915-1040am PT in our usual classroom -- are open note (and open book).

Sixteenth Biggest Mistake: Failing to turn off your ringtone on your cellphone or other device. If a student’s device rings, then that signals me to have another quiz. New campus security procedures now suggests I keep my cellphone on during class, so if my cellphone rings, then I plan to write an extra credit quiz on the board as I field the call quickly just to see if it is an emergency.

22. BIO OF INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Harwood (B.A. in Philosophy, 1980 University of Maryland; J.D. 1983 Cornell Law School; M.A. in Philosophy, 1986 Cornell University; Ph.D. in Philosophy, 1992 Cornell University) is a practicing attorney at law (Licensed, State Bar Number 194746; see www.calbar.ca.gov) and is the author of Judicial Activism: A Restrained Defense (Austin & Winfield 1996). He edited and wrote 24 chapters of Business as Ethical & Business as Usual (Jones & Bartlett, now Wadsworth 1995), co-edited with Michael Gorr, Crime & Punishment: Philosophic Explorations (Jones & Bartlett, 1994, now published by Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2000), and co-edited with Michael Gorr, Controversies in Criminal Law (Westview Press, 1992). He is working on a revised edition of his book Judicial Activism. Dr. Harwood became a practicing lawyer in 1998. He has been teaching since 1981 and still isn't tired! He has taught philosophy for more than 10 years in the Evergreen Valley College/San Jose City College Community College District and has earned Seniority Rehire Preference there. He has taught philosophy full-time for 7 years at San Jose State University. He has taught more than 65 courses, mainly in philosophy and sociology, at University of Phoenix since 1998 (including online and onground) and has also taught at the following colleges and universities: Cornell University; Cornell Law School; Foothill College, San Jose City College; Evergreen Valley College; West Valley Community College; Chabot College; Hobart & William Smith Colleges; Illinois State University; and Masters Institute of Technology. Over the summer of 2007 Dr. Harwood joined the faculty at Lincoln Law School. Dr. Harwood is married to a vivacious Vietnamese-American lady named Tina Le Harwood. They have two delightful daughters Heather Harwood (age 7) and Holly Harwood (age 5). The Harwood family is also proud to include a German Shepherd named Panther and a Beagle named Toby. The Harwood family lives in San Jose, CA. Dr. Harwood’s hobbies include being a fan of major league baseball, the NFL, and the NBA, buying low and selling high on ebay, viewing films, and – just starting recently – finding missing aircraft (part Indiana Jones, part CSI?).

23. COURSE SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS:
Note: I plan to have a quiz at the end of every class. Bring at least 3 blank 5x8 inch index cards to every class. I no longer use Scantron forms except for the final exam, so ignore all other references to Scantron forms that I have yet to delete.
Week 1: Introduction, extra credit quiz (extra credit quizzes cannot lower your grade), syllabus; Sagan Ch.12; extra credit quiz
Week 2: Sagan Ch.1; Wilson Ch.1; quiz
Week 3: Sagan Ch.2; quiz; Sagan Ch.3; Wilson Ch.2; quiz
Week 4: Sagan Ch.4-5
Week 5: Sagan Ch.6-7; Wilson Ch.3; quiz
Week 6: Sagan Ch.8-9; quiz; view sample papers
Week 7: Sagan Ch.9-10; Wilson Ch.4; quiz
Week 8: Sagan Ch.11 & 13; quiz
Week 9: Sagan Ch.14-15; Wilson Ch.5; quiz
Week 10: Sagan Ch.16-17; quiz
Week 11: Sagan Ch.18-19; Wilson Ch.6; quiz
Week 12: Sagan Ch.20-21; Wilson pages 56-60 starting with 7.2.1
Week 13: Sagan Ch.22-23; Wilson Ch.10; quiz
Week 14: Sagan Ch.24; quiz
Week 15: Sagan Ch.12 (again); Wilson Ch.14
Week 16: Loose ends
Week 17:: ALL TERM PAPERS DUE BY 140PM in the last class; FINAL EXAM, OPEN NOTE, OPEN BOOK, ALWAYS BRING 2 BLANK SCANTRON FORMS; the final exam will be at our usual class time and in our usual classroom.

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FAQ5: For all courses, what are Dr. Harwood's CRUCIALLY important Guidelines A-Z for Creating & Grading Papers & Presentations?

I will use these 26 guidelines in grading your papers and presentations. So learn all the guidelines thoroughly. The first letter in a comment like 'AF' refers to the guideline I am relying on to comment on your paper and the second letter will be 'F' (meaning 'followed') or 'U' (meaning 'unfollowed'). So, for example, 'AF' means guideline A was followed. 'AU' means guideline A was unfollowed. 'BF' means guideline B was followed and 'BU' means guideline B was unfollowed. Don't worry, 'FU' means only that guideline F was unfollowed. ;o) Avoid being confused by 'UU,' which means only that guideline U was unfollowed. Call me @ 408-259-7777 or my cell @ 408-687-8199 if you want any more help with understanding my comments on your graded work, my guidelines A-Z, or any other part of our course together.

When writing your first draft, concentrate primarily on guidelines A through F, but follow all 26 guidelines A-Z before submitting your paper. Guidelines with an asterisk (*) are especially important. The alphabetical order is no indicator of importance. For hardcopies, double space your paper, having a maximum of ABOUT 25 lines per page and ABOUT 10 words per line, for a total of ABOUT 255 words per page maximum. This allows enough room for my comments. Except perhaps for your last page, have a minimum of ABOUT 245 words per page minimum. You needn't count words; just double space with one inch margins on all four sides and use font size 14.

GUIDELINE A. Create a title for your paper that clearly TAKES A STAND on your approved paper topic. This means that if you use a question for your title, be sure to answer that question in your title (or a subtitle). Here's an example of a title with a subtitle: "Is Abortion Moral?: No". 'No' is the subtitle. "Is Abortion Moral?: Yes" would be an equally excellent title for a paper on abortion. Here are examples of bad titles that fail to follow guideline A: “Paper,” “Term Paper” “Philosophy Paper”; “Philosophy Term Paper”; "Affirmative Action"; "Abortion"; “Death Penalty,” “Executions,” “Capital Punishment,” Euthanasia"; "Gun Control"; "Surrogate Motherhood." Here are examples of good titles that follow guideline A: "Say 'Affirmative' to Affirmative Action"; "Affirmative Action is Reverse Discrimination & Wrong," "Kill Euthanasia: It's Wrong," “Put Mercy Killing out of its Misery: It’s Wrong,” "Euthanasia: We Have a Moral Right to Death with Dignity," "Abort Abortion: It's Wrong," "Abortion: Women Should Have the Right to Choose," "Gun Down Gun Control: It's Wrong," "Gun Control is So Good It Saves Lives."

Number all of your pages (except any separate title page you have) and avoid using any covers for your papers. Just staple your paper in the upper left-hand corner. Remember to put the grid in the upper right-hand corner of your title page. Remember, if you submit it for a grade, it must have a grid! See FAQ for key details about the grid.

GUIDELINE B.* Begin your paper with “In this paper I will argue ____” and then fill in the blank to announce at the outset the main purpose of your paper. Be sure to fill in that blank with the same position you stated in your title (see guideline A) and in your heading for your introduction (see guideline U). Clearly identify which arguments are yours. Take a stand on the main issues early on, and continue to take stands on issues throughout your paper. Announce in your first paragraph of your introduction what conclusion you will argue for in your paper and, if your paper is about a moral issue, what moral principles you will use to support your conclusion. If you are morally evaluating a case, then state your moral evaluations of each morally questionable action in your case clearly and early in your first paragraph on p.1 of your paper. When writing on a moral question, you must argue from at least one moral principle. But the more moral principles you show to be on your side, the better your paper will be.

GUIDELINE C.* Anticipate and fully present all significant counterarguments to your views, and respond to these counterarguments. You may respond by modifying your position or by arguing against the counterarguments. If you are writing on a moral question, then in your first paragraph on page 1 announce what moral principles your opponents will use. You will find counterarguments in the assigned readings. The better the argument, whether it favors your side or not, the more space you should devote to it in your paper.

GUIDELINE D. Guideline 'D' is about 'doubt.' Avoid extreme relativism and skepticism, unless that is your approved paper topic. Extreme moral relativism states that no argument is any better than any other argument. Extreme moral skepticism is the view that no moral knowledge exists.

GUIDELINE E. * Extra effort exhibits excellence. More is better. Show that you have read and mastered all the assigned readings. You must always use citations. See guideline O below. Carefully present and evaluate ALL the assigned readings that are relevant to your paper topic. Avoid viewing the paper as a mere exercise or chore that you must complete. Instead, view the paper as one of the few chances you will have to show what you know. View the paper as a great opportunity to show all of the relevant information that you know. Your paper should be an analytical paper rather than a research paper. You might find some outside research helpful after mastering and analyzing the readings assigned. You must however document any factual claims you make that fail to be obvious. If you have any doubt about whether your factual claims are obvious, document them. See guideline M below. Philosophy papers are not history or psychology papers. Philosophy papers frequently morally evaluate and argue rather than just describe.

GUIDELINE F.* Give the FULL and COMPLETE definition of any principle or concept when you first use it. After you have given the full and complete definition, usually in section 2C of your paper, you should just repeat a short version of the key element in the definition that you intend to apply to evaluate an action in your case. Since my courses often involve applying principles and concepts, define your terms and then SHOW HOW they APPLY to the case or argument or issue or quote in question. In writing on moral questions, show, BY ARGUMENT, that the moral principles make the facts of the case morally relevant. Argue that the facts favor one side rather than the other(s). The more principles you use (without distorting the principles or the facts of your case) to support your evaluations or analysis, the better your paper will be.

GUIDELINE G. Use topic sentences. Use words to show the relationships between sentences in your arguments (for example, "In other words," "That is," "For example," "However," "Still," "Besides," "Indeed," "So," “Hence,” “Thus,” “Ergo,” "Therefore," "Further," "Furthermore," "Moreover," "Similarly," "Likewise," "Contrariwise," "On the contrary," "Rather," "Instead," "In sum," "Finally," and "In conclusion,"). Use 'Further' or 'Additionally' rather than 'And' to start a sentence. Use 'However' or "On the other hand" rather than 'But' to start a sentence. Use ‘Alternatvely’ rather than ‘Or’ to start a sentence. 'And,' 'But' and 'Or' are a bit too informal for your scholarly papers.

GUIDELINE H. Minimize assumptions, especially key, controversial, or unstated assumptions. Clearly and explicitly argue for every evaluation or conclusion or analysis that you make. In moral writing, morally evaluate every morally questionable action in your case. The number of morally questionable actions will vary from case to case. Accepting an assumption without critical thinking is giving someone a free pass and in philosophy and critical thinking there are no free passes.

GUIDELINE I.* Be specific. In the words of The Beatles' album "Sgt. Pepper": "Indicate precisely what you mean to say."

GUIDELINE J.* Use extreme words (also called ‘watchwords,’ for example, 'any,' 'all,' 'always,' 'whenever,' 'whatever,' 'never,' 'no,' 'none,' 'every,' 'solely,' 'only,' 'completely,' 'fully,' 'lone,' 'must,' 'absolutely,' 'unquestionable,' 'impossible,' ‘inconceivable,’ 'undeniably') only with extreme caution, since extreme words used without qualifying words (for example, 'almost,' 'usually,' 'typically,' 'often,' 'frequently,' 'not') often lead to overstatement and falsehood. Avoid hyperbole (that is, exaggeration for rhetorical effect). Avoid overstating arguments and points. Avoid slanted rhetoric.

GUIDELINE K. Avoid using rhetorical questions as substitutes for arguments. Try to answer any questions you pose in your paper and do so immediately after you ask them. So that means you should never pose two questions in a row. Consider the following exchange from Lincoln, a novel by one of my favorite writers, Gore Vidal:
Seward: "Never end a speech with a question."
Lincoln smiled, "For fear you'll get the wrong answer?"
Seward nodded, "People are perverse."
Compare this to the ad populum fallacy.

GUIDELINE L. Be brief. As Shakespeare wrote (in "Hamlet"), brevity is the soul of wit. Eliminate unnecessary words by using the active voice instead of the passive voice. Further, almost always delete 'actually' and 'really.' Balance guidelines L and E. See guideline T on the passive voice. Here's an example of the active voice: "The bat hit the ball." Here's an example of the passive voice: "The ball was hit by the bat." The active voice is briefer than the passive voice.

GUIDELINE M. Use a separate paragraph every time you start a significantly new event in your paper. For example, defining a moral principle is one significant event but then applying that definition to a quote is a new event deserving a new (separate) paragraph. Further, if a paragraph consists of only one or two brief sentences, check to see whether the paragraph is best incorporated into another paragraph of your paper. If a paragraph runs for much over a page, check to see that you are neither rambling, merely drifting down a stream of consciousness, nor being verbose.

GUIDELINE N. Avoid using scarequotes (that is, inverted commas). For example, avoid saying "This seems 'right'" or "You are 'wrong'."

GUIDELINE O. It is false to think that anything goes when it comes to citations. You must have a named, individual, nonfictitious person to cite. The name must be sufficiently recognizable to allow identification. Many websites are ineligible for citations but many other websites are eligible. Check with Dr. Harwood well in advance of submitting your work (term papers are due at the end of the term) to make sure you get credit for your citation. The sources that are OK to cite are too numerous to list here, but for a start the press of any accredited university are OK, as are: The New York Times, The Washington Time, The San Jose Mercury News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Nation, The National Review, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Affairs, The New Republic, The Economist, Life, Time, U.S. News and World Report, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, Fortean Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and many thousands more. These online sites and thousands more that you can get Dr. Harwood to approve in advance are OK to cite: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.sterlingharwood.com, The Encarta Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia Britannica, cnn.com, foxnewschannel.com, historychannel.com, abcnews.com, pbs.org; and http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/. If the source you wish to cite is not on this list, then you must check with Dr. Harwood at least several days in advance of submitting your term paper with the citation in question and in advance of you spending much time and effort on the citation in question. Remember, only information attributable to a named individual nonfictitious person (or an organization that Dr. Harwood approves in advance) is eligible for citation in your term paper. Read and think about whatever you like, but Dr. Harwood wants your term paper to focus on real info from real people rather than waste time or distract by you citing in your term paper, for example, just some actor or imposter or fictitious person like "lonely girl" on the Internet.

Whenever you use someone else's idea(s), use a citation immediately following it (at the end of the sentence, in parentheses) to give 5 pieces of key information: 1) author; 2) title; 3) publisher; 4) year or date; and 5) page. If you cite the Internet, then also include, along with the full name of the individual, nonfictitious person you are citing (or some organization approved by Dr. Harwood in advance), the URL (universal resource locator; the website address) and the date you last visited that website. Avoid quote-quilting (that is, overusing others' arguments and merely weaving them together into a position). If you use the exact words of another, then you must use quotation marks around all of those exact words. Failure to quote exact words and failure to credit others with a citation when you use their ideas is plagiarism, which is unethical and sometimes illegal. Dr. Harwood punishes plagiarism by giving an F for the course to any student who plagiarizes. If you have any doubt or ignorance about what plagiarism means, then before you submit any work carefully read the definition of plagiarism at www.dictionary.com -- and other dictionaries -- and consult a school counselor about our college's rules concerning plagiarism and academic honesty and integrity.

GUIDELINE P. Avoid understating your point. One of the most important things you will learn in college is how to give your points just the right level of emphasis, avoiding overemphasis and underemphasis. On overemphasis, see guideline J above. On underemphasis, probabilities are usually crucial. Showing a mere possibility is helpful only when rebutting a claim that something is impossible. Lawyers rightly ridicule arguments trying to show some possible, horrible consequence to a law or ruling, calling such arguments "possible horrible arguments." Avoid making such arguments. Avoid weasel words, which tend to water down and understate your point. Weasel words include, but are hardly limited to: ‘maybe’, ‘may’, ‘perhaps’, ‘might’, ‘could’, ‘would’, ‘possible’, ‘possibly’, ‘conceivable’, ‘conceivably’, and ‘can’.

GUIDELINE Q. Expose the commission of any fallacies others commit, but avoid oversimplifying or distorting others' views or the definitions of the fallacies just to rebut your opponents. Avoid committing any fallacies yourself. For detailed descriptions of about 33 fallacies, see another FAQ below.

GUIDELINE R. Proofread your paper carefully! Bad proofreading is the fastest way to lose credibility with your readers. Imagine if you wrote paper on Microsoft and kept calling it Macrosoft or Macrosift all the way through your paper. Your readers would infer that since you fail to know even how to spell your subject, you do not know what you are talking about. At best, typographical or grammatical errors distract your reader; and dividing your reader's attention risks misinterpretation of your views. At worst, such errors obscure thoughts you wish to communicate, and convince your reader that his or her wisdom is no match for your ignorance. Here are some words that are often misspelled or misused: 1) 'argument' is right; 'arguement' is wrong; 2) "it's" means "it is"; 'its' is the possessive of 'it'; 3) 'criterion' is singular and 'criteria' is plural; 4) 'solely' is right; 'soley' and 'soly' are wrong; 5) 'occurrence' is right; 'occurence' is wrong; 6) 'likelihood' is right; 'likelyhood' is wrong; 7) 'judgment' is best in America; 'judgement' is the British spelling; and 8) 'lose' (not 'loose') is the opposite of 'win', and 'losing' (not 'loosing')is the opposite of 'winning'; 9) 'loose' is the opposite of 'tight'.

GUIDELINE S. Put points positively, which makes your writing less evasive and more forceful and clear. Use these words to help you avoid 'not': 'lack', 'without,' 'refrain,' 'shun,' 'fail,' 'scarcely,' 'hardly,' 'refuse,' 'refrain,' 'reject,' 'avoid,' 'doubt,' "decide against," and "rather than” ; “instead of." Avoid using negative terms such as 'not' and 'never.' Avoid using contractions (for example, "don't" and "ain't" and "I'll") in formal writings such as your paper. This guideline prevents you from using double negatives and from mincing words (e.g., "not without" and "not unreasonable").

GUIDELINE T. Use the active voice. Passive voice is good for politeness, suspense and evasion of responsibility (for example, President Reagan's "Mistakes were made" on the Iran/Contra scandal). Your scholarly papers put a premium on other values such as clarity and brevity, which are much better served by the active voice. The passive voice often uses forms of the verb "to be", often uses the past participle of a verb, and often uses 'by.' For example, the active voice of "Plato argued for this conclusion" is better than "This conclusion was argued for by Plato."

GUIDELINE U.* Use numbered headings (see the sample paper in FAQ3 above) to show your readers where you are heading. The heading is like a headline and thus the heading for your introduction, for example, should thus appear on a separate line above the first paragraph of your introduction. Pity your reader. He or she must take thousands of tiny stains (letters) and use interpretation to make from these stains a philosophy or a position. Avoid passing up opportunities to use headings to let your reader know what your conclusions will be (where you are heading) and how you will get there. Headngs are useful signposts.

GUIDELINE V. Use complete sentences. That is, avoid "sentence fragments."

GUIDELINE W. For all oral presentations, use all the applicable info in the 5 moral principles, the 7 truth tips and the 33 fallacies (all 43 of these items are posted on this homepage in FAQ 8, FAQ9 and FAQ10) to evaluate quotations in ABC format. Follow the following six points. First, if the oral presentations are required to be in learning teams, every member of a learning team should evaluate at least one quotation using the ABC format in every oral presentation. Second, interact with your audience (for example, have a thorough question/answer period, which is required for all presentations, and distribute a handout to the audience with all the quotes you present unless you write the quotes on the board or present them in an overhead or powerpoint). Third, use numbered or lettered points in your graphics or slides (rather than merely bulleted points). This aids specificity and ease of reference. Fourth, if you use any overheads, use blocking on overheads (so there is never a blank screen displayed). Fifth, use an energetic or passionate tone. Sixth, use some good-natured humor. Being good-natured means that you should avoid foul language and avoid making other people or groups, races, sexes etc. the butt of your jokes. Non-human animals and extraterrestrial aliens (if they exist) are usually fair game for use as characters in good-natured jokes. Self-deprecating and good-natured humor using polite language is usually a big plus.

GUIDELINE X. Avoid splitting infinitives. Infinitives involve verbs. Examples of infinitives: 1) "to go" is the infinitive of 'go'; 2) "to die" is the infinitive of 'die'. Here's an example of a split infinitive: "Its 5-year mission is to boldly go where no one has gone before." Adverbs usually split infinitives.

GUIDELINE Y. Avoid ending sentences with prepositions. Winston Churchill jokingly said that this error is a mistake up with which he will not put. ;o) Examples of propositions include: at, under, over, of, for, in. Examples of sentences ending with prepositions include: 1) "Where's the library at?"; 2) "Check to see if the mail is in"; and 3) "You are the one I came for."
Another joke concerning this guideline is:
Freshman: “Where’s the library at?”
Professor: “Here at Cornell we simply do not end our sentences with prepositions.”
Freshman: “OK, then where’s the library at – scumbag!”

GUIDELINE Z. Avoid contractions, which are too informal for the scholarly writing you do. Examples of contractions include: "I'm," "Don't," and "I'll." Further, avoid starting sentences with 'And,' 'But,' or 'Or' since these are also too informal.

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FAQ6: For all courses, what is the best sample paper for us to read to help us write our term paper in ABC format?

Here's the best (though imperfect, as all things are) sample paper from an actual student, with some tweaking by Dr. H to make it a better sample for you to follow (but not plagiarize of course).

Pat Nguyen/phil 10 EVC
term paper/12/22/06

Euthanasia is Moral:
Avoid Killing Rights to Mercy Killing

1. Introduction: Mercy Killing is Right

In this paper, I will argue that voluntary euthanasia, which occurs when a patient requests his or her own mercy killing, is moral. This answers the fundamental ethical question in euthanasia about whether it is morally acceptable “for a third party, such as a physician, to end the life of a terminally ill patient who is in intense pain.” (http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/euthanas.htm, “Euthanasia”, last visited Tuesday, November 30, 2004.)

What is euthanasia? Technically speaking, euthanasia is denoted as: “the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy” (“Euthanasia”, http://www.m-w.com, last visited Tuesday, November 30, 2004). Also, according to http://www.medterms.com, it literally means “good death” as derived from two Greek words: “eu”, meaning good, and “thanatos”, meaning death ["Euthanasia," last visited 11/30/06.)

Moreover, as read in http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/euthanas.htm, there are two types of euthanasia: active euthanasia and passive euthanasia. Active euthanasia is also commonly referred to as assisted suicide because it involves forcefully ending a suffering person’s life by means of, for instance, a lethal injection. Passive euthanasia, though, is just a person’s refusal to use life-sustaining mechanisms. For example, a person may not be able to breathe, but one can refuse to try to resuscitate him. [“Euthanasia”, last visited 11/30/06.]

Further, in subsequent arguments for my view supporting moral rights to euthanasia, I will use the egalitarian belief that we must protect the innocent from undeserved suffering. I will also use libertarianism through its conviction that anything between consenting adults is morally allowable as well as its stance against paternalism. Furthermore, I will use the prima facie principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence, the virtue of kindness in perfectionism. Finally, I shall use utilitarianism as well.

The counter-arguments in this paper that will be applied will use religion as their main support and will attack the principles supporting euthanasia with different perspectives and illogical reasoning through fallacies. However, I will show these counter-arguments to be flawed through indicating these fallacies and will cite examples of how euthanasia is often more moral than the alternative of prolonging the life of a patient or allowing the patient to live longer naturally.

2. We should save hospital care and life-prolonging mechanisms for people who actually have a chance to survive

2A. "The maintenance of life by artificial means is, in such cases, sadly pointless, and if all available means of prolonging life were always used, the hospitals would be quickly filled with living corpses while ordinary patients could find no beds. Thus, virtually everyone who has thought seriously about the matter agrees that it is morally acceptable, at some point, to cease treatment and allow such people to die." (James Rachels, quoted in Tom Regan, Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed., p. 38.)

2B. I agree.

2C. The moral principle of utilitarianism, which is “a theory of ethics and politics that judges the morality of actions by their consequences” [Bryan Magee, The Story of Thought, DK Publishing, First American Edition, 1998, p. 231] supports this viewpoint well. The full definition of utilitarianism is:

"The basic and only value of utilitarianism is utility (also called happiness, welfare, well-being or flourishing). Since this is the only value utilitarianism has, utilitarianism has only one principle in its definition, namely, to maximize net happiness for all in the long run.Utilitarianism has two slogans:

UTILITARIAN SLOGAN #1) Promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people; and

UTILITARIAN SLOGAN #2) Each person counts for one and only one in calculating the maximum amount of happiness.

Note that SLOGAN 1) does not mean that we should do whatever most people want to do. The minority of people might be made so unhappy, for example, that the majority's happiness cannot outweigh it. Utilitarianism also does not require merely that you producesome more happiness than unhappiness. It requires each person to produce the greatest net balance of happiness over unhappiness for everyone in the long run. slogan 2) means that each person's happiness counts the same, so it would be wrong, for example, to count a particular amount of happiness of a white person as more important (or less important) than the same amount of happiness for a black person." (Sterling Harwood, www.sterlingharwood.com, and Sterling Harwood, Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 24.)

Now I shall apply the above definition of utilitarianism to the quote in 2A. After all, if more terminally ill people were kept alive solely through pain-killers and sedatives, then they are numbed to the state in which they can no longer feel or can barely feel either pain or pleasure; they are merely alive, not much more. In other words, these beings are no longer sentient. Furthermore, these non-feeling individuals take away the attention and the care that doctors and nurses could give to sentient individuals. Thus, this makes the sentient people, who could actually appreciate and benefit from the nourishment, to feel pain. gf Therefore, this fails to create the maximum amount of happiness for the greatest amount of sentient beings and is lacks morality in the light of utilitarianism.

Moreover, egalitarianism also supports my point. The full and complete definition of egalitarianism is:

"Egalitarianism (Often Called Fairness or Justice)The basic value of egalitarianism is equality (often called fairness of justice). The basic idea of egalitarianism is that good people should fare well and bad people should fare badly.The definition of egalitarianism includes the following principles:

1. Treat relevantly similar cases similarly, and relevantly different cases differently.

2. Discrimination (e.g., racism and sexism) is wrong. Discrimination is failing to treat relevantly similar cases similarly or failing to treat relevantly different cases differently.

3. We should prevent innocent people from suffering through no fault of their own.

4. Exploitation - taking unfair advantage of an innocent person's predicament - is wrong.

5. We should regularly give significant amounts to charity.

6. No one should profit from his or her own wrong.

7. The punishment should fit (be proportional to) the crime.

8. Promises should be kept.

9. Merit should be rewarded.

10. Reciprocity is important.

11. Gratitude is important." (Sterling Harwood, www.sterlingharwood.com, and Sterling Harwood, Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 24.)

Now I shall apply the foregoing definition of egalitarianism to the quotation in 2A. One belief of egalitarianism is that we should prevent innocent individuals from suffering through no fault of their own. If ill or injured people who have a chance to survive are made to suffer because of the excessive care paid to patients who are going to die anyway, egalitarianism would consider that to be not moral. Therefore, it would prevent the innocent from suffering if we could put the terminally to sleep and pay attention to persons who have a chance to live.

In addition, the prima facie principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence also apply here. The full and complete definition of the set of prima facie principles is:

"The basic idea of these principles is that there is more than one basic moral value. The principles below will often conflict, and so some will outweigh others depending on the circumstances. We are unable say in advance which ones will outweigh which others. We must take each moral situation as it comes and judge based on the totality of the circumstances, whichprinciple is more important in that case. Prima facie moral principles are moral factors that can be outweighed by other moral factors (that is, byother prima facie moral principles). The main prima facie moral principles are:

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #1. Fidelity: Avoid breaking promises.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #2. Veracity: Avoid telling lies.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #3. Fair play: Avoid exploiting, cheating, or freeloading.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #4. Gratitude: Return favors and appreciate the good others do for you.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #5. Nonmaleficence: Avoid causing pain or suffering. Note: this is not the same as nonmalevolence, which concerns only motivation rather than causation.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #6. Beneficence: Benefit others and cause them to be happier. Note: this is not the same as benevolence, which concerns only motivation rather than causation.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #7. Reparation: Right your wrongs; repair the damage that is your fault.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #8. Avoid killing except when necessary to defend against an immoral attack." (Sterling Harwood, www.sterlingharwood.com, and Sterling Harwood, Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 25.)


Now I shall apply the above definition of prima facie moral principles to the quotation in 2A. The same idea also applies here. If we allow the passing of euthanasia, then we make the individuals with non-life-threatening diseases happier and prevent suffering while we end the suffering of the mortally ill.

Libertarianism applies here, too. The full definition of libertarianism is:

"Libertarianism: Libertarianism is the moral and political philosophy that underpins capitalism, especially laissez-faire capitalism (that is, capitalism as it existed before President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created welfare state capitalism in response to The Great Depression).The basic value of libertarianism is liberty (also called freedom). However, libertarianism fails to support always maximizing liberty, since libertarianism generally refuses to allow violating one person's liberty to increase the liberty of other. The definition of libertarianism includes the following sub-principles:

1. Anything between consenting adults is morally permissible. Note that this does not mean that doing some things to an adult without his consent (for example, punishment) is immoral.

2. Laissez faire capitalism is morally required. This includes caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) rather than government safety or health regulations. In a libertarian nation, there would be no welfare state or government food stamps to save the poor. Private property is important.

3. Coercion (the deprivation of liberty) is wrong except to punish criminals, to defend against an immoral attack, and to supervise thementally incompetent (for example, children, the senile, the retarded, and the insane). Paternalism against mentally competent adults is wrong. The definition of paternalism is restricting the freedom of another personallegedly for his/her own good.

4. Everyone must keep his/her promises. Fraud is wrong.

5. Government should be minimal. Government should be only a nightwatchperson limited to peacekeeping functions (for example, the police and the military), enforcing principles 1-4 above with as little force as possible." (Sterling Harwood, www.sterlingharwood.com, and Sterling Harwood, Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 24.)

Now I shall apply libertarianism to the quote in 2A. Using this principle, it is clear that the liberties of the individuals waiting for the hospital beds and the terminally-ill patients are being violated. The mortally-ill have no say in whether they want to continue living in the hospital beds, and the ones waiting for the beds have no choice in whether they can receive the treatment that the dying patients are occupying. gf; Therefore, it would increase the liberty of everybody if one lets the dying die and allow the living a chance to live.

Finally, Perfectionism applies here. The full definition of perfectionism is:

"PERFECTIONISM (Often Called Virtue Ethics) =

The basic value of perfectionism is a good character. One has a duty to perfect one's own character. The following are the main character traits that are virtures (forms of excellence tending to constitute a good character), or vices (character flaws tending to constitute a bad character).

VIRTUE #1. Courage is a virtue and cowardice is a vice.

VIRTUE #2. Honesty is a virtue and dishonesty is a vice.

VIRTUE #3. Kindness is a virtue and unkindness is a vice.

VIRTUE #4. Loyalty is a virtue and disloyalty is a vice.

VIRTUE #5. Gratitude is a virtue and ingratitude is a vice.

VIRTUE #6. Charity is a virtue and uncharitableness is a vice.

VIRTUE #7. Being forgiving exhibits a virtue and being unforgiving exhibits a vice." (Sterling Harwood, www.sterlingharwood.com, last visited 11/28/08 and Sterling Harwood, Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 25.)

Now I shall apply perfectionism's definition to the quote in 2A. Since perfectionism is also called virtue ethics, that means that one has to have good character and is required to refine it. Also, one of its virtues (deed that often leads to good character), kindness, and vices (deed that often leads to poor character), unkindness [Taken from Dr. Harwood’s Website: http://members.aol.com/svharwood1/myhomepage/], last visited 11/28/06; both demonstrate how euthanasia would be moral. For example, it would be cruel to the living patients to deny them care because of consideration devoted to the terminally-ill, who are also suffering as a result of unkindness because they are forced to live, though bearing excruciating pain.

3. God’s existence has not been tangibly proven. Also, one should not have to be made to suffer unwanted and undeserved pain.

3A. "Suffering is a part of life; God has ordained that we must suffer as part of His Divine plan. Therefore if we were to kill people to 'put them out of their misery,' we would be interfering with God's plan." (James Rachels, in Tom Regan, ed., Maters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed., p. 53.)

3B. I disagree.

3C. This argument commits the “non causa pro causa” fallacy, which “occurs when the cause for an occurrence is identified on insufficient evidence.” (See, www.sterlingharwood.com, last visited 11/28/06.) The occurrence is that suffering is a part of life, but the cause, that God created the suffering as part of his plan, is unsupported by any evidence. This argument does not include any proof that God created this suffering.

Furthermore, egalitarianism strictly disagrees with this statement as well. Suffering is hardly a necessary or good part of life if the person is innocent. Therefore, one should protect these innocent individuals from suffering and not lengthen it to an unendurable extent. Libertarianism also enhances the fault in this assertion by believing that individuals have the right to liberty. Ergo, one should have the liberty to choose to be put out of her misery.

Again, nonmaleficence and beneficence of prima facie principles demonstrate how one should not be made to suffer in his life and be made happier. If he wants to end his misery through death, then he should be able to do so because this way he could benefit because he could end his pain and suffering. Additionally, because kindness is valued and unkindness is reviled in perfectionism, it is more moral to be kind enough to the patient to allow him to end his anguish through death than to be unkind and ignore his request.

4. Voluntary euthanasia avoids violating any person’s rights because it avoids impeding anyone’s wishes

4A. “If an action promotes the best interests of everyone concerned and violates no one's rights, then that action is morally acceptable. In at least some cases, active euthanasia promotes the best interests of everyone concerned and violates no one's rights. Therefore, in at least some cases, active euthanasia is morally acceptable.” (James Rachels, quoted in Tom Regan, Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed., p. 38.)

4B. I agree.

4C. Employing libertarianism, I can use the idea that paternalism, which is restricting the freedom of mentally competent adults, is wrong. In active euthanasia, it is true that no person’s rights are violated. The patient readily consents to the death by asking his or her physician for help and the physician consents by agreeing to it. Refusing to allow this would be restricting the freedom of these individuals and therefore wrong.

Egalitarianism shows also that the dying patient is bearing enough pain to desire death as opposed to life and did not do anything immoral to bring about her lethal illness. Therefore, for this innocent person to be denied his request to die is causing her to undergo suffering. In other words, nobody’s rights are being taken away, since the doctor is agreeing to it and the patient desires it.

Further, to promote utilitarianism, protecting the interests of everyone involved is euthanasia, since it is voluntary in most cases, would maximize the happiness of everyone involved. The prima facie principle of beneficence supports this further by showing that the patient would be made happier, since he wants death and therefore benefited. Perfectionism also proves this point because allowing the patient to do what he wants, which is to die in this case, is kinder to him than to force him to live.

5. Most patients who request voluntary euthanasia want to die not just because of treatable emotional pain, but because of unbearable physical pain as well.

5A. “Second, terminally ill persons seeking doctor-assisted suicide usually struggle with depression, guilt, anger, and a loss of meaning. They need to be reassured that their lives and their suffering have purpose. They don't need to be helped toward the exit.” [Tuesday, November 30, 2004, Trudy Chun and Marian Wallace, "The Arguments of Those in Favor of Assisted Suicide Are Flawed". Suicide. Roman Espejo, Ed. Opposing Viewpoints® Series. Greenhaven Press, 2003.]

5B. I disagree.

5C. The prima facie principle of nonmaleficence shows how that no matter what suffering a person goes through and for whatever purpose it may be, this person is still suffering. Even if she is emotionally counseled, she will still have to bear the incurable pain that usually accompanies a terminal illness. Perfectionism promotes kindness as a virtue, and though the definition of kindness is broad, it can be agreed that kindness involves helping someone. In a case such as euthanasia, if one denies someone his plead to end his misery, she is not helping him, but hindering him and is consequently being unkind to him.

Further, based on egalitarianism, the dying innocent people are still suffering a huge burden; no matter how much assurance they receive that it is fine to suffer, they are nevertheless still suffering and to cause such is immoral. mu; use a separate paragraph for every moral principle or fallacy; ef; Utilitarianism promotes a similar outlook: if the maximum amount of happiness is not provided for the maximum amount of people, which is true in this case because the individuals are still suffering and therefore unhappy, then the situation is not moral. Through libertarianism, it is seen that paternalism could be avoided if doctors or caretakers were to help these hopelessly ill patients achieve their freedom to decide to die, rather than refusing to help them.

6. One has the liberty to choose whether one should live or die

6A. “Moreover, as Bentham's famous follower John Stuart Mill put it, the individual is sovereign over his own body and mind; where one's own interests are concerned, there is no other authority. Therefore, if one wants to die quickly rather than lingering in pain, that is strictly a personal affair, and the government has no business intruding.” (James Rachels, quoted in Tom Regan, Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed. ,p.38.)

6B. I agree.

6C. Few if any people are able to control another person’s emotions and thoughts because he, being in his own shoes for all of his life, knows what is best for him. Libertarianism advocates that as long as this person is a mentally competent adult, he has the right to make all his decisions, including the one of life or death.

Further, in utilitarianism, as long as this person and the people who care about him are happy with his decision of death, then his decision to end his life because of his illness is morally acceptable. Nonmaleficence in the prima facie principles indicate that it is okay for this decision of voluntary death because it is to end the pain that the person is facing. Similarly, egalitarianism also believes that these innocents should use the option of euthanasia if it prevents them from suffering further. Furthermore, this argument is not only supported by the main moral principles, but even the ancient Roman Stoics believed “in a man’s right to determine his own death as well as his own life.” (Bryan Magee, The Story of Thought, DK Publishing, First American Edition, 1998, p. 47.)

7. Voluntary euthanasia does not need to be in an ideal world to be used appropriately.

7A. "It is naive to imagine that a policy and a law permitting euthanasia will not lead to insensitive, inhumane, and intolerable abuse simply because those who designed the law were governed by pure motives and noble purpose. The position in favor of legalizing VE rests upon an assumption of ideal hospitals, doctors, nurses and families. But we do not live in an ideal world. The issue is whether we should try this social experiment. I believe we should not." (David J. Roy, Director, Center of Bioethics, Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, "When the Dying Demand Death: A Position Paper on Euthanasia," pp. 10-11.)

7B. I disagree.

7C. This argument is guilty of the strawman fallacy, which “occurs when we misrepresent an opponent’s position to make it easier to attack, usually by distorting his or her views to ridiculous extremes. This can also take the form of attacking only the weak premises in an opposing argument while ignoring the strong ones.” (See, www.sterlingharwood.com, last visited 11/28/06.) It assumes that euthanasia supporters believe that all doctors and caregivers are well-intending and because of this, these supporters think legalizing euthanasia will work. However, this may be false. Most supporters know very well that there are plenty of doctors who would rather profit than help a patient. They believe, though, that euthanasia can be legalized with restraints. One can draw several criteria for what physical condition a patient has to be in to be considered a candidate for voluntary euthanasia, and not rely one caregiver’s advice. For example, for a patient to be considered for voluntary euthanasia, she must be deemed terminally ill with no hope of recovery by at least three physicians. (Saturday, December 11, 2004, author unknown,http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/suave_link/home.html.) If one fails to meet the numerous criteria, then euthanasia cannot be performed anyway. Therefore, euthanasia can be legally and morally used. As utilitarianism would say, this provides more happiness for the society, though it is not ideal. Also, libertarianism would argue that as long as the patient is a mentally-competent consenting adult, then she has the right to do what she wants with her life. Besides, it would be unethical on the basis of the prima facie principle of beneficence as well since patients would be less content if the state refuses to legalize voluntary euthanasia because they would still have to undergo intense suffering.

8. Voluntary euthanasia is acceptable because often the patients’ lives and bodies cannot be used anymore anyway.

8A. "A few hospice leaders claim that their care is so perfect that there absolutely no need for anyone to consider euthanasia. While I have no wish to criticize them, they are wrong to claim perfection. Most, but not all, terminal pain can today be controlled with the sophisticated use of drugs, but the point these leaders miss is that personal quality of life is vital to some people. If one's body has been so destroyed by disease that it is not worth living in, that is an intensely individual decision which should not be thwarted. In some cases of the final days in hospice care, when the pain is very serious, the patient is drugged into unconsciousness. If that way is acceptable to the patient, fine. But some people do not wish their final hours to be in that fashion." (Derek Humphry, "Why I Believe in Voluntary Euthanasia," (1995), p. 5.)

8B. I agree.

8C. Voluntary euthanasia comes directly under the patient’s choice to die. Just as this person has a right to choose to live, he also has the right to choose to die. Libertarianism fully supports this view, since this view involves individual liberty and freedom of choice. These persons’ bodies are so deprecated that they are obviously in intense pain. As said in egalitarianism and the prima facie principle of nonmalef; ef; icence, one should refrain from causing pain and suffering. Therefore, it would be more moral to allow the patient, which is also kindness in the view of perfectionism, to die a less painful, peaceful death, than to force him to live in a severely atrophied body which he wants to avoid.

9. History and other societies’ practices and beliefs against euthanasia do not make it any less moral

9A. “History has taught this and that is why there are only two countries in the world today where euthanasia is legal. That is why almost all societies - even non-religious ones - for thousands of years have made euthanasia a crime. It is remarkable that euthanasia advocates today think they know better than the billions of people throughout history who have outlawed euthanasia - what makes the 50 year old euthanasia supporters in 2003 so wise that they think they can discard the accumulated wisdom of almost all societies of all time and open the door to the killing of innocent people?” (International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, Saturday, December 11, 2004 “Arguments Against Euthanasia”, http://www.euthanasia.com/argumentsagainsteuthanasia.html.)

9B. I disagree.

9C. This statement is a combination of the past belief fallacy, which “is a form of t; qf; he fallacy of common belief (ad populum) and a form of the fallacy of appealing to authority (the authority of tradition). The same error in reasoning is committed except the claim is for belief or support in the past.” (See, www.sterlingharwood.com, last visited 11/28/06] and the ad verecundiam fallacy of appealing to authority, which “tries to convince the listener by appealing to the reputation of a famous or respected person.” (See, www.sterlingharwood.com, last visited 11/28/06.] The premises can be true even if the conclusion is false. The premise here is that history and societies have made laws that imply or say that euthanasia is immoral, and the conclusion is that euthanasia is immoral. However, it is very likely for euthanasia to be moral, even if there have been laws banning it.

Also, the moral principle of egalitarianism says that these people who desire euthanasia may be innocent, but they are suffering and therefore should be given a means to end their suffering, regardless of laws or, as libertarianism would say, anything that sacrifices their personal liberty. Moreover, utilitarianism argues that it is irrelevant whether society deems euthanasia bad; if the more people are suffering rather than happy, as in the case of the euthanasiasts (people who desire euthanasia). This belief leads to the prima facie principle of nonmaleficence which deems that even though anti-euthanasia sentiment and laws have been in society, they are still possibly morally unacceptable because they fail to limit the amount of pain and suffering in hopelessly ill patients.

10. Euthanasia will not necessarily cause a huge downfall of morals in society

10A. "The category of the hopelessly ill provides the possibility of even worse abuse. Embedded in a social policy, it would give society or its representatives the authority to eliminate all those who might be considered too 'ill' to function normally any longer. The dangers of euthanasia are too great to all to run the risk of approving it in any form. The first slippery step may well lead to a serious and harmful fall." (J. Gay-Williams, "The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia," in Joseph Grcic, ed., Moral Choice: Ethical Theories and Problems, p. 308.)

10B. I disagree.

10C. The slippery slope fallacy, which “is a line of reasoning that argues against taking a step because it assumes that if you take the first step, you will inevitably follow through to the last” (See, www.sterlingharwood.com, last visited 11/28/06.) is evident in this argument. It assumes that if one approves euthanasia, then an accumulation of horrid acceptances in society, such as immediately killing anyone who is deemed deficient in our society. Of course, this is not guaranteed to happen and is an overestimation. My opposition lacks any logically compelling evidence or argument that legalizing euthanasia will cause such dreadful consequences.

After all, the murder of innocent people against their will is contrary to the beliefs of egalitarianism, nonmaleficence and beneficence of prima facie principles, perfectionism, utilitarianism, and libertarianism, since it causes unkindness and suffering to people who want to avoid dying by violating their rights. On the other, hand, voluntary euthanasia, as discussed previously, does not violate any of these principles. Ergo, euthanasia will most likely not lead to the disposing of just any individuals who are not deemed “normal” in society.

11. Conclusion: Euthanasia Is Moral

In conclusion, there are many reasons about why voluntary euthanasia is moral. After using the egalitarianism concept of preventing innocents of suffering, the libertarianism ideal of anti-paternalism and that anything between morally consenting adults is morally acceptable, the utilitarianism belief that one should maximize happiness, the prima facie principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence, the perfectionism virtue of kindness and vice of unkindness, and proving my opponents’ fallacies, I have proven that euthanasia provides a just means to end a patient’s intense suffering. Euthanasia involves a person’s individual rights to decide his or her life or death, regardless of religion or society’s belief. One should avoid prolonging the suffering of others by trying to keep him or her alive, as opponents of euthanasia advocate. In other words, the side in favor of euthanasia is better because it has more logical reasoning than the side opposing it. With voluntary euthanasia, our society can become a more humane one in which to live.

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FAQ7: For all courses, what is the required ABC format for organizing papers (unless otherwise stated on the greensheet or syllabus)?

See the sample paper that is on this AOL website. Use the basic format -- which has only 3 steps and is thus as easy as A,B,C. Here it is simplified to only 4 words: A = Quote (anything from a published source on your approved paper topic); B = agree/disagree (with the quote you gave in section A); C = Explain (why you agree or disagree with the quote you gave in section A). You MUST use the letters, 'A,' 'B,' and 'C' in you paper to identify these sections in every ABC set. See guideline U in FAQ3 on this. It's as easy as ABC and is summarized in only 4 words: A = quote; B = agree/disagree; & C = explain.

Here is a longer explanation to help you understand these instructions even better. If you are still unclear, discuss the instructions with your learning team members. If you are still unclear, then call, email, or see me to specify which part(s) of the instructions are still unclear to you. More detailed instructions, fleshing out the six words of instruction above: A. Quote an argument (or in the case of Baby M or the Ford Pinto, for example, the statements describing a morally questionable act) you are going to evaluate from my website (or any published source, following guideline O of guidelines A-Z in FAQ3); B. state whether you agree or disagree with the argument (or the act) you are evaluating (stating whether your agreement/disagreement is major or minor); and C. state in as much specific detail as you can WHY you agree or disagree with the argument (or the act) you are evaluating. Repeat this A, B, C, organization -- using the letters A, B, C in following guideline U in FAQ3 above -- for as many arguments (or acts) as you can (following guideline E in FAQ3 above). The more arguments (or acts) you evaluate, the better grade your paper will receive (all else being equal). I grade based on quality times quantity (see guideline E of FAQ3 for details on this and all of FAQ3 for key details on grading).

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FAQ8: For all courses (and for all paper topics except moral relativism versus moral realism in PHIL 65 Spring 05 @ EVC), what are the 5 moral principles we should use AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE if we write on any moral or political topic such as affirmative action, gun control, abortion, euthanasia, prostitution, legalization of drugs, cloning, stem cell research, global warming, nuclear power plants, or surrogate motherhood?

It is useful to compare, contrast, and apply at least the following 5 moral principles that have influenced the role of business in society by influencing moral and political debates in American democracy. So here are 5 major moral theories or principles that you should use throughout the course to morally evaluate positions, theories, philosophies, and arguments. Using them showsme that you deserve credit for reading this post and thinking well about it enough to incorporate these ideas into your evaluations. These are hardly the only values one can apply, but they are certainly a good start and they are always worth keeping in mind. I doubt that any moral theory has a monopoly on the truth, but all of these theories have something worthwhile to contribute to the discussions or evaluations we will have. In this new world order or era of building coalitions, try to build an alliance between as many of them as you can whenever you are evaluating an act, policy, institution, system, or figure in business. Fun facts: In some formats my color coding shows up (if you copy and paste this into Word it may work). I used green for the heading of egalitarianism below, since critics of egalitarianism say that it is based somewhat on envy (as in being green with envy). I used red for the heading of libertarianism, since libertarianism arch-rival is socialism or communism (and their color is red, as in "Red Menace" or "Red Baiting"). I used blue for utilitarianism, since utilitarianism values happiness and thus wants to minimize unhappiness(feeling blue). I used gray for the prima facie moral principles, since they see things not in black and white terms but as shades of grayreflecting many factors. Finally, I used yellow for perfectionism, since yellow is synonymous with cowardice -- one of the main vices perfectionism opposes. (I generally recommend avoiding the use of yellow, since it is somewhat hard to read.)

Egalitarianism (Often Called Fairness or Justice)The basic value of egalitarianism is equality (often called fairness of justice). The basic idea of egalitarianism is that good people should fare well and bad people should fare badly.The definition of egalitarianism includes the following principles:

1. Treat relevantly similar cases similarly, and relevantly different cases differently.

2. Discrimination (e.g., racism and sexism) is wrong. Discrimination is failing to treat relevantly similar cases similarly or failing to treat relevantly different cases differently.

3. We should prevent innocent people from suffering through no fault of their own.

4. Exploitation - taking unfair advantage of an innocent person's predicament - is wrong.

5. We should regularly give significant amounts to charity.

6. No one should profit from his or her own wrong.

7. The punishment should fit (be proportional to) the crime.

8. Promises should be kept.

9. Merit should be rewarded.

10. Reciprocity is important.

11. Gratitude is important.

Libertarianism: Libertarianism is the moral and political philosophy that underpins capitalism, especially laissez-faire capitalism (that is, capitalism as it existed before President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created welfare state capitalism in response to The Great Depression).The basic value of libertarianism is liberty (also called freedom). However, libertarianism fails to support always maximizing liberty, since libertarianism generally refuses to allow violating one person's liberty to increase the liberty of other. The definition of libertarianism includes the following sub-principles:

1. Anything between consenting adults is morally permissible. Note that this does not mean that doing some things to an adult without his consent (for example, punishment) is immoral.

2. Laissez faire capitalism is morally required. This includes caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) rather than government safety or health regulations. In a libertarian nation, there would be no welfare state or government food stamps to save the poor. Private property is important.

3. Coercion (the deprivation of liberty) is wrong except to punish criminals, to defend against an immoral attack, and to supervise thementally incompetent (for example, children, the senile, the retarded, and the insane). Paternalism against mentally competent adults is wrong. The definition of paternalism is restricting the freedom of another personallegedly for his/her own good.

4. Everyone must keep his/her promises. Fraud is wrong.

5. Government should be minimal. Government should be only a nightwatchperson limited to peacekeeping functions (for example, the police and the military), enforcing principles 1-4 above with as little force as possible.

UTILITARIANISM =

The basic and only value of utilitarianism is utility (also called happiness, welfare, well-being or flourishing). Since this is the only value utilitarianism has, utilitarianism has only one principle in its definition, namely, to maximize net happiness for all in the long run.Utilitarianism has two slogans:

UTILITARIAN SLOGAN #1) Promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people; and

UTILITARIAN SLOGAN #2) Each person counts for one and only one in calculating the maximum amount of happiness.

Note that SLOGAN 1) does not mean that we should do whatever most people want to do. The minority of people might be made so unhappy, for example, that the majority's happiness cannot outweigh it. Utilitarianism also does not require merely that you producesome more happiness than unhappiness. It requires each person to produce the greatest net balance of happiness over unhappiness for everyone in the long run. slogan 2) means that each person's happiness counts the same, so it would be wrong, for example, to count a particular amount of happiness of a white person as more important (or less important) than the same amount of happiness for a black person.

PRIMA FACIE MORAL PRINCIPLES =

The basic idea of these principles is that there is more than one basic moral value. The principles below will often conflict, and so some will outweigh others depending on the circumstances. We are unable say in advance which ones will outweigh which others. We must take each moral situation as it comes and judge based on the totality of the circumstances, whichprinciple is more important in that case. Prima facie moral principles are moral factors that can be outweighed by other moral factors (that is, byother prima facie moral principles). The main prima facie moral principles are:

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #1. Fidelity: Avoid breaking promises.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #2. Veracity: Avoid telling lies.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #3. Fair play: Avoid exploiting, cheating, or freeloading.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #4. Gratitude: Return favors and appreciate the good others do for you.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #5. Nonmaleficence: Avoid causing pain or suffering. Note: this is not the same as nonmalevolence, which concerns only motivation rather than causation.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #6. Beneficence: Benefit others and cause them to be happier. Note: this is not the same as benevolence, which concerns only motivation rather than causation.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #7. Reparation: Right your wrongs; repair the damage that is your fault.

PRIMA FACIE PRINCIPLE #8. Avoid killing except when necessary to defend against an immoral attack.

PERFECTIONISM (Often Called Virtue Ethics) =

The basic value of perfectionism is a good character. One has a duty to perfect one's own character. The following are the main character traits that are virtures (forms of excellence tending to constitute a good character), or vices (character flaws tending to constitute a bad character).

VIRTUE #1. Courage is a virtue and cowardice is a vice.

VIRTUE #2. Honesty is a virtue and dishonesty is a vice.

VIRTUE #3. Kindness is a virtue and unkindness is a vice.

VIRTUE #4. Loyalty is a virtue and disloyalty is a vice.

VIRTUE #5. Gratitude is a virtue and ingratitude is a vice.

VIRTUE #6. Charity is a virtue and uncharitableness is a vice.

VIRTUE #7. Being forgiving exhibits a virtue and being unforgiving exhibits a vice.

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FAQ9: For all courses, what are the 7 truth tips we should try to use to discover truth generally and try to use in section C of our ABC sets in our term papers?

Introduction: What is truth? President Gerald R. Ford said that truth is the glue that holds together civilization. (1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City) Others are more cynical, saying that truth is just a lie yet to be uncovered. (Sam Peckinpaugh's film "The Osterman Weekend") For our purposes, truth is the part of a claim that corresponds with reality.

Here's a problem. Can anyone consistently believe all three of these plausible positions? 1. Truth is the glue that holds together civilization (President Ford's view). 2. War is the unifying principle of every society (a view spoken by actor Donald Sutherland in the film 'JFK'). 3. The first casualty of war is truth (an old addage about propaganda and secrecy often repeated by reporters in America during wartime).

Here are 4 tips I've based on Brooke Noel Moore and Richard Parker (Critical Thinking, 5th ed., Mayfield Publishing, 1998, p. 266 and in the new 6th edition, too) to help you know when you should accept a premise as true (as opposed to rejecting a premise as false, or neither accepting it nor rejecting it while you think about it more).

TRUTH TIP 1. Accept a claim as true if it comes from a credible source (for example, an expert or authority) and fails to conflict with what you have observed, your background knowledge, or other credible claims. [Note: To accept a passage means to accept it as true and to agree with it. Further, appealing to authority to show probable truth is not the fallacy of appealing to authority. "Expert A claims X. So, X is more likely to be true." is not the same as the fallacious "Expert A claims X. So, X is true."]

TRUTH TIP 2. Reject a claim that conflicts with what you have observed or otherwise have reason to believe, unless you have a very good reason for doing so.

TRUTH TIP 3. Reject a claim that conflicts with the claims of another credible source unless you have resolved the question of which source should be believed (that is, which source is more credible than the other).

TRUTH TIP 4. Claims that are vague, ambiguous, or otherwise unclear require clarification before acceptance.

Here are 3 other tips from Dr. Harwood

TRUTH TIP 5. Claims with extreme words - watchwords - without any qualifying words (qualifiers) are more likely to be false. Watchwords include: 'never' (as in "Never say 'never'."), 'always', 'all', 'every', 'none', 'absolutely', 'exceptionless', 'impossible', 'total', 'totally', 'complete', 'completely', 'full', 'fully', 'only', 'lone', 'no', 'zero', 'perfect', 'best', 'unprecedented'. Qualifiers include: probably, possible, almost, nearly, quite, not (for example, "Not all red birds can fly well."), sometimes, somewhat, perhaps, maybe, possible, could, might, may, can.

TRUTH TIP 6. Claims with extreme qualifiers - weaselwords - are more likely to be true. Weaselwords are slippery or slick words which water down the import of a claim. So premises using weaselwords are less likely to be important. Weaselwords include: 'possibly', 'possible', 'perhaps', 'maybe', 'might', 'could', 'can', 'potential', 'potentially'. Note: "not impossible" amounts to a weaselphrase.

TRUTH TIP 7. Moral claims are more likely to be acceptable the more they are supported by the 5 moral principles on this site (and listed below). If you are evaluating a quote on a moral issue such as affirmative action, euthanasia, abortion, gun control, capital punishment, surrogate motherhood, human cloning, stem cell research, legalizing prostitution, legalizing currently illegal drugs, etc., use the moral principles utilitarianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, perfectionism (virtue ethics), and prima facie moral principles to evaluate the quotes. The definitions of these 5 moral principles are on this site and in Ch.4 of Dr. Harwood's book Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996).

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FAQ10: For all courses, what are 33 fallacies to avoid committing and to expose and disagree with when others commit them?

33 Fallacies To Avoid, Etc.

Fallacies are mistakes in reasoning or argument. You can but need not use the fallacies in section B of your AB format in your perception paper,
barrier paper, and team fallacy journal.

A fallacy is a mistake in reasoning or argument. Some textbooks define these fallacies differently. The following definitions, descriptions or examples are the ones that I have found to be most useful. See me if you encounter
other definitions, descriptions or examples that clash with the ones here, so we can see which is most useful.

Arguments consist of a series of statements intended to establish the truth of a conclusion. Premises are reasons the arguer gives to try to establish the truth of a conclusion. A conclusion is the claim that the arguer ultimately wants to show to be true. Arguers often indicate premises by using: 'since,' 'because,' 'for the reason that' or 'for' (as in 'you should stay with me; for I love you.') These words are direct premise indicators. Direct premise indicators often serve as indirect conclusion indicators. For
example, in the argument "Abortion is wrong because it kills people" the premise is directly indicated to be "Abortion kills people" but indirectly the conclusion is indicated to be " Abortion is wrong." Conclusions are often indicated by the words: 'In conclusion', 'I conclude,' 'therefore,' 'Thus,' 'so,' 'hence,' or 'Ergo.' These words are direct conclusion
indicators. The initials Q.E.D. also directly indicate a conclusion, since they stand for a Latin phrase meaning "that which is to be demonstrated." Direct conclusion indicators serve as indirect premise indicators. Since
each argument has only one conclusion, by process of elimination everything else working in the argument would be a premise. Generally, it is a good strategy to argue from less controversial premises to more controversial conclusions. For if your premises are every bit as controversial and uncertain as your conclusion is, then as a practical matter you will usually fail to convince your audience that your conclusion is true.

A sound argument must, by definition, be both 1) valid; and 2)without false premises. An unsound argument is simply an argument that is not sound (an invalid argument, an argument with at least one false premise, or both). All fallacies are unsound (except begging the question, which merely cannot ever be known to be sound), but four of the fallacies listed below are valid. A
valid argument is one where it is impossible for all the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false. In other words, IF all the premises are
true, then the conclusion must be true. Stated differently, the truth of the conclusion of a valid argument would necessarily follow from the truth of all the premises. This is why invalid arguments are often called non-sequiturs, since "non sequitur" is Latin for "does not follow." An invalid argument is simply an argument that is not valid (that is, an
argument where it is possible for all the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false). Fallacies 1 through 16 are invalid and fallacies 17 through 19 are valid (though hasty generalization can be interpreted reasonably as valid or as invalid). A strong argument, by definition, is defined one where IF all the premises are true, then the conclusion is
likely to be true. All valid arguments are strong, but not all strong arguments are valid. Strong arguments tend to have words associated with probabilities being over 50% for example, 'most,' 'almost all,' 'nearly all,' the majority,' 'usually,' 'typically,' most often,' 'probably,' and 'most commonly.' For example, "Most as are Bs. Jim is a A. So Jim is a B." is a strong but invalid argument. A weak argument is an argument that is not strong (that is, even if all the premises are true, then the conclusion is not likely to be true, meaning its probability is 50% or less.)

Fallacy 1) Ad Populum Fallacy: This fallacy is invalid.

Model: Most (or all) people believe X.

Therefore, X is true

This fallacy is invalid since the premise can be true and the conclusion false. For example: even when most people believed the earth was flat, the earth was not flat.

Fallacy 2) Ad Hominem Fallacy: This fallacy is invalid.

Model: Arguer x is defective.

Therefore, the conclusion of X's argument is false.

This fallacy is invalid, since the premise can be true and the conclusion false.

For example: Hitler was morally defective (to say the least!) but that does not imply that Hitler's belief that Britain had an air force during WWII was false.

Ad hominem is attacking the person making the argument. This fallacy is attacking the arguer rather than his/her argument. Example: John's
objections to capital punishment carry no weight since he is a convicted felon. Note: Saying something negative about someone is not automatically ad hominem. If a person (politician for example) is the issue, then it is not a
fallacy to criticize him/her.

Fallacy 3) Fallacy of Appealing to Authority: This fallacy is invalid.

Model: X is an expert.
X believes Y
Therefore, Y is true

This fallacy is invalid because the conclusion can still be false even if all the premises are true.

Example 1: Newton believed the orbit of Mercury around the sun had one particular shape, but Einstein later showed that Newton was wrong about
this.

Example 2: is Einstein's belief that indeterminism in physics is incorrect.
He said: "God does not play dice with the universe." But indeterminism fits the evidence better than Einstein's view does. Even the best experts can be wrong. Appealing to law or culture can also commit this fallacy, since they are also fallible authorities.

"Ad verecundiam" is the Latin name for Appeal To Authority. This fallacy tries to convince the listener by appealing to the reputation of a famous or respected person. Oftentimes it is an authority in one field who is speaking out of his or her field of expertise. Example: Sports stars selling cars or hamburgers. Or, the actor on a TV commercial that says, "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."

Fallacy 4) Appeal to Pity: This fallacy is invalid.

Model: X is pitiful

Therefore, X is wrong

Even if it is pitiful to amputate the leg of a sick child, that does not mean that amputation is wrong, since amputation can be medically necessary
to save the child's life.

Fallacy 5) Equivocation: This fallacy is invalid. One equivocates by trading on an ambiguity. One equivocates by acting as if an ambiguous word or phrase has only one meaning when it has at least two.

Example 1:
It is generally wrong to lie.
We generally ought to prevent wrongdoing.
Therefore, we generally ought not to let sleeping dogs lie.

Example 2:
Premise 1): Every human has a right to life
Premise 2): All fetuses are human
Conclusion: Therefore, all fetuses have a right to life.

There are different senses of the word 'human.' One is a biological sense but he other is a moral sense. We can see the difference when we say:
"Hitler was inhuman." Which doesn't mean that Hitler was of a species other then Homo sapiens. Another example is from Captain Kirk's eulogy of First Officer Spock in Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan. Kirk said: " Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most -- human." Spock was biologically only half-human and half-Vulcan. Anyway, a soul seems less of a
biological entity than a moral one. For example, when we say Hitler had no soul, we seem to mean that he had no moral character. So, for all example 2 claims at least, fetuses might be human in the biological sense but not in the moral sense.

Equivocation is a product of semantic ambiguity. The arguer uses the ambiguous nature of a word or phrase to shift the meaning in such a way as to make the reason offered appear more convincing. Example: We realize that workers are idle during the period of lay-offs. But the government should never subsidize idleness, which has often been condemned as a vice. Therefore, payments to laid off workers are wrong.

Fallacy 6) Composition: This fallacy is invalid. This fallacy wrongly assumes that whatever is true of each part of the whole is true of the
whole.

Model: X is true of each part of Y

Therefore, X is true of Y

This fallacy is invalid, since the premise can be true and the conclusion false.

Example 1: each part of a compound could be a poison, but when combined the two poisons cancel out each other poisonous effects. Na and Cl are poisons when consumed individually, but combine to form NaCl, which is ordinary table salt.

Example 2: Each book in the bargain book bin costs only $1, so therefore one can buy the entire collection of books in the bargain book bin for only $1.

This fallacy is committed when we conclude that a whole must have a characteristic because some part of it has that characteristic. Example: The
Dawson family must be rolling in money, since Fred Dawson makes a lot from his practice.

Fallacy 7) Division: This fallacy is invalid. This fallacy wrongly assumes that whatever is true of the whole is true of each part of the whole (or a particular part of the whole.)

Model: X is true of Y

Therefore, X is true of each part of Y.

This fallacy is invalid, since the premise can be true and the conclusion false.

Example 1: unsurpassed musical greatness in rock 'n roll in true of 'The Beatles, but that does not imply that unsurpassed musical greatness in rock 'n roll is true of each solo Beatle (for example Ringo Starr.)

Example 2: is that since NaCl is not poisonous, Na is not poisonous. This would be a fatal error in reasoning.

This fallacy is committed when we conclude that any part of a particular whole must have a characteristic because the whole has that characteristic.

Example: I am sure that Karen plays the piano well, since her family is so musical.

Fallacy 8) The Natural/Unnatural Fallacy: This fallacy is invalid. Avoid confusing this fallacy with the so-called naturalistic fallacy in metaethics, which studies the meaning and reference of moral language.

Model 1: X is natural

Therefore, X is good

Model 2: X is unnatural

Therefore, X is bad

Fallacy 9) Denying The Antecedent: This fallacy is invalid. The fallacy falsely assumes that a sufficient condition is a necessary condition. First we need to know what an antecedent is. We can put a conditional statement into the following standard form: If A, then B. The antecedent of "If A, then B." is A. The antecedent comes before ('ante' which means 'before') the word 'then' in the standard form "If A, then B." This fallacy is invalid,
since the premises can both be true even when the conclusion is false.

Example 1: If Elvis made a triumphant return from the dead, then people will listen to his music.
Elvis hasn't made a triumphant return from the dead.
Therefore, people will not listen to his music.

Example 2: If you get cancer, your medical problems will worsen.
You did not get cancer.
Therefore, your medical problems did not worsen.

Example 3:If it rains today, then the streets will get wet today.
If didn't rain today.
Therefore, the streets didn't get wet today.

Example 4: If you are in California, then you are in the U.S.
You are not in California.
Therefore, you are not in the U.S.

Example 5: If X is between consenting adults, then X is morally permissible.
X is not between consenting adults.
Therefore, X is not morally permissible.

Note Libertarianism supports the first premise in Example, so look for this fallacy more when you see libertarianism.

This is an invalid form of the conditional argument. In this one, the second premise denies the antecedent of the first premise, and the conclusion denies the consequent. It is often mistaken for modus tollens. Example: If she
qualifies for a promotion, she must speak English. She doesn't qualify for the promotion, so she must not know how to speak English.

Fallacy 10) Affirming The Consequent: This fallacy is invalid. This fallacy falsely assumes that a necessary condition is a sufficient condition. First, we need to know what a consequent is. A conditional statement can be put
into the following standard form: If A, then B. The consequent of "If A, then B." is B. The consequent follows ('seque' means, "to follow", as in a musical seque, a sequence, and consequences following an act.)

Example 1: If Elvis made a triumphant return form the dead, then the people will listen to his music.
People will listen to his music.
Therefore, Elvis made a triumphant return from the dead.

Example 2: If you get cancer, then your medical problems will worsen.
Your medical problems worsened.
Therefore, you got cancer.

Example 3: If it rains today, then the streets will get wet today.
The streets got wet today.
Therefore, it rained today

Example 4:
If you are in California, then you are in the U.S.
You are in the U.S.
Therefore, you are in California.

Example 5:
Capital punishment of X is constitutional only if X received due process.
X received due process.
Therefore, capital punishment of X is constitutional.

This is an invalid form of the conditional argument. In this case, the second premise affirms the consequent of the first premise and the conclusion affirms the antecedent. Example: If he wants to get that job, then he must know Spanish. He knows Spanish, so the job is his.

Fallacy 11) Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc: This fallacy is invalid. This fallacy includes any argument of the form: "X occurred after Y, therefore X occurred because of Y." This fallacy underestimates the frequency of coincidences.

Example 1:
I won at blackjack last time after I rubbed my rabbit's foot.
Therefore, I won at blackjack last time because I rubbed my rabbit's foot.

"post hoc ergo propter hoc" means "After this, therefore caused by this." It is a form of the false cause fallacy in which a person infers that because one event followed another it is necessarily caused by that event. Example:
Mary joined our class and the next week we all did poorly on the quiz. It must be her fault.

Fallacy 12) Appeal to Force (argumentum ad bacculum): This fallacy is invalid. This fallacy includes any argument which threatens those who refuse to believe its conclusion.

Example: You better believe abortion is wrong because if you don't, then you will burn in hell forever.

Fallacy 13) Appeal to Ignorance: This fallacy is invalid. Argumentum ad ignorantium is the Latin name for appeal to ignorance. Arguing on the basis
of what is not known and cannot be proven. (Sometimes called the "burden of proof" fallacy). If you can't prove that something is true then it must be false (and vice versa). Example: You can't prove there isn't a Loch Ness Monster, so there must be one.

This fallacy includes any argument of this form:

We don't know X is false.
Therefore, we know X is true.

Or

We don't know X is true
Therefore, we know X is false.

Example 1: No one has ever really proven there are no ghosts.
Therefore, there are ghosts.
Example 2: No one has shown that argument X commits a fallacy on Dr.
Harwood's List of Fallacies.
Therefore, argument X does not commit a fallacy.

Fallacy 14) The Existential Fallacy: This fallacy is invalid. The fallacy moves from only universal premises to a particular conclusion. In other
words, one cannot prove an I or O claim with premises made up of only A or E claims. An A claim has the form: All S are P. An E claim has the form: No S are P. An I claim has the form: Some S are P. An O claim has the form: Some
S are not P.

Fallacy 15) The Strawman Fallacy: One commits this fallacy whenever one attacks an argument that no one has ever made and that is so weak that no one would probably ever make it. This fallacy is invalid, since the argument attacked is irrelevant. It's possible for the argument attacked to be unsound and yet just as likely for the conclusion of the argument attacked to be true. So the strawman fallacy of attacking the argument is irrelevant and thus invalid. For the same reasons, the strawman fallacy is weak.

Example One: Liberals think that murderers shouldn't be punished but should be given a handshake for overcoming being victims of society and for showing much self-esteem. This is absurd. So, liberalism is false.

Example Two: Conservatives think that starving people -- especially starving children, who need to learn key lessons early in life -- shouldn't be helped with free food aid because they should learn to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps instead of asking for a free handout, which will only make them woefully dependent on others instead of committed to embracing the
rugged individualism they will need to survive in the long run in this cold, cruel world. This is absurd. So, conservatism is false.

The strawman fallacy occurs when we misrepresent an opponent's position to make it easier to attack, usually by distorting his or her views to
ridiculous extremes. This can also take the form of attacking only the weak premises in an opposing argument while ignoring the strong ones.

Example:
Those who favor gun-control legislation just want to take all guns away from responsible citizens and put them into the hands of the criminals.

Fallacy 16) Hasty Generalization: Logicians usually consider this fallacy invalid (but below we will explore a different interpretation that would make this fallacy valid). This fallacy is committed when once fails to take enough time to collect a large enough sample or a randomized enough sample on which to extrapolate scientifically.

Model: A is a representative sample of Bs.
X is true of all Bs is sample A.
Therefore, X is true of all Bs.

This fallacy is usually considered invalid, due to what is called the General Problem of Induction, which is that science seems to assume that the future will be relevantly similar to the past. But there is no way to support this assumption scientifically without begging the question at issue. For to say that the assumption has worked in the past and is therefore likely to work in the future is to beg the question of whether the past will be relevantly similar to the future. But if scientists really simply assume that the future will be like the past, then this is a valid argument, since it is impossible for both premises to be true and the
conclusion to be false. One might rephrase the argument as: S is true of all Bs in sample A. If A is representative sample of Bs, then X is true of all Bs. A is a representative sample of Bs. Therefore, X is true of all Bs.

Further, obvious claims of the form "A is a representative sample of Bs." Are not always false. But when they are false, then the fallacy of hasty generalization is created.

Hasty generalization is a generalization accepted on the support of a sample that is too small or biased to warrant it. Example: All men are rats! Just look at the louse whom I married.

Fallacy 17) False Dilemma: This fallacy is valid but unsound. This fallacy claims you are facing a dilemma when you really are not. A dilemma is a
tough situation, when you are between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
This fallacy falsely limits your choices. False Dilemma (often called the either/or fallacy or false dichotomy). This fallacy assumes that we must choose one of two alternatives instead of allowing for other possibilities; a false form of disjunctive syllogism. Example: "America, love it or leave it." (The implication is,
since you don't love it the only option is to leave it).

Example 1: Either X or Y is true.
X is false
Therefore, Y is true.

Example 2: Either X or Y is true.
Y is false.
Therefore, X is true.

This fallacy follows the logical process of elimination. This fallacy is valid, since it is impossible for both premises to be true and the
conclusion false. The fallacy is unsound because the premise "Either X or Y is true." Is false. Obviously, statements of the form "Either X or Y is true" will not always be false. But when they are false, and when they are used in an argument using this process of elimination, then they create the fallacy of false dilemma.

Fallacy 18) False Analogy: This fallacy is valid but unsound. This fallacy compares apples and oranges, as the old saying goes. It compares two things that are not comparable. It draws an analogy which fails to fit. The fallacy is valid, since it is impossible for both premises to be true and the conclusion false. But the fallacy is unsound because it has the false premise claiming that two things are analogous are false. But when they are false, they create the fallacy of false analogy.

Model: X is analogous (that is, relevantly similar) to B in all respects.
X is true of A.
Therefore, X is true of B.

For example: Eagle eggs are similar to human fetuses in that both are
precious. We should have laws protecting eagle eggs from human destruction.
Therefore, we should have laws protecting human fetuses from abortion. (This
argument is a version of one by Steve Friend, a Pennsylvania State Legislator in the 1980s.) One relevant difference between eagle eggs and human fetuses that the argument overlooks is that eagle eggs are usually outside of the mother eagle but the human fetus is usually inside the human
mother. Another relevant difference might be that human mothers, but not eagles, have a moral right or privacy that includes intimate private parts
like the womb.

Here's another example. Some stock analysts state that there's never just one cockroach, comparing bad news about a company to a cockroach.

This fallacy is an unsound form of inductive argument in which an argument relies heavily on a weak analogy to prove its point. Example: This must be a great car, for, like the finest watches in the world, it was made in Switzerland.


Fallacy 19) Begging the Question: This fallacy is valid but it is, as a practical matter, impossible to know that it is sound; for in its premises it assumes what needs to be proved (namely, the conclusion about which we
are arguing).

Model: X is true. Therefore, X is true.

This fallacy is valid, since it is impossible for X to be true in the premise and false in the conclusion. This fallacy may look as if no one
would use or be fooled by such an argument. But Hitler and others used the infamous technique of the big lie, which is simply repeated over and over until it gains credence even though it begs the question that was originally at issue.

Begging the Question is an argument in which the conclusion is implied or already assumed in the premises. Some scholars also call this fallacy
circular argument.

Example: Of course the Bible is the word of God. Why? Because God says so in the Bible.

20) Inconsistency. Inconsistency involves hypocrisy (failing to practice what you preach) or a contradiction. Here are some examples. Inconsistency: A discourse is inconsistent or self-contradicting if it contains, explicitly or implicitly, two assertions that are logically incompatible with each other. Inconsistency can also occur between words and actions.

Example 1: When Curt is driving on the road he curses the cyclists there and yells at them to use the sidewalk instead. When Curt is walking on the sidewalk, he curses the cyclists there and yells at them to use the road instead.

Example 2: Racists inconsistently believe that blacks are filthy, lazy, and untrustworthy yet believe that blacks are naturally suited to cook, clean, and handle the children while white parents are away.

Example 3: Sexists inconsistently believe that women are dull, passive, and poor entrepreneurs yet believe women are scheming manipulators with great verbal skills who can wrap men around their little fingers.

Example 4: Puritans inconsistently believe that sex is a dirty, disgusting, degrading act we should share only with someone we love.

Example 5: Nazis believed Jews were generally bankers or rich people and that Jews were generally revolutionary communists. Nazis believed that Jews were mentally and physically inferior to the vast majority of Germans yet
controlled Germany and were running Germany into the ground.

Example 6: Some think that white men can't jump yet say they enjoy watching the Olympics where many whites excel at the high jump.

Exmaple 7: Some racists say that black genes prevent blacks from playing golf well yet they admit that Tiger Woods -- whom they know to be partly black -- is the best golfer of the 21st Century.

Example 8: Some racists say no whites can rap worth a crap yet they admit that Eminem and Marky Mark (Mark Wahlberg) are great rappers.

Example 9: A woman who represents herself as a feminist, yet refuses to believe that women should run for Congress.

Fallacy 21) Non Sequitur: ("It does not follow.") In this fallacy the premises have no direct relationship to the conclusion. This fallacy appears in political speeches and advertising with great frequency. Example: A waterfall in the background and a beautiful girl in the foreground have nothing to do with an automobile's performance.

Fallacy 22) Amphiboly: A fallacy of syntactical ambiguity where the position of words in a sentence or the juxtaposition of two sentences conveys a mistaken idea. This fallacy is like the fallacy of equivocation except that the ambiguity does not result from a shift in meaning of a single word or phrase, but is created by word placement.. Example: Jim said he saw Jenny
walk her dog through the window. Ow! She should be reported for animal abuse.

Fallacy 23) Appeal to Emotion: In this fallacy, the arguer uses emotional appeals rather than logical reasons to persuade the listener. The fallacy can appeal to various emotions including pride, pity, fear, hate, vanity, or sympathy. Generally, the issue is oversimplified to the advantage of the arguer. Example: In 1972, there was a widely-printed advertisement printed
by the Foulke Fur Co., which was in reaction to the frequent protests against the killing of Alaskan seals for the making of fancy furs. According to the advertisement, clubbing the seals was one of the great conservation stories of our history, a mere exercise in wildlife management, because "biologists believe a healthier colony is a controlled colony."

Fallacy 24) Questionable Cause: (In Latin: non causa pro causa, "not the cause of that"). This form of the false cause fallacy occurs when the cause for an occurrence is identified on insufficient evidence. Example: I can't find the checkbook; I am sure that my husband hid it so I couldn't go shopping today.

Fallacy 25) Slippery Slope: This fallacy is similar to false dilemma. It essentially states "Either one avoid setting foot on the slippery slope or else one will slide too far down the slippery slope and get hurt." If there
is a third alternative, then one committed the slippery slope fallacy and the fallacy of false dilemma.

Slippery slope is a line of reasoning that argues against taking a step because it assumes that if you take the first step, you will inevitably
follow through to the last. This fallacy uses the valid form of hypothetical syllogism, but uses guesswork for the premises. Example: We can't allow students any voice in decision making on campus; if we do, it won't be long before they are in total control.

Fallacy 26) Common Belief: This fallacy is similar to the ad populum fallacy. It is sometimes called the "bandwagon" fallacy or 'appeal to popularity". This fallacy is committed when we assert a statement to be true
on the evidence that many other people allegedly believe it. Being widely believed is not proof or evidence of the truth. Example: Of course Nixon was guilty in Watergate. Everybody knows that.

Fallacy 27) Past Belief: This is a form of the fallacy of common belief (ad populum) and a form of the fallacy of appealing to authority (the authority of tradition). The same error in reasoning is committed except the claim is
for belief or support in the past. Example: We all know women should obey their husbands. After all, marriage vows contained those words for
centuries.

Fallacy 28) Contrary to Fact Hypothesis: This fallacy is committed when we state with an unreasonable degree of certainty the results of an event that might have occurred but did not. Example: If President Bush had not gone
into the Persian Gulf with military force when he did, Saddam Hussein would control the world's oil from Saudi Arabia today.

Fallacy 29) Two Wrongs Make a Right: This fallacy is committed when we try to justify an apparently wrong action by charges of a similar wrong. The
underlying assumption is that if they do it, then we can do it too and are somehow justified. Example: Supporters of apartheid are often guilty of this error in reasoning. They point to U.S. practices of slavery to justify their system.

Fallacy 30) Slanting: A form of is representation in which a true statement
is made, but made in such a way as to suggest that something is not true or to give a false description through the manipulation of connotation.

Example: I can't believe how much money is being poured into the space program (suggesting that 'poured' means heedless and unnecessary spending)

Fallacy 31) Red Herring: This fallacy introduces an irrelevant issue into a discussion as a diversionary tactic. It takes people off the issue at hand; it is beside the point. Example: Many people say that engineers need more practice in writing, but I would like to remind them how difficult it is to master all the math and drawing skills that an engineer requires.

Fallacy 32) Failing to Follow Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor is named after medieval logician William of Occam (also known as William of Ockham). Occam's Razor cautions: Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. Inotherwords, if 2 theories or explanations both fit the evidence equally well and predict with equal accuracy, then choose the simpler of the 2 theories or explanations. We should do so because every claim that an entity exists has a probability greater than 0 of being wrong. So to claim that 2 entities exist instead of 1, when both theories fit the evidence equally well and predict the future equally well, means that you are sticking your neck out unnecessarily by making an unnecessary claim that has a realistic chance of being wrong. Following Occam's Razor is also called following the law of parsimony or economy. Being parsimonious or economical here means avoiding the making of unnecessarily extravagant claims about how many things exist.

FALLACY 33) THE GAMBLER'S FALLACY assumes that the gambler is "due to win" the next try at a random game (for example, roulette) when the gambler has lost a few in a row. The fallacy normally takes the view that the longer the gambler's losing streak is, the more likely it is that the gambler will win the next try at a random game of chance. The problem with this assumption is that a truly random game leaves no room for the game to remember who has won or lost in the past. If the gambler has bet on number 7 in roulette and lost 5 times in a row, the chances of the number 7 coming up the next time is still 1 in 38 (there are 38 numbers on most roulette wheels, which include the numbers 1 through 36, 0 and 00). If the gambler loses 10 times in a row betting on number 7, the chances that the 11th roll of the roulette wheel will produce a 7 as the winning number are still 1 in 38. The roulette wheel has no mind and hence no memory. On the other hand, defenders of such thinking as non-fallacious would ask us to compare the idea of the law of averages and the idea of "regression toward the mean." Further, defender's of the gambler committing the gambler's fallacy would ask us to compare the apparent memory of the past in the random game found in the Monty Hall paradox.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: Set 2

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FAQ11: For all courses, what is Dr. Harwood's introductory lecture in philosophy?

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE IN PHILOSOPHY

Part 1: What is philosophy?

When I was a child I first realized we were all in big trouble when I realized that the word 'life' itself is a four-letter word. Ancient Greek philosopher Plato said that philosophy begins in childlike wonder such as the realization I just mentioned. What is philosophy? I will try to define it in three ways. First, I will examine the word itself. Second, I will list some of the main questions that philosophers have traditionally asked while working in the three main categories. Third, I will give some examples of a characteristically philosophical attitude.

Part 2: The Word 'Philosophy'

First, let's examine the word 'philosophy.' Note that www.dictionary.com is a fine resource. 'philo' means love, as in philanderer (lover of women), philanthropy (love of humankind), Philadelphia (brotherly love), etc. 'Phillip,' by the way means "lover of horses." So you might lightly tease some of your chums named 'Phillip' if the mood strikes you. 'sophy' means 'wisdom,' as in 'sophisticated' or 'sophist.' Socrates, a father figure in Western Philosophy, famously battled the sophist Protagoras intellectually in Plato's great dialog "Protagoras." Sophists are distinct from philosophers. The philosophers of Socrates's day in ancient Greece, about 300 to 500 B.C. (or B.C.E, meaning before the common era), were unpaid. The sophists were paid and acted as lawyers, ad men, PR men, consultants, and spin doctors act today. Philosophers of Socrates's time were more of a religous or isolated cast of characters. Socrates and other philosophers were worldly, however. Thales, the first Western philosopher on record, was a business man from Miletas. He used his philosophy in a practical way to help him predict where olive trees would grow best. He became rich. Socrates was worldly, too. He was a soldier who showed great endurance, especially of the cold, in battle. Plato, the most famous student of Socrates, was a wrestler from a rich and aristocratic family. Plato is merely a nickname for the man formally known as Aristocles. 'Plato,' like "The Body" in the politician's name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura', is a nickname referring to wrestling. Plato not only mentally wrestled with great ideas, he also physically wrestled other people. 'Plato' in Greek means 'broad' or 'flat,' which could refer to Plato's broad shoulders or to his victorious pinning of his opponents flat to the wrestling mat.

The analysis of the word 'philosophy' is hardly as helpful in getting a definition as is examination of the words in other fields of study. For example, 'oceanography' clearly indicates that oceans and graphs are involved. And 'biology' means the study of life, so we can see how life functions (fleeing, fighting, feeding, and fornication -- reproduction)
would be involved. But what is love of wisdom? Don't all scholars in all fields, at least the best of those scholars, love wisdom? So what sets philosophy apart from them? To answer this we must turn to the question philosophers tend to occupy themselves with and then finally to the attitude philosophers have usually used in exploring those questions.

Part 3: The Questions Of Philosophy

Philosophers, especially in Western Civilization, have tended to ask the following sorts of questions in three main fields of study. Axiology: the study of value. Socrates is famous for asking "What is the good life?" Part of his answer was that the unexamined (uncritical) life was not worth living. Here are more questions philosophers have asked conerning value, including moral values and artistic (aesthetic) values. What is art? What is good art? Are all values relative to culture or the individual? Is there any disputing matters of taste? Are all values subjective? Are there any values at all? What is the best economic system? What is the best political system? What is the best legal system? Is abortion moral? Is affirmative action moral? Is gun control moral? Is euthanasia (mercy killing) moral? Is surrogate motherhood moral? Is capital punishment moral?

Note that on the last question, Socrates had a particular personal interest. He was capitally punished for allegedly corrupting the youth and worhshipping a false god (a god not approved of by the state). Socrates' alleged corruption of the youth had nothing to do with the fact that Socrates had sex with young boys under 18. That was accepted in ancient Athens. Indeed, in the dialog "Protagoras," Plato quotes Socrates as saying that his favorite sex partner was a young boy whose stubble had just begun to grow on the chin (maybe around age 13 or 14 or so). No, the corruption for which Socrates was executed was teaching the youth that democracy was not the best form of government. Socrates worshipped The Oracle at Delphi, which had two mottoes: 1) Know thyself; and 2) Nothing too much (that is, everything in moderation; nothing in excess).

Philosophy is defined more by its questions than by its answers, especially since some philosophers are quite modest and humble in admitting that they cannot yet answer such questions (or that they can ever answer them). Socrates's method, which is now famously named The Socratic Method, is to teach by asking students penetrating questions that expose contradictions or puzzles in the thinking of students. For example, if I ask you if there are too many lawyers in America, many will answer 'Yes.' Further, if I ask you if supply and demand determine prices in a freemarket or capitalist society like America, many will answer 'Yes' again. Finally, if I ask if lawyers cost too much in America, many will answer 'Yes' for a third time. But if lawyers cost too much, and supply and demand determine the price of lawyers, then the cost of lawyers should be low rather than high. So the three 'Yes' answers above seem to form an inconsistent set of beliefs. This forces the student to re-examine his/her fundamental believes, at least one of which and maybe all three of which must be rejected. Further, the lessons of this kind of teaching tend to stick in the mind of the student much longer and stronger than the lessons learned from other forms of teaching; for the lesson springs from the student's very own mind. Thus the student tends to feel as if he/she has participated in the learning and teaching process and he/she has! So pride in his/her learning makes the lesson much stronger in his/her mind.

Epistemology: the study of knowledge. This is the second of three main areas of exploration for the philosopher. Here are the questions that tend to arise here, though there is no complete list of questions in any of the three areas. As philosophers learn and grow, and the philosophical tradition does the same, the list of questions grows, too. Here's a partial list, then: What is knowledge? Is knowledge justified true belief? How does science acquire knowledge? What is the scientific method? How does logic lead to knowledge? How can logic aid critical thinking? How can logic evaluate arguments? Is all knowledge relative or subjective? Is skepticism right to say that there is no knowledge at all? How do we know that we know? How can a skeptic consistently claim to know that there is no knowledge? Can anything, even God or gods, have infinite knowledge? What is the relationship, if any, between the intellect (knowing) and the will (loving and other emotions)? Is curiosity an emotion leading to knowledge or death? Can we voluntarily do what we know is wrong? Can we act contrary to our better judgment? How do we know that we everything isn't doubling in size every 5 minutes? How can we know the past? How can we know the present? How can we know the future? How do we know that the entire known universe isn't just a piece of spit dangling from the fang of an enormous dragon?

The third main area of philosophical exploration is ontology -- also called metaphysics, the study of existence. Here are some traditional trends in the kinds of questions philosophers ask here. What exists? Does matter exist? Does spirit exist? What relationship, if any, exists between mind and body? Does God exist? Do gods exist? Does evil exist? Does an afterlife exist? Does infinite space exist? Does infinite time exist? Does free will exist? Do other minds exist? Does causation exist? Does ESP exist? Do UFOs exist? Do strange monsters such as the Loch Ness monster, Yeti, Bigfoot, exist? Do supernatural forces exist? Do strange forces exist in the Bermuda Triangle? Does the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, California hold supernatural powers over gravity? Are all four main types of physical forces unified at some fundamental level? What are the fundamental building blocks of life? What are the fundamental components of the universe? Is there any intelligent life on other planets or in outer space? What is life? What is the nature and meaning of life?

Part 4: The Attitude Of Philosophy

Early on in my life I adopted the attitude that we needed to improve upon the general rules authorities were handing us. For example, the Golden Rule seems reasonable enough at first blush. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you commits to the value of mutual respect and reciprocity. But suppose some guy wants Madonna to do something really weird unto him as a total surprise to him? Does that mean that he gets to do the same weird thing to her as a total surprise to her? No, that's too easy a justification for questionable behavior. It would, for example, automatically allow a masochist (one who enjoys having suffering inflicted on him) become a sadist (one who enjoys inflicting pain on others). But can masochism or sadism really be justified by such a simple application of the Golden Rule. Wouldn't we need to know more to know that they are justified, if they are even justified at all?

My first philosophical experience came around age 8 in third grade. The teacher had some handouts to handout, as teachers often do with handouts. She said the first handout should be taken only by the youngest child in each family. So I took one of those handouts when the stack of handouts came around to me. Then the teacher announced that the next handout should be taken only by the oldest child in each family. So when the second stack of handouts came around to me, the teacher had her eye on me. Perhaps by age 8 I had already acquired a rep. Anyway, when the second stack came I took another handout and the teacher immediately screamed at me "Sterling Harwood, how can you possibly be both the oldest child in your family and the youngest child in your family?!!!" And I simply replied: "Because I'm the only child in my family." The class full of children all burst into laughter and from the explosion of laughter and from the shock of the humiliation the teacher was propelled backwards, with a thud, into the blackboard. She turned around and the children burst into laughter again because the teacher's black dress was now all white in the back from hitting the blackboard with a thud. This impressed on me the power of philosophy: how even a child could get an authority figure off his back just by thinking better than the authority. You see, my conceptual categories were superior to the conceptual categories of my teacher. She thought of the categories of young and old as opposites that could never meet in the same person. I knew better from my own personal experience of being an only child, the youngest and oldest child at the same time.

Our next, first philosophical experience comes from philosopher Paul Weiss, who taught for years at Yale University. Yale is an Ivy League university, in the same league with Cornell University, the Ivy League school I where received my M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy. So I always felt a bit closer to Dr. Weiss. Weiss then went on to teach at The Catholic University of America. I always laugh at the word 'The,' as if CU thinks that Notre Dame or Santa Clara University, etc. don't even exist, as if 'The' meant "The Only." Weiss said his first philosophical experience was of feeling overmatched by a puzzle that occurred to him around age 8 in third grade. He heard his teacher make the sweeping claim that every word in the huge dictionary at the front of the class was made up only of combinations of the 26 letters on the list of the alphabet atop the blackboard at the front of the room. Immediately, Weiss said, he began to try to think of counterexamples to the teacher's authoritative and sweeping pronouncement. But he said that he experienced the philosopher's usual mental state: a headache coming on from having his mind overmatched by the question he was trying to answer. He couldn't think of any counterexample. I told this story for years in class until one student told me that she had counterexamples: contractions (e.g., "don't" and "I'll"), which have apostrophes in addition to letters of the alphabet; and that made me think of hyphenated words (e.g., "well-respected") that have a hyphen in addition to letters. So that's an optimistic end to this tale; we can solve the puzzles and mysteries of philosophy sometimes even when the first philosopher who tackles them gives up.

The third, first philosophical experience I have to share is form my fellow graduate student at Cornell named Terry. She told me that she was about 8 and was hiking in the woods one day when her friend said "I'm gonna go to the bathroom." Terry objected, you may urinate and you may defacate, but one thing you definitely won't be doing is going to the bathroom, since we're
in the middle of the woods and there are no bathrooms. It is an absurd euphemism to call it a bathroom. What did Terry's companion expect, to walk around the bushes and find a tree stump as a toilet seat that she could raise or lower? You can see how philosophers get people annoyed, with even Socrates annoying people so much as to get executed. People are rushing around with their lives and philosophers tend to slow them down to reflect on what they are doing and whether it is truthful or worthwhile.

The fourth and final first experience in philosophy, illustrating the philosophical attitude of precision in words, critical thinking and questioning even to the point of annoyance of others, especially authorities, is from a law professor of mine named Alan. He said that his first experience came when he was about age 8. His mom told him not to eat the pie she had just put in the fridge before dinner since that would spoil his appetite. Mom went out of the kitchen to do another errand, leaving Alan alone in the kitchen. When mom returned she was appalled to see her son Alan machine eating one cookie after another right out of the cookie jar, no napkin, no plate, just straight from the jar into his mouth. Indeed, the cookies were Moravian cinnamon cookies. So he was literally caught red-handed with his hand in the cookie jar.

Part 5: Conclusion

In conclusion, the attitude of philosophy is somewhat irreverent. It questions authority and even itself. Clarifying the questions may be an even more important contribution philosophy makes than it makes with the answers it gives. Philosophy requires leisure, since it slows down the hustle and bustle of daily life and asks us to reflect on what we are doing and whether the game is worth the candle -- whether the paper chase or whatever it is we are doing is really worth all our efforts, time, trouble, and expense. Such careful, logical, undogmatic, unorthodox questioning must involve critical thinking.

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FAQ12: For all courses, what are some arguments on euthanasia (mercy killing) that students have the option of evaluating in a paper?

Remember, you have my permission to quote in your A-sections anything from any published source on your approved paper topic, including but not limited to the following:

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 1. "The maintenance of life by artificial means is, in such cases, sadly pointless, and if all available means of prolonging life were always used, the hospitals would be quickly filled with living corpses while ordinary patients could find no beds. Thus, virtually everyone who has thought seriously about the matter agrees that it is morally acceptable, at some point, to cease treatment and allow such people to die." James Rachels, quoted in Tom Regan, Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed., p. 38

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 2. "If an action promotes the best interests of everyone concerned and violates no one's rights, then that action is morally acceptable. In at least some cases, active euthanasia promotes the best interests of everyone concerned and violates no one's rights. Therefore, in at least some cases, active euthanasia is morally acceptable." James Rachels, quoted in Tom Regan, Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed., p. 38.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 3. "If a person prefers and even begs for death as the only alternative to lingering on in this kind of torment, only to die anyway after a while, then surely, it is not immoral to help this person die sooner." James Rachels, quoted in Tom Regan, Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed., p. 38

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 4. "Moreover, as Bentham's famous follower John Stuart Mill put it, the individual is sovereign over his own body and mind; where one's own interests are concerned, there is no other authority. Therefore, if one wants to die quickly rather than lingering in pain, that is strictly a personal affair, and the government has no business intruding." James Rachels, quoted in Tom Regan, Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed., p.38.

EUTHANSIA ARGUMENT 5. "For the utilitarian, the question was simply this ' Does it increase or decrease human happiness to provide a quick, painless death for those who are dying n agony?' Clearly, they reasoned, the only consequences of such actions will be to decrease the amount of misery in the world; therefore, euthanasia must be morally right." James Rachels, quoted in Tom Regan, Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed., p. 38.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 6. Once a certain practice is accepted, from a logical point of view we are committed to accepting certain other practices as well, since there are no good reasons for not going on to accept the additional practices once we have taken the all important first step." James Rachels quoted in Tom Regan, Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Philosophy, 3rd ed., p. 61.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 7. "Suffering is a part of life; God has ordained that we must suffer as part of His Divine plan. Therefore if we were to kill people to 'put them out of their misery,' we would be interfering with God's plan." James Rachels, in Tom Regan, ed., Maters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed., p. 53.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 8. "I've been thinking a lot this week about mother's death two years ago: about the family's arguments regarding whether her dialysis should be discontinued as she slipped further into end-stage diabetes and an increasing state sleep and hallucination. She hung on for months until her body gave out on its own. Yeller's death was shorter and less anguished. Yeller was an animal, not a person. Putting him " to sleep" was the right thing to do. We don't put animals through the same ropes, trying to maintain life when it's obviously untenable. I wonder if we are being kinder to them than to ourselves." Richard Scheinin, Religion and Ethics writer, "A Loved Pet Dies With Dignity Without Prolonging the Inevitable-Don't Humans Deserve the Same Peace?", San Jose Mercury News, 5/4/96, pg. 1E.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 9. "VE [voluntary euthanasia] as an individual choice is entirely distinct from murdering people who are judged (by others) to have no worth. The "right" view of morality indicates that if we have a right to live, we have a right to give up that life... religious arguments cannot apply to anyone who does not share that belief. A wish to exercise personal autonomy and a desire to avoid unwanted suffering are the twin foundation stones of the case for VE." Dr. Robert L. Gandling, Family Physician, "The Case for Voluntary Euthanasia", pp. 1-2.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 10. "One objection to assisted suicide and active voluntary euthanasia is that they involve killing, and all killing is morally wrong. This principle may be based on religious views (e.g., the sixth commandment) or maintained on purely secular grounds. But whatever its basis, we cannot appeal to this unqualified principle to condemn the practices in question unless we are prepared to condemn, for example, the killing of steers for food, fish for sport, trees for paper, weeds to beautify a garden, mosquitoes for comfort, and so forth." Alister Browne, Ph.D., Division of Biomedical Ethics, UBC, "Assisted Suicide and Active Voluntary Euthanasia", Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Vol. II, No. 1, January 1989, p.3.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 11. "There is reason to believe that many religious groups will end up endorsing death with dignity, because religions have a habit of changing. Although the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has been emphatic in its opposition to euthanasia, spending millions to defeat such propositions at the polls, there are respected voices raised within that church in support of physician - assisted death. A Gallup poll, reported in American Demographics magazine four years ago, indicated that 65 percent of the American public favored allowing doctors to help the terminally ill end their suffering if the patient and his or her family request it. Many of those people will want the comfort of knowing that, if they so choose, a physician will be ready, willing, and able to help them escape agonizing pain and the humiliation of helplessness by offering a death with dignity and the churches blessing." William H. Carr, Staff Writer, "A Right to Die," Saturday Evening Post, Vol. 267, Sept.-Oct. 1995, p. 50.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 12. "A few hospice leaders claim that their care is so perfect that there absolutely no need for anyone to consider euthanasia. While I have no wish to criticize them, they are wrong to claim perfection. Most, but not all, terminal pain can today be controlled with the sophisticated use of drugs, but the point these leaders miss is that personal quality of life is vital to some people. If one's body has been so destroyed by disease that it is not worth living in, that is an intensely individual decision which should not be thwarted. In some cases of the final days in hospice care, when the pain is very serious, the patient is drugged into unconsciousness. If that way is acceptable to the patient, fine. But some people do not wish their final hours to be in that fashion." Derek Humphry, "Why I Believe in Voluntary Euthanasia," (1995), p. 5.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 13. "Man is called to fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence, because it consists of sharing the very life of God. Every individual, precisely by reason of the mystery the Word of God who was made flesh, is entrusted to the maternal care of the Church. Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful destruction... all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator." Pope John Paul II, "On the Value and Inviolability of Human Life," pp. 6-7.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 14. "For the Christian, life is God's gift and its end is to be determined by Him. God is sovereign over life and death: we have no jurisdiction in this area; therefore, we have no mandate to end our lives. We trust the Author of life to allow only what ultimately benefits us to be fall us. God's providence." Dr. Robert C. Pankratz and Dr. Richard M. Welsh, "A Christian Response to Euthanasia", U-Turn, www.ksewet@uniserve.com, p. 2.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 15. "It is naive to imagine that a policy and a law permitting euthanasia will not lead to insensitive, inhumane, and intolerable abuse simply because those who designed the law were governed by pure motives and noble purpose. The position in favor of legalizing VE rests upon an assumption of ideal hospitals, doctors, nurses and families. But we do not live in an ideal world. The issue is whether we should try this social experiment. I believe we should not." David J. Roy, Director, Center of Bioethics, Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, "When the Dying Demand Death: A Position Paper on Euthanasia," pp. 10-11.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 16. The things we make turn around and make us; and just as the Pill helped transform our ideas about sexual freedom, so will the obitioner (a physician who practices assisted VE) change the way we regard aging. How often, in the assisted-suicide future, will someone look at an elderly person and thing, consciously or semiconsciously, 'Gee, guess it's about time, huh? I'm thinking of the way we treat people in wheelchairs, people who can't feed themselves whose bodies don't look or work 'right'. Societies that drift in this direction, as Germany did under the Nazis, instill in their citizens a visceral sense of the handicapped as a drain or drag on the healthy body of the rest of us. Such attitudes are not spontaneous manifestations of evil. You have to train people to feel this way; but if you do, they will." Rand Richards Cooper, author, "The Dignity of Helplessness: What Sort of Society Would Euthanasia Create?", Commonwealth Magazine, Vol. 123, 10/25/96, p. 12.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 17. "[The goal] of society should be to encourage people to live rather than to make it easier for them to die. Our ability to overcome medical or emotional adversity is immeasurably enhanced if society's ethic is that we should try to carry on, that our courage in not giving up will give others courage when a crisis hits them. Given the underside of human nature, we will have all too many cases where relatives will want to hasten the end for selfish reason." Malcom Forbes Jr., Tycoon, "Encouraging the Living to Live," Forbes Magazine, Vol. 157, 4/22/96, p. 24.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 18. "The philosophers rightly observe that existing law against assisted suicide reflect and entrench certain views about what gives life meaning. But the same would be true were the court to declare, in the name of autonomy, a right to assisted suicide. The challenge is to find a way to honor these claims that preserves the moral burden of hastening death, and that retains the reverence for life as something we cherish, not something we choose. Michael J. Sandel, Staff Writer, "Last Rights", The New Republic, April 14, 1997, Vol. 216, Issue 15, p. 27.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 19. "The category of the hopelessly ill provides the possibility of even worse abuse. Embedded in a social policy, it would give society or its representatives the authority to eliminate all those who might be considered too 'ill' to function normally any longer. The dangers of euthanasia are too great to all to run the risk of approving it in any form. The first slippery step may well lead to a serious and harmful fall." J. Gay-Williams, "The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia," in Joseph Grcic, ed., Moral Choice: Ethical Theories and Problems, p. 308.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 20. Our second theological argument starts from the principle that "The life of a man is solely under the dominion of God." It is for God alone to decide when people shall live and when they shall die; therefore, we have no right to 'play God' and arrogate this decision unto ourselves. So euthanasia is forbidden." James Rachels, in Tom Regan, ed., Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed., p. 53.

EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 21. "If we did not have effective means of controlling and alleviating severe pain, then active euthanasia (mercy-killing) would be morally acceptable. But through medical advances we now have very effective methods of controlling and alleviating even themost severe pain. So, obviously, active euthanasia is not morally acceptable." Author unknown; argument presented in Bruce Waller, Critical Thinking: Consider the Verdict (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1998), pp. 105-106.

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FAQ13: For all courses, what are some arguments about abortion that we have the option of evaluating in our term paper?

Remember, you have my permission to quote in your A-sections anything from any published source, including (but not limited to) the following:

ABORTION QUOTE 1. "This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state actin, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." ~ Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Roe v. Wade, United States Supreme Court case, January 1973, quoted in Leonard Roy Frank, ed., Random House Webster's Quotationary (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 1.

ABORTION QUOTE 2. "The cemetary of the victims of human cruelty i our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetary, that of the unborn." ~ Pope John Paul II, quoted in the British newspaper Observer, June 9, 1991, quoted in Leonard Roy Frank, ed., Random House Webster's Quotationary (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 1.

ABORTION QUOTE 3. "I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born." ~ Ronald Reagan, televised presidential campaign debate, Baltimore, Maryland, Sept. 21, 1980, quoted in Leonard Roy Frank, ed., Random House Webster's Quotationary (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 1. Note: Is Reagan committing the ad hominem fallacy? If so, how?

ABORTION QUOTE 4. "A woman's right to choose an abortion [is] something central to a woman's life, to her dignity. ... And when government controls that decision for her, she's being treated as less than a full adult human being responsible for her own choices." ~ Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in Clare Cushman, ed., The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies 1789-1995 (1995), p. 535, quoted in Leonard Roy Frank, ed., Random House Webster's Quotationary (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 1.

ABORTION QUOTE 5. "I, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, strongly support lawful efforts to end abortion. As I see it, the scientific, historic, philosophical, and religious evidence points to the conclusion that life begins at conception. While the birth of an unwanted child can bring problems and difficulties, these do not compare with he tragedy of taking a life." Rep. Joe Barton, quoted in, Opposing Viewpoints (Greenhaven Press), p. 203.

ABORTION QUOTE 6. "Abortion has not only resulted in he death of millions of unborn children, but has also contributed to the erosion of our nation's moral fabric. When we take actions that cheapen the sanctity of life, we are contributing to an overall decline in our society's moral values. And by allowing aborting, we indirectly encourage crime, illegitimacy, and the breakdown of family." -- Former Republican Representative from California Robert Dornan, www.bobdornan.com/abortion.html, last visited 1/1/09.

ABORTION QUOTE 7. "Indiscriminate use of abortion is wrong because the indiscriminate taking of human life is wrong." John R. Silber, "Don't Roll Back 'Roe'," in Jerry Cederblom and David W. Paulsen, Critical Reasoning, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 343. If this argument is an enthymeme (an argument with an unstated premise), is there an unstated premise that would make the argument valid? Is this argument valid as it is currently stated by Silber?

ABORTION QUOTE 8. "I would oppose any law prohibiting abortion in the first two trimesters. ... It is very doubtful, considering past experience, that restrictive legislation would do more than make presently legal abortions illegal. Some of these abortions, involving technologies that enable laymen to perform abortions safely, would be different from current abortions only in their illegality. Others, performed with coat hangers in back alleys, will be fatal. I could not in conscience recommend legislation having these effects." John R. Silber, "Don't Roll Back 'Roe'," in Jerry Cederblom and David W. Paulsen, Critical Reasoning, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 342.

ABORTION QUOTE 9. "[T]his does not lead me to conclude that abortions are morally justified when the pregnancy does not threaten the life of the mother and follows from sexual intercourse in which she voluntarily participated. ... The value of the life of an infant is based on its potential to become a fulfilled human being, and that potential exists from the time of conception." John R. Silber, "Don't Roll Back 'Roe'," in Jerry Cederblom and David W. Paulsen, Critical Reasoning, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), pp. 342-343.

ABORTION QUOTE 10. "A free society cannot maintain its unity and order unless there is toleration of diverse opinions on which consensus has not been achieved. On the issue of abortion, there is no political, philosophical, moral or religious consensus. I believe abortion is, in general, morally wrong. But I also believe the state should not enact laws to restrict abortion further. This is an issue that cries out for toleration." John R. Silber, "Don't Roll Back 'Roe'," in Jerry Cederblom and David W. Paulsen, Critical Reasoning, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 343.

ABORTION QUOTE 11. "The abortion issue is for many individuals a religious issue, and on such issues we should scrupulously observe the separation of church and state. ... [T]he state should not enact laws to restrict abortion further." John R. Silber, "Don't Roll Back 'Roe'," in Jerry Cederblom and David W. Paulsen, Critical Reasoning, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 343.

ABORTION QUOTE 12. "A free society cannot maintain its unity and order unless there is toleration of diverse opinions on which consensus has not been achieved. On the issue of abortion, there is no political, philosphical, moral or religious consensus. I believe abortion is, in general, morally wrong. But I also believe the state should not enact laws to restrict abortion further. This is an issue that cries out for toleration." John R. Silber, quoted in Jerry Cederblom and David W. Paulsen, Critical Reasoning, 4th edition (Belmont: CA, Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 343.

ABORTION QUOTE 13. "There are instances when the taking of human life is justifiable, legally and morally. Homicide is not equivalent to murder. Some homicides are entirely justified, especially those involving self-defense. A woman whose life is threatened by a pregnancy is justified in terminating the pregnancy that might kill or severely injure her. So, too, when a woman is raped she is under no obligation morally, and should be under no obligation legally, to accept the consequences of an act of sexual intercourse in which she did not voluntarily participate. She has a right to protect herself from the consequences of assault." John R. Silber, "Don't Roll Back 'Roe'," in Jerry Cederblom and David W. Paulsen, Critical Reasoning, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 342.

ABORTION QUOTE 14. "If a human person is created at the moment of conception, then abortion always kills a human person. If abortion always kill a human person, then it is never justified. If a human is created at the moment of conception, then abortion is never justified." -- author unknown, argument quoted in Jerry Cederblom and David W. Paulsen, Critical Reasoning, 4th edition, (Belmont, CA: Wadworth Publishing Co., 1996), p. 32.

ABORTION QUOTE 15. "A woman's right to control her own body outweighs any religious or moral burden." http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.emu/user/scotts/ftp/pro-choice/naral.position, May 21, 1995. Harwood's Helpful Hint: Consider these questions. If a woman has a "right to control her own body", where does this right come from? How strong could this right be? Could it be strong enough to make it wrong to imprison any woman for any crime? Could it be strong enough to make it wrong to use self-defense against any woman? Could it be strong enough to allow any woman to use her body (e.g., her fists or feet) to beat to death any adult she targeted?

ABORTION QUOTE 16. "One who has voluntarily assumed no special obligation toward another person has no obligation to do anything requiring great personal cost to preserve the life of other. Often a pregnant woman has voluntarily assumed no special obligation toward the unborn child (a person), and to preserve its life by continuing to bear the unborn child would require great personal cost. Therefore a pregnant woman has no obligation to continue to bear the unborn child." -- author unknown, argument quoted in Robert Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum, The Ethics of Abortion, 4th edition, Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books 1993, p. 238.

ABORTION QUOTE 17. "The right to life is described in the Declaration of Independence as 'unalienable' and as a right with which all men are endowed by the Creator. The constitutional amendment should restore the basic protection for this human right to the unborn, just as it is provided to all other persons in the U.S." -- Connie Paige, The Right to Lifers, (NY: Summit Books, 1993), p. 59.

ABORTION QUOTE 18. "The constitution should express a commitment to the preservation of all human life. Therefore the prohibition against the direct and intentional taking innocent human life should be universal and without exception." Connie Page, The Right to Lifers, (NY: Summit Books, 1993), p. 59.

ABORTION QUOTE 19. "Anything having a balance of good results (considering everyone) is morally permissible. Abortion often has a balance of good results (considering everyone). Therefore, abortion often is morally permissible." Robert Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum, The Ethics of Abortion, 4th edition, Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books 1993, p. 236.

ABORTION QUOTE 20. "It's obvious to me that abortion is wrong - after all, everybody deserves a chance to be born." author unknown, quoted in Brooke Noel Moore and Richard Parker, Critical Thinking, 4th edition (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Press, 1992), p. 170. Harwood's Helpful Hint: Does this argument beg the question? Is this argument evaluated in the 6th edition?

ABORTION QUOTE 21. "Andrea Keene's selective morality is once again showing through in her July 15 letter. This time she expresses her abhorrence of abortion. But how we see only what we choose to see! I wonder if any of the anti-abortionists have considered the widespread use of fertility drugs as the moral equivalent of abortion, and, if they have, why they haven't come out against them, too. The use of these drugs frequently results in multiple births, which lead to the death of one the infants, often after an agonizing struggle for survival. According to the rules of the pro-lifers, isn't this murder." Letter to the editor, North-State Record, quoted in Brooke Noel Moore & Richard Parker, Critical Thinking, 4th ed., (Mayfield Publishing Co., 1992), p. 173. Harwood's Helpful Hint: does the 6th edition evaluate this argument?

ABORTION QUOTE 22. Many people view the fertilized egg as a potential human life. The fertilized egg is not a complete human being; it is not simply a small body that has grown larger. It needs to develop from a single cell to a complete individual, just as an acorn has to develop into an oak tree. The human individual develops biologically in a continous fashion. We could therefore consider the possiblility that the rights of a human person might develop in the same way." Carol Emmens, The Abortion Controversy, revised edition, (N.Y.: Julian Messner A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.), 1991, p. 3.

ABORTION QUOTE 23. "Abortion is always morally wrong for the simple reason that murder is always morally wrong." author unknown, quoted in Harrison, Vital Speeches of the Day, Oct. 15, 1988, p. 8. Harwood's Helpful Hint: Is this argument an enthymeme (that is, an argument with an unstated premise)? If so, what is the unstated premise? Does any missing or unstated premise beg the question?

ABORTION QUOTE 24. "It is obviously the case that all self-induced abortions are nothing more than murders because all abortions are willful killing of babies." author unknown, quoted in Harrison, Vital Speeches of the Day, publisher unknown, October 15, 1988, p. 530. Harwood's Helpful Hint: consider whether there is an equivocation on 'murders'. Joel Feinberg wrote an essay on being morally speaking a murderer, as distinct from being legally speaking a murderer. 'Murder' is a legal term and, since abortion is legal, the abortions that are legal aren't murder in the legal sense of murder. Murder is illegal of course. Willful killing in self-defense is not murder, but can you think of how this could apply to willful killing of fetuses? If you can imagine self-defense against fetuses, then the argument is invalid.

ABORTION QUOTE 25. "I simply believe that childbirth can be a greater crime than abortion and, sometimes, giving life ought to be a criminal offense. 'Nice' little words such as head traumas, dehydration and oral venereal disease dress up what is actually happening to 1 million reported victims of child abuse and neglect, according to federal studies. These children are being thrown up against walls, tortured with cigarette butts, burned in scalding water and sexually abused in their cribs. Recently, a 9-week old child, born to a cocaine addict here, was brought into a hospital dead from head wounds and infections from diaper sores so bad that hospital workers cried. If birth control fails, how are torture and starvation superior to an abortion." author unknown, USA Today; September 23, 1988, quoted in Harrison, Vital Speeches of the Day, October 15, 1988, p. 498. Harwood's Helpful Hint: Ask yourself if this argument commits the fallacy of false dilemma. Are our choices limited to: 1) torture and starvation, or else 2) abortion? If not, then this argument commits the fallacy of false dilemma. Does "can be" involve a possible horrible, understating the point too much?

ABORTION QUOTE 26. "Considering all pregnant women, only relatively few have unnatural abortions. That is, medically induced abortion is not the natural, or normal, way of terminating a pregnancy. What is unnatural, of course, falls outside the general mainstream of social action. Certainly, society ought to guard itself against what is repugnant and harmful to it. So, abortion ought to be outlawed by society." -- Harrison, quoted in Vital Speeches of the Day, Oct. 15, 1988, p. 489.

ABORTION QUOTE 27. "[The pro-life position argues:] The fetus is a human person and thus has the same right to life as any other human person." -- Beryl Lieff Benderly, Thinking About Abortion, The Dial Press/Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1984, p. 36.

ABORTION QUOTE 28. "[The pro choice position argues:] The fetus -- for at least part of nine months -- is not a human person and thus has no right to life that weighs against the mother's right to control the uses made of her own body." -- Beryl Lieff Benderly, Thinking About Abortion, The Dial Press/Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1984, p. 36.

ABORTION QUOTE 29. "[The pro-life position argues:] Possession of a soul makes the fetus a person with a right to temporal life and a chance at salvation equal to that of all other human persons, including the woman carrying it in her body. As the rights of one human person can not override the rights of another, the life of the fetus can not be interrupted for the convenience or good of anyone else. In this argument's most extreme form, as stated by the Catholic Church, the fetus's life cannot be interrupted even to save that of the mother." -- Beryl Lieff Benderly, Thinking About Abortion, The Dial Press/Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1984, pp. 37-38.

ABORTION QUOTE 30. "An embryo or fetus developing inside a human being is itself a human being, and an innocent one from conception onwards. It is seriously wrong to kill an innocent human being. Abortion involves killing an embryo or fetus developing inside a human mother. Therefore, abortion is wrong." -- A pro-life argument quoted in Michael Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide, (Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 61-62.

ABORTION QUOTE 31. "Other ethical arguments are based on the premise that the embryo is not a person. In other words, the embryo or fetus not attained 'personhood', and therefore the fetus does not have equal rights with the woman in whose womb the pregnancy resides." -- Myron Denney, A Matter of Choice: An Essential Guide to Every Aspect of Abortion, Simon & Schuster, 1983, p. 109.

ABORTION QUOTE 32. "Some ethical arguments focus on the quality of 'personhood,' affirming that life after birth is as important a consideration as the development of embryos and fetuses in the womb. These arguments assert that abortion is justified to relieve the suffering that may occur following th birth of physcially or mentally deformed individuals or those who would be denied parental love and the baseic financial, social and educational nurturing required to become self-sufficient adults." -- Myron Denney, A Matter of Choice: An Essential Guide to Every Aspect of Abortion, Simon & Schuster, 1983, p. 109.

ABORTION QUOTE 33. "If a particular ethical argument is based on the premise that the embryo or fetus is a human being with full rights, then abortion is considered wrong. According to these arguments, the woman and the embryo or fetus are both subject to all the basic moral obligations of interpersonal relationships. These arguments are usually expressed in abstract allegories such as the rights and obligations of two people in a sinking boat, the justification for killing in self-defense and the dilemma inherent in rescuing a drowning man who is intent on killing someone. From analogies such as these, one can formulate theories about if and when abortion is the 'right' thing to do." -- Myron Denney, A Matter of Choice: An Essential Guide to Every Aspect of Abortion, Simon & Schuster, 1983, p. 108. Harwood's helpful hint: do these arguments by analaogy commit the fallacy of false analogy?

ABORTION QUOTE 34. "One ... theory about abortion, written by Judith Jarvis Thomason, proposes an analogy something like this: A woman wakes up one morning to find attached to her own bloodstream a violinist whose kidneys cannot function for nine months and for whom no artificial kidney is available. Without being attached to the woman, and thereby utilizing her kidneys, the violinist would surely die within a few days. Yet the woman may not want the musician to be so initimately attached to her own body. What to do? Although it might be benevolent for the woman to allow the violinist to stay, according to the ethical analogy, it would certainly not be wrong for her to refuse, even though the musician may have equal rights as a human being." -- Myron Denney, A Matter of Choice: An Essential Guide to Every Aspect of Abortion, Simon & Schuster, 1983, pp. 108-109.

ABORTION QUOTE 35. "Arguments about relative 'personhood' are usually based on the biological limitations of embryos and fesuses. Recognizing that reporduction is a continuous process from joining of sperm and egg to birth, different people select different significant points along the way at which to define 'personhood.' Their discussions of abortion can then proceed on their own particular premises. Some argue that fertilization, or conception, is the moment of the beginning of 'personhood.' Other arguments suggest the time when the nervous system starts to function, when the heart starts beating, when the fetus begins to move inside the womb or when the fetus is viable, able to live outside the womb with modern intensive care." -- Myron Denney, A Matter of Choice: An Essential Guide to Every Aspect of Abortion, Simon & Schuster, 1983, p. 109.

ABORTON QUOTE 36. "Other ethical arguments define partial 'personhood.' They point out that although there is anatomical development, embryos and fetuses cannot walk, talk or eat, or interact with others socially. With only partial 'personhood,' goes the argument, embryos and fetuses may have rights, but not those equal to a woman's. On the basis of the various ethical arguments, abortion can be condemned or approved at various times in pregnancy, depending on the basic premise [defining partial 'personhood']." -- Myron Denney, A Matter of Choice: An Essential Guide to Every Aspect of Abortion, Simon & Schuster, 1983, p. 109.

ABORTION QUOTE 37. "Understandably, women with unwanted pregnancies may find abstract ethical arguments only minimally useful. Facing the hard biological reality and the personal, social and financial upheavals of an unwanted pregnancy, a woman may find her own conscience more useful than theoretical analogies. Most women have their own beliefs about the nature and status of embryos and fetuses. More importantly, it is within their own bodies that the resolution of the question takes place. [Therefore, some would concluse, such women should have a right to choose abortion.]" -- -- Myron Denney, A Matter of Choice: An Essential Guide to Every Aspect of Abortion, Simon & Schuster, 1983, pp. 109-110.

ABORTION QUOTE 38. "Because the mother does not want to bear this fetus, it is to the fetus' advantage that he not be born, that his life be taken by abortion." Baruch Brody, Abortion and the Sanctity of Life: A Philosophical View, (MIT Press, 1974), p. 36.

ABORTION QUOTE 39. "The woman in question has already suffered immensely from the act of rape and the physical and or psychological after effects of the act. It would be particularly unjust, the argument runs, for her to have live through an unwanted pregnancy owing to that act of rape. Therefore, even if we are at a stage at which the fetus is a human being, the mother has the right to abort it." Baruch Brody, Abortion and the Sanctity of Life: A Philosophical View, The MIT Press, 1974, p. 37.

ABORTION QUOTE 40. "There is a second sort of consideration that could be raised in favor of the claim that the mother occupies a special vis a vis the fetus, a status that premits abortion even if the fetus has a full right to life and even when the life of the mother is not at stake. These have to do with the idea tht the fetus is an entity that owes its existence to the mother. One way of stating the argument is the following: The fetus has come into existence only because of the mother's act of intercourse, and it therefore owes its life to the mother. If so, the continued existence of the fetus can not be allowed to work a hardship upon the mother, and she has to terminate its existence by aborting it. What she once gave, she may now withdraw." -- Baruch Brody, Abortion and The Sanctity of Life, The MIT Press, 1974, p. 31.

ABORTION QUOTE 41. "Eagle eggs are similar to human fetuses in that both are precious. We should have laws protecting eagle eggs human destruction. Therefore, we should have laws protecting human features from abortion." Paraphrase of an argument by Steve Friend, a Pennsylvania state legislator. Harwood's Helpful Hint: see False Analogy in FAQ10.

ABORTION QUOTE 42. "Though the fetus is innocent itself, it may pose threat to the pregnant woman's well being, life prospects or health, mental or physical. If the pregnancy presents a slight threat to her interest, it seems self defense can not justify abortion. But if the threat is on par with serious beating or the loss of a finger, she may kill the fetus that poses such a threat, even if it is an innocent person." Jane English, in ???, ed., Taking Sides, 4th edition, Dushkin Publishing, 19??, p. 233. Earn up to 2 points of extra credit points on your tests by informing me of the editor(s) and the date of this book.

ABORTION QUOTE 43. "The loss of one's life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer. The loss of one's life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one's future. Therefore killing someone (fetus) is wrong, primarily because the killing inflicts (one of) the greatest possible losses on the victim." Don Marquis, in Taking Sides, 4th ed., (CT: Dushkin Publishing Co., 19??), p. 226. Earn 2 points for emailing me with the editor(s) and the date of publication of this book.

ABORTION QUOTE 44. "It's indisputable that a fetus is not a person, since it doesn't have a body of its own (a requisite of personhood)" (http://www.now.org/issue/abortion/ywabort.html, last accessed May 19, 1997). Harwood's Helpful Hint: Whether or not the fetus is a person is a different question from whether or not a pregnant woman has a right to abort. For example, Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that a woman may abort even if the fetus is a person. And a utilitarian might argue against an abortion even if the fetus is not a person. These two questions, however, are certainly related to some extent.

ABORTION QUOTE 45. "Every person has a right to life. So the fetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what shall happen in and to her body; everybody would grant that. But surely a person's right to life is stronger and more stringent than the mother's right to decide that happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it. So the fetus may not be killed; an abortion may not be performed." Argument paraphrased in Thompson, The Ethics of Abortion, p. 30.

ABORTION QUOTE 46. "What makes me think abortion is murder? When my pediatrician refused to perform an abortion for me, she said she wouldn't be a party to murder. Babies and childbrith are her business, you know." Author unknown, quoted in Nancy Cavender and Howard Kahane, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric (Belmont: CA, Wadsworth Publishing Co., circa 2000), p. 58.

ABORTION QUOTE 47. "The end never justifies the means if the means are evil. In other words, no matter how difficult the alternatives, they cannot justifiy the killing of an innocent human being." Connor, Information Plus, p. 98. Harwood's Helpful Hint: Consider the old saying "Never say never." Use your imagination to try to develop a counterargument where the end might justify using somewhat evil means. Does utilitarianism or the philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli agree with "The end justifies the means"?

ABORTION QUOTE 48. "Abortion's direct attack on innocent human life is precisely the kind of violent act that can never be justified. Because victims of abortion are the most vulnerable and defenseless members of the human family, it is imperative that we, as Christians, are called to this issue of injustice." author unknown, Information Plus, p. 181. Harwood's Helpful Hint: as with Argument #25, consider the aphorism "Never say 'never'" and use your imagination to try to create a counterexample.

ABORTION QUOTE 49. "Is it true what people are saying, that abortion is killing babies? Is it true? Then I thought about all these poor children who I've seen parked in front of just dives-hungry, dirty, neglected and abused, their families inside boozing it up. And I thought I did the right thing." -- Norma McCorvey, unknown publication, unknown publisher, unknown date, p. 70. Harwood's Helpful Hint: Norma McCorvey is also known as Jane Roe of the famous United States Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, January, 1973.

ABORTION QUOTE 50. "Legal abortion helps parents limit their families to the number of children they want and can afford, both financially and emotionally. Anti-abortion laws create new families consisting of a child and her child, living at the lowest levels of society. Pro-Choice is definitely Pro-Family." (http:/www.wcla.org(articleprocon.html), last visited May 1, 2006.

ABORTION QUOTE 51. "Re Michael Ramirez's May 28 cartoon: I have no problem with a young girl getting an abortion without parental consent because the alternative may be to force her to give birth to a child without her consent -- a particularly onerous form of child labor -- or to seek an illegal abortion.
Pro-lifers don't get it. Abortions will take place if unwanted pregnancies occur. Giving birth to a child is a big deal -- physically, emotionally and financially. So much so that free women and girls will rarely choose to give birth to unwanted children, regardless of the self-rightous, hypocritical lip service to the contrary." -- Laura J. Rift, Canoga Park, CA, Letter to the Editor, The Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2005, p. B20, column 3.

ABORTION QUOTE 52. "Regarding your May 31 [2005] article about late term abortions ('A Late Decision, a Lasting Anguish'): I have a few thoughts to share. As the mother of a baby with Down syndrome, I have met hundreds of other parents of children with Down syndrome in real life and in online support groups. Rather than feelings of guild, regret and depression, the mothers who give their babies with Down syndrome a chance at life are filled with joy, hope and love. Rather than experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, they are experiencing pride at their children's accomplishments.
And right now, instead of looking at my baby's ashes on the mantle, my home is filled with shared laughter as I watch his big sister cover him with kisses.
With early intervention, many children with Down syndrome are growing up to live full and meaningful lives -- working, paying taxes, getting married and contributing to society. What a shame some families deprive themselves of the opportunity to see just how big their hearts can grow." -- Shannon Deisen, Fernandina Beach, FL, Letter to the Editor, The Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2005, p. B20, column 3.

ABORTION QUOTE 53. "If you are consistent and think that abortion is normally permissible, then you will consent to the idea of your having been aborted in normal circumstances. You do not consent to the idea of your having been aborted in normal circumstanes. Therefore, if you are consistent then you will not think that abortion is normally permissible." -- from "An Appeal for Consistency," Quoted in Robert Baird and Stuart Rosenbaum, eds., The Ethics of Abortion, 3rd ed., Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001, p. 103.

ABORTION QUOTE 54. "Your article ["A Late Decision, a Lasting Anguish"] kicked me right in the gut -- especially Paige, who aborted her 25-week-old fetus, Emma, because she could not bear to imagine surgeons cutting open Emma's tiny chest to rebuild her heart. In the 1950s, my mama lovingly raised a child with an inoperable heart defect. And she and my daddy bore it when surgeons finally knew how to cut open my adult-sized chest, twice, to rebuild my heart. I'm glad I got the chance at life that Paige denied her daughter." -- Nancy J. Doman, Garden Grove, CA, Letter to the Editor, The Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2005, p. B20, column 3.

ABORTION QUOTE 55. "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." ~ Florynce R. Kennedy, quoted in Gloria Steinem, "The Verbal Karate of Florynce R. Kennedy, Esq.," Ms., March 1973, quoted in Leonard Roy Frank, ed., Random House Webster's Quotationary (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 1.

ABORTION QUOTE 56. "The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities." ~ Ursula K. Le Guinn, from "The Princess," address before the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), Portland, Maine, January 1982, quoted in Leonard Roy Frank, ed., Random House Webster's Quotationary (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 1.

ABORTION QUOTE 57. "How can a moral wrong be a civil right?" Bumper sticker slogan, anti-abortion position, 1990s, quoted in Leonard Roy Frank, ed., Random House Webster's Quotationary (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 1. Note: Does this quote commit the fallacy of begging the question by begging the main question at issue, whether abortion is a moral wrong or not?

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FAQ14: For all classes, what are more than 175 quotations on human nature that students may choose from to use in the A sections of their papers to evaluate (and in the C sections of their papers to help them evaluate quotations in their A sections)?

Here are the aforementioned quotes with some of Dr. H's brainstorming about them. There are three main issues, at least, running through these quotes: 1) how good, evil or mixed human nature is; 2) how free or unfree human nature is; 3) and how fixed or flexible (changeable, malleable, or plastic) human nature is. So as you read each quote, read it to see if the quote is relevant for at least one of those three issues.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 1: "Out of the crooked timber of human nature nothing quite straight can be made." ~ Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), from "Idee zu einer allegemeinen Geschichte in weltburgerlicher Absicht" (1784), unpublished translation by R. G. Collingwood, quoted in Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity, ed. by Henry Hardy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), p. vii.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 2: “Part Two is an account of the sourced of the moral sentiments – human nature, family experiences, gender, and culture. The reader is no doubt quite prepared to encounter chapters on family and culture, but may be surprised to find ones on biology and gender. He shouldn’t be. We already know that criminality is importantly influenced by biological factors, including sex; it stands to reason that noncriminality should be influenced by such factors as well. To believe otherwise is to believe that law-abidingness is wholly learned, while criminality is a quasi-biological interruption of that acquired disposition. That is, to say the least, rather implausible.” James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense (The Free Press, 1993), p. xiv.

Note to students: Think more about criminality and human nature. Since human nature includes two biological genders, and since there are so many more males than females in prison, a question of any difference in criminal human nature along gender lines is raised by these statistics. Of course, this is at least somewhat arbitrary, since what counts as a crime or not is at least often socially determined. For example, without Roe v. Wade -- the 1973 Supreme Court case that could have been decided differently -- America could have continued to make most abortions crimes, in which case most of the 1.5 million abortions a year could be cited by some as evidence of some tendency toward criminality in women (and all abortionists of either gender), even if only a small fraction of those 1.5 million a year would break a law against abortion. A small fraction of 1.5 million abortions per year -- 2% -- would surpass by 10,000 the approximately 20,000 murders committed each year in America.

Further, consider Anne Fausto-Sterling's point that some believe there are 3 to 5 sexes, distinguishing anatomical features from genetic features and allow for hermaphrodites with some mix of both male and female anatomical features.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 3: “Historians will show how this [the rise of Nazism] happened and perhaps even try to explain why it happened. The philosophical interest is also a historical interest: for instance, in the replacement of the idea of justice by the idea of liberty as the dominant concept in political morality during the nineteenth century, not only among Hegelians and Marxists, but also among liberals and radicals. The identification, or at least association, of improvement and progress with the extension of liberty persisted from Rousseau and the Jacobins through J. S. Mill up to the present day, and it is conspicuous again in Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. Liberty, like happiness and the pursuit of happiness, is a positive ideal, while justice is a negative ideal. To recommend practices and institutions in proportion as they remove barriers to the freedom of individuals is to aim at a positive good. The aim is one of enlightened improvement in harmony with those human desires which can be assumed to be almost universal. We think of justice as a restraint upon those desires: the desire for a greater share of rewards, the desire for dominance. It is the denial of pleonexia, as Plato wrote, of getting more than is due, of unmeasured ambi- [end of p. 71] tion, of over-reaching, and of self-assertion without limit. When justice needs to be enforced and is enforced, the scene is not one of harmony; some ambitions are frustrated. A barrier is erected; an impossibililty declared.” – Stuart Hampshire, Innocence and Experience (Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 71-72.

You can use some of this to help thinking about free will and to broaden the discussion to include political freedom. There seems to be something in human nature that craves freedom. Hampshire’s contrasting of liberty with justice here is interesting. Human nature also seems to crave justice, in the form of revenge, for example.

Think of the new series by Oxford University Press on the vices. Simon Blackburn wrote a book in the series, a book on lust. So another aspect of human nature to discuss are other cravings such as lust, gluttony, greed or avarice, etc.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 4: “Hume, in common with other British moralists of his century, envisages both an actual and a desirable convergence of all humanity on shared moral sentiments, admitting local varieties around a common center. He is not greatly interested in the specific virtues attached to specific social roles and functions. In this respect he is to be ranked with Kant as sharing the Enlightenment programme: that humanity should be united across all barriers of social status and origin in shared moral concerns and values. Benevolence and a capacity for sympathy were to be the primary virtues and they were appropriate in every rank of society and to every office and function.
The arguments of this book [Hampshire’s Innocence and Experience] are throughout directed against this Enlightenment conception of a single substantial morality, including a conception of the good and of human virtue, as being the bond that unites humanity in universal sentiments or in universal moral beliefs. Humanity is united in the recognition of the great evils which render life scarcely bearable, and which under-determine any specific way of life and any specific conception of the good and of the essential virtues. The glory of humanity is in the diversity and originality of its positive aspirations and dif- [end of p. 107] ferent ways of life, and the only universal and positive moral requirement is the application of procedural justice and fairness to the handling of moral conflicts between them.” – Stuart Hampshire, Innocence and Experience (Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 107-108.

My brainstorm here is that you might combine many thoughts into a section called ‘The Enlightenment Conception of Human Nature.’ Further, you would usefully discuss more whether human nature implies any single substantive morality or any conception of the good or of human nature, and whether any of these things could serve as a bond uniting humanity.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 5: “Contrary to the simple-minded historical relativism traceable to Hegel’s influence, the problem in moral philosophy of combining consistency in theory and fidelity to known facts about human nature remains much the same; the problems have not greatly changed in the changing social conditions. Past theories and their critics have revealed blind alleys, and we can stand on the shoulders of the moral philosophers of the past and try to come closer both to the facts of human nature and to new social conditions. But one could sit in the same room with Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Montaigne, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Hume, Kant, Burke, Mill, and Tocqueville, and one could read a paper on procedural justice to this gathering. In the discussion that followed it would be clear that everyone present was talking about the same subject, and that it was certainly not a subject sustained only by a university syllabus. The discussion would touch on the perennial topics of the underpinnings and origins of justice, of the universal and conventional elements in justice, and of the relation of private to public morality.” – Stuart Hampshire, Innocence and Experience (Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 157.

My brainstorm here is that W. B. Gallie’s distinction between concepts and conceptions applies usefully here, and that it solves some of the relativism traceable to pages 100-101 in the original edition of Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, circa 1962).

Additionally, if the subject is not sustained only by a university syllabus, what does sustain it? Is it something in human nature itself that sustains it? Is some part of human nature riveted to the idea of justice and the application of ideas of justice? Are we by our natures advocates of justice or avengers of injustice?

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 6: “At least since Hobbes’s Leviathan, political philosophers have used the device of the device of the social contract to pick out a set of shared beliefs, or of shared purposes, actual and possible, which can form a consensual meeting-Harmony andground for all citizens, whatever the other differences between them are. The hankering after some kind of consensus, which persists in Rawls’s theory, is both nat- [end of p. 188] tural and very strong. It is assumed that there cannot be social stability within nations, and – now perhaps more urgent – peace between nations, unless an implicit consensus is first discovered and then is made explicit and reinforced. The assumption has been that, from the moral point of view, the bedrock of human nature is to be found in self-evident and unavoidable beliefs. But after every attempt the alleged unavoidable beliefs are shown to be either vacuous or, if substantial, dubious, and at least very far from being unavoidable.

We should look in society not for consensus, but for ineliminable and acceptable conflicts, and for rationally controlled hostilities, as the normal condition of mankind; not only normal, but also the best condition of mankind from the moral point of view, both between states and within states. This was Heraclitus’s vision: that life, and liveliness, within the soul and within society, consists in perpetual conflicts between rival impulses and ideals, and that justice presides over the hostilities and finds sufficient compromises to prevent madness in the soul, and civil war or war between peoples. Harmony and inner consensus come with death, when human faces no longer express conflicts but are immobile, composed, and at rest. To correct Plato’s analogy: justice within the soul may be seen as the intelligent recognition and acceptance of conflicting and ambivalent elements n one’s own imagination and emotions – not the suppression of conflicts by a dominant intellect for the sake of harmony, but rather their containment through some means of expression peculiar to the individual. In pursuing its changing conceptions of the good, the life of the soul is a series of compromise formations, which are evidently unstable and transient, just as every successive state of society is evidently unstable and transient.” – Stuart Hampshire, Innocence and Experience (Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 188-189.

My brainstorm here is that this passage applies to both cosmopolitanism and Plato. The vision of Heraclitus or Hampshire deserves a mention, if only in a note, in work on Plato, to give an alternative vision to Plato’s vision. It may realistically even warrant a paragraph or so of discussion in the main text of your chapter on plato. As an advocate of Enlightenment liberalism, I find Hampshire’s view surprisingly challenging. I think his view must go wrong somewhere, but his eloquence makes his points seem to ring true to me and so I have some difficulty locating any source of error. So maybe he’s right after all or maybe there needs to be a synthesis of the best of his view with the best of Enlightenment liberalism.

I seem to agree with Hampshire that human nature is to be or involve a tendency toward a state of unrest, toward instability and transient states of becoming. Yet there also seem to be remarkably many humans who stagnate in laziness or otherwise stay remarkably the same for remarkably long periods of time. Laziness and resistance to change seem to be significant parts of human nature, for many humans at least. Others seem to exhibit by nature a mammalian restlessness.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 7: “What is it then which binds those who have more than enough and those with less than enough in the ties of obligation? For most people, obligations are a matter of custom, habit and historical inheritance as much as a matter of explicit moral commitment. But might there not be something more than custom, habit and inheritance? Whatever the customs of a country, it would seem ‘unnatural’ for a father to deny his duty towards the needs of his children, unnatural for a daughter to refuse to give shelter to her homeless father. Beneath all these, there is nature: the natural [end of p. 27] feeling which ought to exist between father and children and more mysteriously between human beings as such.” – Michael Ignatieff, The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity and the Politics of Being Human (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), pp. 27-28.

Joseph Campbell’s citation of Schopenhauer’s metaphysical realization of oneness between even strangers applies here to help demystify this point. You might use this quote as a springboard to a discussion of moral realism rooted in human nature as opposed to the rival of moral realism rooted in mere custom, habit and inheritance.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 8: “The language of human needs is a basic way of speaking about this idea of natural human identity. We want to know what we have in common with each other beneath the infinity of our differences. We want to know what it means to be human, and we want to know what that knowledge commits us to in terms of duty. What distinguishes the language of needs is its claim that human beings actually feel a common and shared identity in the basic fraternity of hunger, thirst, cold, exhaustion, loneliness or sexual passion. The possibility of human solidarity rests on the idea of natural human identity. A society in which strangers would feel common belonging and mutual responsibility to each other depends on trust, and trust reposes in turn on the idea that beneath difference there is identity.” – Michael Ignatieff, The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity and the Politics of Being Human (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), p. 28.

This quote seems relevant to both cosmopolitanism and human nature. Again relevant is the Schopenhauer/Campbell point on the metaphysical realization of identity in even a stranger. Ignatieff has a way with words, as one would expect of a Penguin Book, since they target more of a mass audience than other imprints. I have in mind here the second and third sentences of the quote above, which are eloquent enough to serve as an epigram.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 9: “Yet when one thinks about it, this is a puzzling idea. For who has ever met a pure and natural human being? We are always social beings, clothed in our skin, our class, income, our history, and as such, our obligations to each other are always based on difference. As me who I am responsible for, and I will tell you about my wife and child, my parents, my friends and relations, and my fellow citizens. My obligations are defined by what it means to be a citizen, a father, a husband, a son, in this culture, in this time and place. The role of pure human duty seems obscure. It is difference which seems to rule my duties, not identity. [He’s not eloquent in this last sentence, since I think he means to say: It is difference, not identity, which seems to rule my duties.]

Similarly, if you ask me what my needs are, I will tell you that I need the chance to understand and be understood, to love and be loved, to forgive and be forgiven, and the chance to create something which will outlast my life, and the chance to belong to a society whose purposes and commitments I share. But if you were to ask me what needs I have as a natural, as opposed to a social being, I would quickly find myself restricted to those of my body. I would abandon the rest as the work of my time and place, no less precious for all that, but not necessarily a universal [end of p. 28] human claim or entitlement. Yet even the natural identity of my body seems marked by social difference. The identity between such hunger as I have ever known and the hunger of the street people of Calcutta is a purely linguistic one. My common natural identity of need, therefore, is narrowed by the limits of my social experience here in this tiny zone of safety known as the developed world.” – Michael Ignatieff, The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity and the Politics of Being Human (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), p. 28.

Brainstorm: Ignatieff is generally eloquent (with only a lapse or two) again here. This quote, which you could and should whittle down easily enough, seems a perfect springboard for you to discuss a tension in views between 1) inclinations toward rewarding individual merit achieved or shown through social climbing and achieving social distinction and 2) inclinations toward a cosmopolitan set of human rights based on a moral realism rooted in our human nature. This tension you reflecting in telling me that you were finding it surprisingly hard to distance yourself in your cosmo paper from egalitarian language or ideas. One possible way to reconcile these two inclinations, which is what Ignatieff seems to be trying to do, is to make Aristotle’s point that we are by nature social beings; we are by nature party animals. Hume makes a similar point about us being by nature sympathetic to other humans at least. The quote seems relevant to cosmopolitanism.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 10: “On the heath, human beings have the body in common, and nothing else. King and beggar no longer share reason: they babble together like birds. In physical suffering alone are they equal, and in this alone are they the same.

Again, the humanism of our day believes that human beings have much more in common than this. Our needs are greater [end of p. 43] than the needs of our bodies. We are creatures of reason and speech, and it as creatures who, alone of all the species, can create and exchange meaning that we all have intrinsic needs for respect, understanding, love and trust.

These seem to be more generous and humane assumptions to make about human nature than the view that Shakespeare presents in his vision of the heath [emphasis added]. Yet humane assumptions have unintended consequences. As soon as one enlarges the definition of the human, real human beings begin to be excluded: the Tom O’Bedlams of our time, the mad kings, the insane, the retarded, the deaf and dumb, the crippled and deranged. Those doctors and magistrates who have taken upon themselves the awesome business of deciding who is human – i.e. who is ration – have crated a vast array of institutions designed to make Tom O’Bedlam and the mad king human again. The converse of the rational man has turned out to be man the disciplinarian, the man who takes upon himself the godly power of deciding who is in the sacred circle of reason and who is without. Enlarging the criterion of the human beyond the body has had the unexpected effect of legitimizing the despotism of reason over unreason.” – Michael Ignatieff, The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity and the Politics of Being Human (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), pp. 43-44.

Consider taking Shakespeare’s side in this debate with Ignatieff. You’d be in good company. This quote is also a splendid springboard for you to jump into a discussion of political correctness and egalitarian mainstreaming of the disabled or differently abled or physically challenged or follically challenged or vertically challenged or whatever pc term we settle on instead of often disfavored terms like ‘cripples,’ ‘gimps,’ etc. This quote also goes to the issue of how good or evil or mixed human nature is, since Ignatieff claims he is making a more humane assumption about human nature than is Shakespeare in King Lear, etc.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 11: “Law is born from despair of human nature.” – Jose Ortega y Gasset, 1883-1955, quoted in W. H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger, The Viking Book of Aphorisms, 1962, quoted in the section entitled “Human Nature” in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 129.

This quote suggests that the commonsense of having laws shows that human nature is mainly evil, which is to despair over here. Considering thoughts from various cultures and times can only strengthen your thought through the diversity of positions you consider to enrich your discussion. The directness of the quote in linking directly two important things (law and human nature) make it useful. The brevity of the quote also makes it desirable.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 12: “This world is indeed in darkness, and how few can see the light! Just as few birds can escape from a net, few souls can fly into the freedom of heaven.” – The Buddha, aphorism #174 from The Dhammapada, translated by Juan Mascaro (New York: Penguin Books, 1973), p. 60. Do not quote the following in any A-section. Consider: The Buddha seems to side with those arguing that human nature is mostly evil rather than mostly good or mostly mixed.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 13 (the same as Euthanasia Argument #17 elsewhere in this website): "[The goal] of society should be to encourage people to live rather than to make it easier for them to die. Our ability to overcome medical or emotional adversity is immeasurably enhanced if society's ethic is that we should try to carry on, that our courage in not giving up will give others courage when a crisis hits them. Given the underside of human nature, we will have all too many cases where relatives will want to hasten the end for selfish reason." Malcom Forbes Jr., Tycoon, "Encouraging the Living to Live," Forbes Magazine, Vol. 157, 4/22/96, p. 24.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 14

“For as he himself [Hume] realized, the idea that men have no natural need of metaphysical consolation assumes that they find nothing problematic about human nature [emphasis added]. Yet both his Natural History of Religion and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion argue that the need for religious consolation arises in human history precisely because we are unreconciled to what we are, and seek through religion to explain the pain of our own natures [emphasis added].

Those who see the hand of Providence in the economy of human nature would have to explain [emphasis added], he wrote, why the human species ‘is of all others the most necessitous and the most deficient in bodily advantages; without Cloaths, without Arms, without [end of p. 95] Food and Lodging, without any Convenience of Life, except what they owe to their own skill and industry’. In other species, need is in equilibrium with habitat. The lion’s strength, the lamb’s meekness, are finely adjusted to their respective appetites and habitat, while man’s reach fatally exceeds his grasp.” – Michael Ignatieff, The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity and the Politics of Being Human (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), pp. 95-96, quoting David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and the Natural History of Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 237.

This is the last entry in Ignatieff’s book under the heading of ‘human nature.’ Hume is probably my favorite philosopher. This quote is a splendid springboard to discussing Freud’s view of religion, which seems similar to Hume’s view of religion described above. Human nature seems to have created God in its own image, out of need to explain the pain.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 15: “Bosch’s reflection centered on a problem intrinsic to all Christian metaphysics: whether spiritual need forms part of the natural yearnings of unredeemed human nature [emphasis added]. There had always been two polar positions on this issue – the Pelagian and the Augustinian. The heresy of Pelagius, a late-fourth-century Roman Briton, maintains that human nature was created with a capacity to redeem itself [emphasis added], to merit salvation and Grace by acts of its own will, and that human evil is an encrustation of habit and history which devout men could cleanse away by ascetic practice.” – Michael Ignatieff, The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity and the Politics of Being Human (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), p. 72.

Brainstorm: this is a splendid springboard for you to discuss your ideas of merit and the major issue of whether human nature is fundamentally good, evil or mixed.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 16:

“The disobedience of the flesh, Augustine wrote, is God’s punishment for man’s disobedience in the Garden. It is not the corruptible flesh that makes the soul sinful; it is the sinful soul that makes the flesh corruptible. Because we desired to know good and evil, we are fated ever after to know our bodies only as evil: to be ashamed of our nakedness, to seek covering, and to understand the good as the unremitting struggle of will against natural desire.

…

When Jesus was fasting in the desert for forty days and forty nights, the tempter came to him and taunted him: ‘If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread.’ Jesus replied with words which became the foundation of the Christian anthropology of human nature [emphasis added]: ‘It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God’ (Matthew 4.4).” – Michael Ignatieff, The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity and the Politics of Being Human (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), p. 61.

Brainstorm: Here’s another splendid springboard that might help you improve your thinking on Christianity.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 17: “ Philosophers have called man the political animal, the language maker, the tool maker, the rational animal, even the laughing animal. To define man in this way is to define what it means to be human in terms of the best in us. And the worst? On the heath, where men have only their flesh in common, some men treat the flesh of their brothers as so much meat.

…

“A language of human needs understands human beings as being naturally insufficient, incomplete, at the mercy of nature and of each other. It is an account that begins with what is absent.

This sense of what it is to be human has its origins in the religious idea of sin. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, human nature was treated not as a fact or as a bundle of potentialities, but as a problem. How, Jews and Christians have asked, is man’s fate as a creature of need to be reconciled with the ideal of the goodness of God? Why is man condemned to scarcity, toil, suffering and death? Why is he a creature of need and not of plenitude, of lack, rather than fullness, of homelessness rather than belonging?

Genesis 3.9-19, the story of Adam’s punishment, identifies man’s fall in his desire to have more than he needs, in the hubris that would not be content with the fullness of Paradise. Every account of human beings as needing creatures since has had to return to Paradise, to the state of nature, to account for this tragic loss of plenitude. If human nature had been content with plenitude, it would have had no history, only the bliss of a permanent present [emphasis added]. Instead, we ate from the tree of knowledge [end of p. 57] and were expelled from the garden. Our nature was forced, by our sin, to have a history, and the history of our needs has been tragic: the toil and suffering of Adam’s curse.

…

Augustine devoted his attention to one question above all: the nature of sexuality in Paradise. How did Adam and Eve manage to obey the divine commandment to increase and multiply, without themselves committing the sin of lust? The Manichean sect, whose doctrines troubled Augustine in his outh, maintained that evil was incarnated in human desire [compare the four noble truths of Buddhism]; the Platonists likewise believed that the good was present only in the spirit. To reflect upon sex in Paradise [emphasis added], therefore, was to define what attitude a Christian ought to take towards the desires of the body.” – Michael Ignatieff, The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity and the Politics of Being Human (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), pp. 57-58.

Note that Ignatieff blurs the distinction between human nature and human condition here by stressing the lack or impoverishment we experience.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 18: “A tablet in Winchester Cathedral tells us how portions of that vast and beautiful building had begun to sink alarmingly into the mud of an insecure foundation. The walls sank visibly, and would in time threaten to tumble upon the worshipers. Who, thought the architect, is an expert in mud? … A fundamental overhauling of our international politics is assuredly imperative; but the weakness of human nature needs study, too – bitterness, jealousy, hate, sense of interiority, overweening pride, lust for power over the lives of others, together with the economic and social weaknesses which underlie the political. [emphasis added] Into the mud of [end of p. 3] pathological human relationships the lofty edifice of international understanding has dangerously sunk. Like the architect at Winchester, we shall seek in this volume to find divers, experts in mud, trained in the process of making clean and sound the psychological foundations of the relations of men.” – Gardner Murphy in Gardner Murphy et al., Human Nature and Enduring Peace (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1945), pp. 3-4.

Note to students: This passage suggests that we are getting our hands dirty in exploring all relevant aspects of human nature. Some of the above quote provides a small checklist of vices or weaknesses that you should devote index entries and a paragraph or section to somewhere in your thinking on human nature. You might also have something at the start or end of your term paper that uses the metaphor of mud or getting our hands dirty in the nitty gritty of human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 19: “The most formidable enemy of an enlightened humanism is not science or technology, for as we have seen in the foregoing chapters, they are its spiritual allies. The real antithesis to humanism is much more insidious: it is the current of anti-intellectualism whose force runs as directly counter to humanism as it does to science. An adequate defense against anti-intellectualism in the name of both human ism and science must rest on the understanding of the respective roles of intellect and emotion in the humanistic ideal of personal and social life. Our logical starting oint, therefore, is an analysis of these two factors in human personality.

It is customary to divide human nature into two parts [emphasis added], the cognitive part and the motor-affective part. … [end p. 70] The broad difference between these two groups of mental acts lies in the fact that the one is neutral, whereas the other is partisan. The one is symbolized by the ‘head,’ the other by the ‘heart.’ … For the sake of verbal simplicity the one will be referred to as ‘intellect,’ and the other as ‘emotion.’

The question of anti-intellectualism might be dismissed briefly by claiming that the very statement of the question begs the question. For what faculty is to weight the counterclaims of the intellect and anti-intellect if not the intellect itself? … This ‘cerebro-centric’ predicament does not, however, settle the question.” Ralph Barton Perry, The Humanity of Man (George Braziller, Inc., 1956), pp. 70-71.

You might contrast this bifurcation of human nature with the tripartite division of human nature in Plato and Freud. The old but nice phrasing of the contrast between head and heart should find its way into your thinking somewhere if you haven’t used it already. It’s useful for students first to try to wrap their minds around the distinction with more familiar or simpler language than one finds in Plato or Freud, which one can best consider later.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 20: Use some of many possible quotes from the following book by Gardner Murphy et al. called Human Nature and Enduring Peace (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1945), 475pp. Part 4 of the book has about 4 articles on establishing a world order that may help your thinking on cosmopolitanism, too.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 21: “’… The so-called science of human nature or of the human mind resolves itself into history … But there is one sense in which I should agree that the resolution of a science of mind into history means renouncing part of what a science of mind commonly claims, and I think falsely. The mental scientist, believing in a universal and therefore unalterable truth of his conclusions, thinks that the account he gives of mind holds good of all future stages in mind’s history: he thinks that his science shows what mind will always be, not only what it has been in the past and is now.’ [quoting Collingwood, Idea of History (1946), page unspecified in Nott]

That may or may not be a fair description of a typical psychologist’s attitude to mental process. But it is a valid statement of what the problems are for a philosopher, whether he recognizes them or not. Idealism nowadays, with ‘metaphysics’, is largely ‘out’ and both philosophers and psychologists are chary of treating ‘mind’ and ‘human nature’ as entities. That distrust originated historically, for ourselves, in the Cartesian split between Thought and Extension, Mind and Body or Matter, which resulted in bestowing a preferential ‘reality’ on Matter or Body. Body is what can be dealt with by the methods of physics and mathematics – which have been so much more successful than other studies or speculations in producing and repeating their results.

It is no wonder then that many philosophers should incline towards a behaviouristic psychology – or at least to leaving such concepts as ‘human nature’ and ‘mind’ out of account. But it may be that they resist these concepts because they unconsciously assume that the mechanical and quantifiable provides an absolute standard of ‘reality’; and the ‘body’ – in Cartesian language, Extension – becomes the standard to which what Russell calls ‘mindlike events’ ought to conform or to approximate. And psychology then, as Collingwood among others has proposed, becomes respectable only in so far as it approximates to physical science. [end of p. 39]

Collingwood, while expressly denying that they [‘human nature’ and ‘mind’] are fixed unalterable entities, shows at least that it is possible, indeed necessary, to treat psychological conceptions as human functions. As functions, or activities, mind and human nature must also be seen as in indissoluble, if changing relation with their environment: and also as their own subjective history. It is true, of course, that most psychological schools make some attempt to study their cases historically – we have become what we are. And the philosopher who is historically-minded will reflect on his own mental or subjective history, as well as on the history of his study – his own and other men’s minds. That kind of philosopher will be less inclined to think of philosophy as approximating to a science and more to look on it as a self-reflexive art. Moreover, from that type of philosophical mind an ethical interest seems inseparable.” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), pp. 39-40.

This is the last of the index entries under ‘human nature’ in Nott’s book. The last paragraph or so of this quote bears on the major issue of whether human nature is fixed or flexible. I should have noted this for the quote I emailed earlier about Nowell-Smith’s point about how changeable ethics and human nature are. You can argue that her analysis is dated here, since postulating entities such as human nature and mind are no longer ‘out’ or ‘unfashionable’ and philosophers and even scientists no longer seem to be so chary or chary at all in postulating the existence of such entities. This might be one result of the mapping of the Human Genome, which makes understanding human nature as a distinct entity pretty straightforward and scientific.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 22: “We all use the expression [‘human nature’] in both of these ways [described in a quote by Nott elsewhere on this website]. But it matters that we should be clear, in whatever the context may be, which one we mean. Ordinary people in casual discourse when they use the [end of p. 53] expression ‘human nature’ are often vague. Novelist perhaps use it less often but can also be vague when they do. … Mostly these users of the expression, whether casual or specialized, are quick to recognize too what does not come in the category, either because it is extra-human or anti-human.

…

Their language when it is informative or revealing on however small a scale usually begins with particular people and particular situations: ‘I reckon old Tom Jones shouldn’t have slung his hook like he did. But what with that wife of his he was about at the end of his tether. It’s only human nature.’

Colloquially ‘human nature’, when it means anything, is used as a concrete-universal. …

Like a great many of our concepts and ideas it belongs to practice and use; it is understood without definition in particular situations of communal exchange.

…

Nowell-Smith allows for ‘psychology’ as part of the matrix of ethics. He also remarks that our psychological understanding is always developing, and then [end of p. 54] deduces that both ‘human nature’ and ethics must change and adapt their meaning. Unfortunately, philosophers, like other specialists and like laymen, are comparatively careless, or at least too easily influenced, about which psychology is the correct one to adopt. That might mean assuming that a really human science is finally attainable. But in practice, as we said, there seem to be too many ‘human sciences’ competing for the right to the human definition.” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), pp. 53-55.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 23: “ There is another way in which Nowell-Smith admits or appears to admit that ethical philosophy cannot be exclusive and abstract:
‘… moral theories which attempt to exclude all consideration of human nature as it is do not even begin to be moral theories.’

But ‘human nature’ itself demands semantic analysis of the sort that Nowell-Smith has been giving to words in usage; and historical and practical analysis too. For it has been meant in the past very differently from the ways in which it is now often meant. Moreover, for a long eriod it was defined within fairly narrow limits in a particular way which was also broadly accepted over the known world. Finally, in our own times it is used in at least two ways which are sharply contrasted; the one you adopt will markedly and essentially influence your choice of an ethical philosophy.

When you used the expression ‘human nature’, do you refer to the individual human being, solitary, in his greater or lesser self-awareness, or in his immediate relations, familial or casual? If so, do you imagine this being as recognizable in his appearance and behaviour; unique, yet like other people with whom you are acquainted or familiar? Has he at least the particular reality of a well-known character in a novel?

On the other hand, when you refer to ‘human nature’ do you refer to something both collective and abstract, a kind of Highest Common Factor which isnot descriptive of any particular human being as that one being did, does or might exist in fact or fiction; but which can be identified rather as what has been said or written in the most general way about the typical and common behaviour of Homo Sapiens – ‘Man’?” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), p. 53.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 24: “Moreover, since there is no essential human nature, we are what we are, not according to a plan or a pattern, but as turning up in a situation or a series of situations. Nevertheless, even in a series of situations there is often a pattern to be discovered. There are inexorable laws of behaviour which can even be predicted, by Sartre, if by no one else. So we might reasonably call this human nature [emphasis added] too, except that we wear it, crustaceanwise, outside.

The social answer to the moral and humanly prognostic problem posed by this Hobbesian view [emphasis added] must be either an authoritarian or a collectivistic one (these may turn out to be hardly distinguishable). The individual has to be protected in civil society from his natural and reciprocated enmity for his kind. Sartre became a neo-Marxian and goes for the collectivistic solution. In adopting the Marxian view and interpretation of history, although in a much more abstract form, and without the Marxian attention to past and contemporary detail, Sartre produces an odd sort of anthropology, which does not seem more genuinely historical than Freud’s primal patricide, with which doctrine it has some analogy, at least as a structural psychology. Freud diagnosed an Oedipus complex as the nucleus of human sexual guilt and malaise, and speculated that it had a historical cause, an actual aetiology, in murder, by the strong young men, of the old man of the tribe who up till then had monopolized the women [this should get the attention of students = sex and violence]. But that assumes the racial unconscious, and if that is a premises we cannot accept, we need not even begin to accept anything that follows. Sartre does not accept any unconscious process, a fortiori not a racial one, but he feels the same need as Freud to deal in origins, to give an account of the fact that we are social beings, and as far back as anyone can tell have construceted a social life – a fact which, on Sartre’s psycho-ontology of mutual antagonism, is at least odd. The Group arose, according to Sartre, as a defence against [end of p. 124] external terror [emphasis added] from other and presumably still more alien groups. The Group was held together by the oath, which seems to have been not much more than a recognition that I, the individual member, will be worse off outside the Group than in it. That is produced merely as an example of Sartre’s ahistorical attitude. It is important because the arguments which some evolutionists, zoologists and some schools of psychology produce today favour some sort of spontaneous cooperation as natural to living organisms, and particularly to human beings.” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), pp. 124-125.

Brainstorm: There are a lot of useful ideas here. There is a link between Hobbes and Sartre, two of your subjects, with which you can agree or disagree with Nott or just introduce for the reader’s consideration. There is a more extensive comparison and contrast between Sartre and Freud that I found very helpful. Further, she ends by suggesting there is scientific evidence in evolutionary theory, zoology and psychology for the natural spontaneous cooperation in humans that Campbell/Schopenhauer noted as a spontaneous metaphysical realization by a human who identifies even with a stranger. Further, her points about terror and the Group seem very relevant and helpful for use in your cosmopolitanism paper/book. The issue of who is better grounded in history and science, Freud or Sartre, seems a good issue for you to discuss more and one Nott raises above.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 25: “One of the important explanations is a dogmatic anti-abstractionism which refuses to allow that some general concepts, for example human nature, have a real descriptive and functional force, and can be and often are used in the common usage of common people in a way that shows that they know what they mean and are speaking within a matrix of diurnal experience. But human nature is a concept with which Sartre will have nothing to do. It is a bourgeois idealist abstraction, like love, etc. [emphasis added] But if human nature describes nothing but an idealist abstraction, where then are we to look for the continuity which constitutes, as most of us are sure, our human being? It may be that the self is learned; it may be a form of habit; but it can be a habit criticised by memory comparing its past with its present, and always trying to extricate itself from falling asleep in unconscious automatisms. If that is not a possibility, where is our choice, our responsibility and our freedom?” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), p. 119.

This obviously helps thinking on Sartre. Nott puts her point more boldly than others making the point of Sartre’s rejection of human nature. She puts a key concept in the same category as love, which should connect with students. Nott says more about Sartre elsewhere as I recall. She introduces a new ism. But “a matrix of diurnal experience” from the quote is not likely to connect with many students either. ‘bourgeois’ of course introduces Marxist jargon, but some of that seems unavoidable if one is to explain Sartre’s views.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 26: “To take an extreme example, both Plato and Aristotle started from concrete conceptions of human interest, need and behavior. Moreover, Plato used a form of argument, the maieutic dialogue, which was not only valuable for clarifying misconceptions, contradictions and mis-statements on the spot, but which drew into the discussion of a probable situation, characters of a probable and representative kind.

…

When I said that Collingwood’s historical idea of philosophy also implied some concept of a human nature and mind, I did not deny that this was in a strictly philosophical and impersonal sense. One thing which is characteristically human about human mind is that it can look before and after – must do so, indeed.” -- Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), p. 43.

Brainstorm: This fits well with the chapter on Aristotle, who searches for what is distinctively or characteristically human. It also fits well into a section or chapter on women on human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 27: “The behaviorist allows no room for ‘human nature’ even as a functional concept while he treats human behaviour as an adaptable engineering product. Clearly the behavioristic psychology has no useful bearing on the immediate subject of discussion, the nature and validity of moral judgment considered as essentially dependent on individual freedom and responsibility. If you cannot locate the [end of p. 57] human person, it is impossible to give any idea how he could be responsibly free.” -- Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), pp. 57-58.

Brainstorm: you might take behaviorism’s side here against Nott or use Nott as an ally against behaviorism. I find behaviorism hard to believe and -- ironically -- even harder to use to ground my behavior.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 28: “Obviously it is going to be more difficult in the description of human ‘nature’ or ‘behaviour’ to leave out personal bias, or the more deceptive bias of ‘schools’, let alone to decide among phenomena, what is what. The psychologies in short have not gone through their taxonomical state – they have not arrived at an agreed system of definition so that we know exactly what the terms they use are supposed to refer to. Hence for the most part they badly need a shave with Occam’s razor – they proliferate entities.” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), p. 59.

Brainstorm: this might fit into a discussion of science in your chapter on Darwin or in a section/chapter on women on human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 29: “I understand the only basic law of human nature: love walks, money talks.” – from White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd (1991), starring Loni Anderson, Lawrence Pressman, and Scott Paulin.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 30: "We would surely be something important about our own nature if we refused to face up to the fact that hallucinations are part of being human. However, none of this makes hallucinations part of an external rather than an internal reality. Five to ten percent of us are extremely suggestible, able to move at a command into a deep hypnotic trance. Roughly ten percent of Americans report having seen one or more ghosts. This is more than the number who allegedly remember being abducted by aliens, about the same as the number who've reported seeing one or more UFOs, and less than the number who in the last week of Richard Nixon's Presidency -- before he resigned to avoid impeachement -- thought he was doing a good-to-excellent job as President. At least 1 percent of all of us is schizophrenic. This amounts to over 50 million schizophrenics on the planet, more than the population of, say, England” -- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Random House, 1996), p. 107.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 31: “We would surely be something important about our own nature if we refused to face up to the fact that hallucinations are part of being human. However, none of this makes hallucinations part of an external rather than an internal reality. Five to ten percent of us are extremely suggestible, able to move at a command into a deep hypnotic trance. Roughly ten percent of Americans report having seen one or more ghosts. This is more than the number who allegedly remember being abducted by aliens, about the same as the number who've reported seeing one or more UFOs, and less than the number who in the last week of Richard Nixon's Presidency -- before he resigned to avoid impeachement -- thought he was doing a good-to-excellent job as President. At least 1 percent of all of us is schizophrenic. This amounts to over 50 million schizophrenics on the planet, more than the population of, say, England” -- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Random House, 1996), p. 107.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 32: "[Alison]Jagger identifies abstract individualism as the theory of human nature which underlies liberal political philosophy. I think we can assume that this theory provides a foundation for ethical theory as well. Abstract individualism is the view that essential human characteristics are properties of individuals and are given independently of the social context. This theory, as Jaggar describes it, is committed to the following claims.
1. Rationality is a mental capacity of individuals rather than groups and is possessed in approximately equal measure by all humans, though this capacity can be more or less developed.
2. Rationality is our most valuable capacity.
3. Each individual is intrinsically valuable because of this ability to reason.
4. Each human's desires can in principle be fulfilled separately from the desires of other humans.
5. People typicallly seek to maximize their individual self-interest.
6. Resources for fulfilling desires are limited.
7. Because of the value of rationality and the existence of scarcity and desires to possess certain goods, autonomy is protected by the good society.
One can argue about whether Jaggar has accurately described liberal political and moral philosophy here, but even if we grant that the picture is overdrawn, a version of it undergirds Kantian and utilitarian moral theories. We can see how this conception supports Kantian ethics with its emphasis on duty. If one is unconnected to others, and basically self-interested, no other motivation to be moral could exist." ~ Rita Catherine Manning, Speaking from the Heart (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1992), p. 66. Harwood's Helpful Hint: Does Manning's assumption in her second sentence of this quote violate Hume's doctrine concerning the is/ought gap?

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 33: “The revival of barbarism in two world wars has made us bitterly conscious of man’s inhumanity to man. With the memory of its variously motivated horrors, from Hiroshima to Buchenwald, fresh in our minds, it may seem a cynical complacency to speak of the moral nature of man. Some have seen in this dark history evidence that his alleged moral nature is an illusion. Man, they say, is only an intelligent beast. His motivations are little more than hunger, lust, and far. His civilization is merely a cunning way of satisfying his animal wants and pleasantly stimulating his mind. And when it fails him he goes back to the ways of the beast and the barbarian, rendered only more terrible by the knowledge and skill he has acquired. Others, holding a conviction that the Author of man and nature is supremely powerful and good, see in man’s sinfulness a depravity worse than the blind passion of the beast. To them it is a lapse from perfection that his in it something demonic. It betrays a canker in man’s soul that must ultimately defeat his every effort at genuine improvement of the social order. Sensitively sharing in the sense of collective guilt involved in the sins of all, they abase themselves and mankind before the Creator, feeling, paradoxically (for their minds rejoice in paradox), that they honor God by emphasizing the baseness of the creature He has made in His image. Heroically but hopelessly they turn from their [end of p. 3] devotions to the duties of the daily task, to overcome evil and better the lot of their fellows, saddened and hampered, if not dispirited, by the conviction that, since Paradise was lost, man is condemned to the labors of Sisyphus, to roll the stone of progress up the hill, knowing that it will surely roll down again – or roll down another valley, requiring to be rolled up an equally difficult hill.
It is the thesis of this book that both these philosophies of human nature are untrue. … It is the contention of this book that the moral nature of man, if adequately understood, gives grounds not for incautious optimism or for pessimistic despair, but for rational faith and hope.” – A. Campbell Garnett, The Moral Nature of Man: A Critical Evaluation of Ethical Principles (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1952), pp. 3-4.

My brainstorm here is that Garnett’s book is remarkably well-written and remarkably free of the minimizing or dismissing of morality found so often in the 1950s due to the influence of the verificationists, emotivists and many who overemphasized linguistic philosophy. His following of Aristotle's Golden Mean in moderating between the two extremes noted above seems roughly right on whether man is by nature mostly good, mostly bad or mostly mixed. Garnett seems to be somewhere between mostly mixed and mostly good.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 34: “On Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles, just off the University of California campus, the street is jammed at lunchtime. The tones of all humanity flow past, faces from Santa Monica, Singapore, and Senegal, a stroboscopic stream of light and dar. Notwithstanding such contrasts in appearance, comparisons of our DNA show that human populations are continuous, one blending into the next, like the spectrum of our [end p. 53] skin coloring. We all carry the same genes for skin color, but our genes responded differently to changes in solar intensity as bands of Homo sapiens migrated away from the unrelenting sun of the equator.
Still, it seems to be human nature to assign types to our fellow humans and then make judgments based on those types.” – Jeff Wheelwright, “Finland’s Fascinating Genes,” 26 Discover #4, April 2005, pp. 53-54, emphasis in bold underlining added; italics in original.

My brainstorm here is that the first bit undermines the claim that the IQ difference between black-skinned people and white-skinned people is a genetic difference. The phenotype of skin color involves “the same genes.” So genes for skin color are unable to make the difference, since they are the same. Further, we are unable to correlate genes for black skin with lower IQ scores, since “We all carry the same genes for skin color …” So there is no genetic difference for skin color to allow for different correlations at the genetic level. The correlation is at the level of phenotype rather than genotype.

My further brainstorm is that the last sentence about human nature seems true. Thomas S. Kuhn’s point about how it is our nature to pick out types, which he makes in his books The Essential Tension and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, support the last sentence of the quote above.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 35: “It’s human nature to want to believe.” – Gary Mangiacopra, Cryptozoologist, interviewed on the show “History’s Mysteries: Monsters of the Sea,” hosted by former NBC newsman Arthur Kent, History Channel (2001).

My brainstorm here is that gullibility does seem to be a surprisingly large part of human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 36: “[Hume] asked exactly Atran’s question’concerning the origin of religion in human nature’, and explained the prevalence of religion in terms of how the minds works. On the first page he says you cannot explain it directly by an ‘original instinct or primary impression of nature’ (read innate module, if you will). Instead, his account uses the anthropology of his day – ‘if travelers and historians may be credited’, as he sagely puts it, also on the first page. He deploys his own ideas about the various mental faculties characteristic of the human mind, and also addresses a topic Atran skirst: why polytheism appears to precede theism [sic, monotheism] in history.

I am not foolishly saying that we have made no advance on the Edinburgh Enlightenment, or the deluge of natural histories of man and his habits written around 1750. But Hume was definitely not ‘mindblind’. Atran’s landscape of the mind should be regarded as speculative natural history like that of Buffon and Hume. Present it in terms of modules and evolutionary conjectures if you will, but it remains a descriptive geography of human nature, and not what we have come in the sciences to call an explanatory theory.” – Ian Hacking, “Mindblind,” 26 London Review of Books #20, October 21, 2004, pp. 15-16, p. 16. Hacking concludes his review with the quote above. He’s reviewing Scott Atran, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (Oxford UP, 2002); emphasis added in bold.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 37: “Were we totally certain of our survival after death, or of our extinction at death, religion would be functionless [according to Schopenhauer]. Moreover, it is not only in our anxiety to continue existing that we exhibit ourselves as manifestations of Will. We also do so in the way that we devote ourselves to continuing the species; sexual passion overrides all our impulses to avoid suffering and responsibility. Yet the pleasures of passionate love are momentary and vanishing compared with the troubles it brings upon us. We may rationalize our pursuit of various ends and claim to find good in achieving them; the truth is, we are what we are constituted by the blind strivings of Will, and our thinking cannot alter anything about us.

So seriously does Schopenhauer take this that he treats our entire personality as given from the outset. What we are essentially is Will, and unalterable Will. No experience, no reflection, no learning, can alter what we are. Our character is fixed, our motives are determined. It follows that traditional morality and traditional moral philosophy are founded on a mistake, the mistake of supposing that moral lprecepts can alter conduct, whether our own or that of others. What, then, can moral philosophy do? It can explain the moral valuations which we do in fact make by an analysis of human nature.

If we carry through such an analysis, we discover three basic motives in human nature. The first is our old friend self-interest. On this Schopenhauer has little original to say. The second, however, is the fruit of acute observation. It is malice. Schopenhauer observed, as perhaps no previous philosopher or psychologist had done, the gratuitous character of malice. We do not harm others only when and in order that we may benefit ourselves. And when [end of p. 221] others undergo misfortunes our pleasure in their misfortunes is unconnected with any thought of our own self-interest. Ut is pure pleasure: ‘For man is th eonly animal which causes pain to others without any further purpose than just to cause it. Other animals never do it except to satisfy their hunger, or in the rage of combat.’ The appalling record of human life, of the suffering and infliction of pain, is releaved only when the third motive, sympathy or compassion, appears. …

In the moment of compassion we extinguish self-will. We cease to strive for our own existence; we are relieved from the burden of individuality and we cease to be the plaything of Will. …

A first reaction to Schopenhauer must always be perhaps to note the contrast between the brilliance of his observations of human nature (which go far beyond anything I have suggested) and the arbitrary system-building in which those observations are embedded. He stands out among philosophers by his insistence upon the all-pervasive character of pain and suffering in human life to date. But this general pessimism is as unilluminating as it is striking. Because for him these evils arise from existence as such, he is unable to give any accurate account of them in their historical context; all epochs and states of affairs, all societies, and all projects are equally infected by evil. But he provides an important corrective to the easy liberal optimism of so much of nineteenth-century life; and those who reacted against that optimism find Schopenhauer a seminal influence. Certainly he was this upon Nietzsche.” – Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics (New York: Macmillan, 1966), pp. 221-222, emphasis added.

Schopenhauer stakes out interesting positions on the key issues of whether human nature is more good than evil, whether human nature is more rational than emotional/passionate, and whether human nature is more fixed than flexible. I find Schopenhauer more illuminating than does MacIntyre. Students will find the issues raised in the quote above just fascinating. The quotes from Robert McNamara I sent you recently and some of the other quotes by MacIntyre also go to the issue of whether human nature is more rational or more emotional/passionate/irrational/arational.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 38: “The simple, central, powerful concept in Rousseau is that of a human nature which is overlaid and distorted by existing social and political institutions, but whose authentic wants and needs [end of p. 183] provide us with a basis for morals and a measure of the corruption of social institutions. His concept of human nature is far more sophisticated than that of other writers who have appealed to an original human nature; for Rousseau does not deny that human nature has a history, that it can be and is often transformed, so that new desires and motives appear. … [N]atural man is moved by self-love, but self-love is not inconsistent with feelings of sympathy and compassion. … Rousseau is well aware of what Hobbes seems not to know, that human desires are elicited by being presented with objects of desire; and natural man is presented with few desirable objects. ‘The only goods he acknowledges in the world are food, a woman, and sleep; the only ills he fears are pain and hunger.’ … Natural man, following his impulses of need and occasional sympathy, is good and not evil. The Christian doctrine of original sin is as false as the Hobbesian doctrine of nature.” – Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics (New York: Macmillan, 1966), pp. 183-184, emphasis added.

The above is well-written and explores the key issues of whether human nature is more fixed or more flexible and whether human nature is more good than evil or vice versa.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 39: “But how do we decide between them [the moral theories of Hobbes, the Greeks and Christianity and various combinations of them]? Clearly to lay down some logical form as the form of the moral judgment and to rule out others as illegitimate would itself be an arbitrary and illegitimate procedure. But what we can do is to note the theory of human nature and of the physical universe presupposed by each different view; and if we do so the superiority of the Greek view – at least in its Aristotelian form – to either of its rivals appears plain – on at least two counts in respect of Christianity, and on at least one as regards the ‘actions whose consequences will be most desirable’ view.” – Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics (New York: Macmillan, 1966), p. 148, emphasis in original except for the bold on ‘human nature’.

I tend to agree that Aristotle’s moral theory beats the moral theories of Hobbes and traditional Christianity. I also agree with we can reduce the arbitrariness of deciding between moral theories if we focus more on more factual or psychological issues such as theories of human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 40: "Those who speak blandly of moral rules as designed to maximize pleasure and minimize pain have apparently never reflected on such questions as whether the pleasure afforded to medieval Christians or modern Germans by persecuting Jews did not perhaps outweigh the pain caused to Jews and therefore justify the persecution. That they did not weigh the merits of this argument is perhaps to their credit morally, but intellectually it means that they have ignored both the possibility of transforming human nature and the means available for criticizing it in the ideals which are implicit not only in the private heroic dreams of individuals, but in the very way actions may be envisaged in a given society." – Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics (New York: Macmillan, 1966), p. 149.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 41: “The behaviorist allows no room for ‘human nature’ even as a functional concept while he treats human behaviour as an adaptable engineering product. Clearly the behavioristic psychology has no useful bearing on the immediate subject of discussion, the nature and validity of moral judgment considered as essentially dependent on individual freedom and responsibility. If you cannot locate the [end of p. 57] human person, it is impossible to give any idea how he could be responsibly free.” -- Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), pp. 57-58.

Brainstorm: you might take behaviorism’s side here against Nott or use Nott as an ally against behaviorism. I find behaviorism hard to believe and -- ironically -- even harder to use to ground my behavior.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 42: “Obviously it is going to be more difficult in the description of human ‘nature’ or ‘behaviour’ to leave out personal bias, or the more deceptive bias of ‘schools’, let alone to decide among phenomena, what is what. The psychologies in short have not gone through their taxonomical state – they have not arrived at an agreed system of definition so that we know exactly what the terms they use are supposed to refer to. Hence for the most part they badly need a shave with Occam’s razor – they proliferate entities.” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), p. 59.

Brainstorm: this might fit into a discussion of science in your chapter on Darwin or in a section/chapter on women on human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 43: “One of the important explanations is a dogmatic anti-abstractionism which refuses to allow that some general concepts, for example human nature, have a real descriptive and functional force, and can be and often are used in the common usage of common people in a way that shows that they know what they mean and are speaking within a matrix of diurnal experience. But human nature is a concept with which Sartre will have nothing to do. It is a bourgeois idealist abstraction, like love, etc. [emphasis added] But if human nature describes nothing but an idealist abstraction, where then are we to look for the continuity which constitutes, as most of us are sure, our human being? It may be that the self is learned; it may be a form of habit; but it can be a habit criticised by memory comparing its past with its present, and always trying to extricate itself from falling asleep in unconscious automatisms. If that is not a possibility, where is our choice, our responsibility and our freedom?” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), p. 119.

Brainstorm: this obviously fits with your chapter on Sartre and Nott puts her point more boldly than I remember you putting the point of Sartre’s rejection of human nature (see the bold bit above for her bold statement). She puts it in the same category as love, which should connect with students. Nott says more about Sartre elsewhere as I recall, so I may return to this if I can find it. She introduces a new ism for your glossary, though I think you said one reviewer wanted less jargon to make matters less turgid and more accessible to students. “a matrix of diurnal experience” from the quote is not likely to connect with many students either. ‘bourgeois’ of course introduces Marxist jargon, but some of that seems unavoidable if one is to explain Sartre’s views.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 44: “Moreover, since there is no essential human nature, we are what we are, not according to a plan or a pattern, but as turning up in a situation or a series of situations. Nevertheless, even in a series of situations there is often a pattern to be discovered. There are inexorable laws of behaviour which can even be predicted, by Sartre, if by no one else. So we might reasonably call this human nature [emphasis added] too, except that we wear it, crustaceanwise, outside.

The social answer to the moral and humanly prognostic problem posed by this Hobbesian view [emphasis added] must be either an authoritarian or a collectivistic one (these may turn out to be hardly distinguishable). The individual has to be protected in civil society from his natural and reciprocated enmity for his kind. Sartre became a neo-Marxian and goes for the collectivistic solution. In adopting the Marxian view and interpretation of history, although in a much more abstract form, and without the Marxian attention to past and contemporary detail, Sartre produces an odd sort of anthropology, which does not seem more genuinely historical than Freud’s primal patricide, with which doctrine it has some analogy, at least as a structural psychology. Freud diagnosed an Oedipus complex as the nucleus of human sexual guilt and malaise, and speculated that it had a historical cause, an actual aetiology, in murder, by the strong young men, of the old man of the tribe who up till then had monopolized the women [this should get the attention of students = sex and violence]. But that assumes the racial unconscious, and if that is a premises we cannot accept, we need not even begin to accept anything that follows. Sartre does not accept any unconscious process, a fortiori not a racial one, but he feels the same need as Freud to deal in origins, to give an account of the fact that we are social beings, and as far back as anyone can tell have construceted a social life – a fact which, on Sartre’s psycho-ontology of mutual antagonism, is at least odd. The Group arose, according to Sartre, as a defence against [end of p. 124] external terror [emphasis added] from other and presumably still more alien groups. The Group was held together by the oath, which seems to have been not much more than a recognition that I, the individual member, will be worse off outside the Group than in it. That is produced merely as an example of Sartre’s ahistorical attitude. It is important because the arguments which some evolutionists, zoologists and some schools of psychology produce today favour some sort of spontaneous cooperation as natural to living organisms, and particularly to human beings.” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), pp. 124-125.

Brainstorm: There are a lot of useful ideas here. There is a link between Hobbes and Sartre, two of your subjects, with which you can agree or disagree with Nott or just introduce for the reader’s consideration. There is a more extensive comparison and contrast between Sartre and Freud that I found very helpful. Further, she ends by suggesting there is scientific evidence in evolutionary theory, zoology and psychology for the natural spontaneous cooperation in humans that Campbell/Schopenhauer noted as a spontaneous metaphysical realization by a human who identifies even with a stranger. Further, her points about terror and the Group seem very relevant and helpful for use in your cosmopolitanism paper/book. The issue of who is better grounded in history and science, Freud or Sartre, seems a good issue for you to discuss more and one Nott raises above.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 45: “There is another way in which Nowell-Smith admits or appears to admit that ethical philosophy cannot be exclusive and abstract:
‘… moral theories which attempt to exclude all consideration of human nature as it is do not even begin to be moral theories.’

But ‘human nature’ itself demands semantic analysis of the sort that Nowell-Smith has been giving to words in usage; and historical and practical analysis too. For it has been meant in the past very differently from the ways in which it is now often meant. Moreover, for a long eriod it was defined within fairly narrow limits in a particular way which was also broadly accepted over the known world. Finally, in our own times it is used in at least two ways which are sharply contrasted; the one you adopt will markedly and essentially influence your choice of an ethical philosophy.

When you used the expression ‘human nature’, do you refer to the individual human being, solitary, in his greater or lesser self-awareness, or in his immediate relations, familial or casual? If so, do you imagine this being as recognizable in his appearance and behaviour; unique, yet like other people with whom you are acquainted or familiar? Has he at least the particular reality of a well-known character in a novel?

On the other hand, when you refer to ‘human nature’ do you refer to something both collective and abstract, a kind of Highest Common Factor which isnot descriptive of any particular human being as that one being did, does or might exist in fact or fiction; but which can be identified rather as what has been said or written in the most general way about the typical and common behaviour of Homo Sapiens – ‘Man’?” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), p. 53.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 46: “We all use the expression [‘human nature’] in both of these ways [described in the quote in Brainstorm 45]. But it matters that we should be clear, in whatever the context may be, which one we mean. Ordinary people in casual discourse when they use the [end of p. 53] expression ‘human nature’ are often vague. Novelist perhaps use it less often but can also be vague when they do. … Mostly these users of the expression, whether casual or specialized, are quick to recognize too what does not come in the category, either because it is extra-human or anti-human.

…

Their language when it is informative or revealing on however small a scale usually begins with particular people and particular situations: ‘I reckon old Tom Jones shouldn’t have slung his hook like he did. But what with that wife of his he was about at the end of his tether. It’s only human nature.’

Colloquially ‘human nature’, when it means anything, is used as a concrete-universal. …

Like a great many of our concepts and ideas it belongs to practice and use; it is understood without definition in particular situations of communal exchange.

…

Nowell-Smith allows for ‘psychology’ as part of the matrix of ethics. He also remarks that our psychological understanding is always developing, and then [end of p. 54] deduces that both ‘human nature’ and ethics must change and adapt their meaning. Unfortunately, philosophers, like other specialists and like laymen, are comparatively careless, or at least too easily influenced, about which psychology is the correct one to adopt. That might mean assuming that a really human science is finally attainable. But in practice, as we said, there seem to be too many ‘human sciences’ competing for the right to the human definition.” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), pp. 53-55.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 47: “’… The so-called science of human nature or of the human mind resolves itself into history … But there is one sense in which I should agree that the resolution of a science of mind into history means renouncing part of what a science of mind commonly claims, and I think falsely. The mental scientist, believing in a universal and therefore unalterable truth of his conclusions, thinks that the account he gives of mind holds good of all future stages in mind’s history: he thinks that his science shows what mind will always be, not only what it has been in the past and is now.’ [quoting Collingwood, Idea of History (1946), page unspecified in Nott]

That may or may not be a fair description of a typical psychologist’s attitude to mental process. But it is a valid statement of what the problems are for a philosopher, whether he recognizes them or not. Idealism nowadays, with ‘metaphysics’, is largely ‘out’ and both philosophers and psychologists are chary of treating ‘mind’ and ‘human nature’ as entities. That distrust originated historically, for ourselves, in the Cartesian split between Thought and Extension, Mind and Body or Matter, which resulted in bestowing a preferential ‘reality’ on Matter or Body. Body is what can be dealt with by the methods of physics and mathematics – which have been so much more successful than other studies or speculations in producing and repeating their results.

It is no wonder then that many philosophers should incline towards a behaviouristic psychology – or at least to leaving such concepts as ‘human nature’ and ‘mind’ out of account. But it may be that they resist these concepts because they unconsciously assume that the mechanical and quantifiable provides an absolute standard of ‘reality’; and the ‘body’ – in Cartesian language, Extension – becomes the standard to which what Russell calls ‘mindlike events’ ought to conform or to approximate. And psychology then, as Collingwood among others has proposed, becomes respectable only in so far as it approximates to physical science. [end of p. 39]

Collingwood, while expressly denying that they [‘human nature’ and ‘mind’] are fixed unalterable entities, shows at least that it is possible, indeed necessary, to treat psychological conceptions as human functions. As functions, or activities, mind and human nature must also be seen as in indissoluble, if changing relation with their environment: and also as their own subjective history. It is true, of course, that most psychological schools make some attempt to study their cases historically – we have become what we are. And the philosopher who is historically-minded will reflect on his own mental or subjective history, as well as on the history of his study – his own and other men’s minds. That kind of philosopher will be less inclined to think of philosophy as approximating to a science and more to look on it as a self-reflexive art. Moreover, from that type of philosophical mind an ethical interest seems inseparable.” – Kathleen Nott, Philosophy and Human Nature (New York: New York University Press, 1971), pp. 39-40.

This is the last of the index entries under ‘human nature’ in Nott’s book Philosophy and Human Nature. Brainstorm: the last paragraph or so of this quote bears on the major issue of whether human nature is fixed or flexible. I should have noted this for the quote I emailed earlier about Nowell-Smith’s point about how changeable ethics and human nature are. You can argue that her analysis is dated here, since postulating entities such as human nature and mind are no longer ‘out’ or ‘unfashionable’ and philosophers and even scientists no longer seem to be so chary or chary at all in postulating the existence of such entities. This might be one result of the mapping of the Human Genome, which makes understanding human nature as a distinct entity pretty straightforward and scientific.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 48: “The Light of Human Nature

We want to live in a community of reasonable order and general decency. What does this desire imply? Scholars have not always been as helpful as they might in answering that question. Sociologists and anthropologists have stressed that order is the product of cultural anthropologists have stressed that order is the product of cultural learning, without pausing to ask what it is we are naturally disposed to learn. Economists have rejoiced by saying that we are disposed to learn whatever advances our interests without pausing to ask what constitutes our interests. And despite their differences in approach, they have both supported an environmental determinism and cultural relativism that has certain dangers.

If man is infinitely malleable, he is much at risk from the various despotism of this world as he would be if he were entirely [end of p. 250] shaped by some biochemical process. The anthropologist Robin Fox has put the matter well: ‘If, indeed, everything is learned, then surely men can be taught to live in any kind of society. Man is at the mercy of all the tyrants … who think they know what is best for him. And how can he plead that they are bing inhuman if he doesn’t know what being human is in the first place?’ Despots are quite prepared to use whatever technology will enable them to dominate mankind; if science tells them that biology is nothing and environment everything, then they will put aside their eugenic surgery and selective breeding programs and take up instead the weapons of propaganda, mass advertising, and educational indoctrination. The Nazis left nothing to chance; they used all methods.

Recent Russian history should have put to rest the view that everything is learned and that man is infinitely malleable. During seventy-five years of cruel tyranny when every effort was made to destroy civil society, the Russian people kept civil society alive if not well. The elemental building blocks of that society were not isolated individuals easily trained to embrace any doctrine or adopt any habits; they were families, friends, and intimate groupings in which sentiments of sympathy, reciprocity, and fairness survived and struggled to shape behavior.

Mankind’s moral sense is not a strong beacon light, radiating outward to illuminate in sharp outline all that it touches. It is, rather, a small candle flame, casting vague and multiple shadows, flickering and sputtering in the strong winds of power and passion, greed and ideology. But brought close to the heart and cupped in one’s hands, it dispels the darkness and warms the soul.” – James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense (The Free Press, 1993), pp. 250-251.

Note to students: My brainstorm here is that you should answer the question that Wilson says scholars have given so little help in answering. See the first three sentences after the heading above. Further, I think you should take a stand on whether human nature includes a moral sense and, if so, how robust or helpful a moral sense human nature provides. Is all of morality learned? Is most morality learned? Do we inherit a moral sense with our human nature?

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 49: “The most formidable enemy of an enlightened humanism is not science or technology, for as we have seen in the foregoing chapters, they are its spiritual allies. The real antithesis to humanism is much more insidious: it is the current of anti-intellectualism whose force runs as directly counter to humanism as it does to science. An adequate defense against anti-intellectualism in the name of both human ism and science must rest on the understanding of the respective roles of intellect and emotion in the humanistic ideal of personal and social life. Our logical starting oint, therefore, is an analysis of these two factors in human personality.

It is customary to divide human nature into two parts [emphasis added], the cognitive part and the motor-affective part. … [end p. 70] The broad difference between these two groups of mental acts lies in the fact that the one is neutral, whereas the other is partisan. The one is symbolized by the ‘head,’ the other by the ‘heart.’ … For the sake of verbal simplicity the one will be referred to as ‘intellect,’ and the other as ‘emotion.’

The question of anti-intellectualism might be dismissed briefly by claiming that the very statement of the question begs the question. For what faculty is to weight the counterclaims of the intellect and anti-intellect if not the intellect itself? … This ‘cerebro-centric’ predicament does not, however, settle the question.” Ralph Barton Perry, The Humanity of Man (George Braziller, Inc., 1956), pp. 70-71.

Note to students: You might contrast this bifurcation of human nature with the tripartite division of human nature in Plato and Freud. The old but nice phrasing of the contrast between head and heart should find its way into your term paper somewhere if you haven’t used it already. It’s useful for students to wrap their minds around the distinction with more familiar or simpler language than one finds in Plato or Freud.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 50: “The word ‘reason’ has in its history been used to mark that element in human thought which is common to all thinking individuals. Theorems in mathematics, and their supporting proofs, and arithmetical calculations, are immediately accessible to everyone everywhere, whatever language they speak, sometimes with a relatively trivial call for translation. It has been generally recognized that to learn mathematics is to learn the clearest methods of reasoning.
There is another and easily distinguishable kind of learning, which begins in early childhood, and to which human beings seem pre-adapted by mechanisms that are so far not understood: this is learning to understand and to speak one’s own language. The stress here is on the possessive ‘one’s own’. Learning one’s own language is precisely and conspicuously to acquire a power that separates one’s own people from the great mass of manking with whom one cannot immediately and easily communicate, unless it be at the chess-board or in some mathematical notation.” – Stuart Hampshire, Innocence and Experience (Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 42

My brainstorm here is that you should say more in your term paper about the skill set of human nature and the skills that healthy humans tend to have that distinguishes them most remarkably from healthy animals of other species. Another brainstorm I have is that you should update the issue of pre-adapted learning by mechanism that Hamphire admitted were so far not understood as of 1989. Do we know any more about them know? Does our learning have any interesting implications?

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 51: “The Great Contemporary Debate on Human Nature

At this point we might ask why, if psychology and democratic theory have in our time so beautifully been able to complement each other, something that had been hoped for since the beginning of the Enlightenment – why has this merger not been hailed and called to everyone’s attention? The reason is already obvious from many of the things we have discussed in this book, things which are bound to make many people very uncomfortable, even angry – as Freud, Laing, and Fromm make them angry. As we saw, one of the most mature findings of modern psychology accuses the parents and society of being the ‘perverters’ of the child – unwitting, well-intentioned, even loving perverters, which is all the more awful to admit. People don’t want to admit that one large source of evil lies in what society has taught them, how they learned to go about their lives, the basic ways they have of approaching the world. It is a fearful burden to admit this, especially if you can’t do anything about it even if you do admit it. Much easier is to seek the source of evil, disharmony, tension, failure, in persons; especially to seek it in the heredity of persons, even in the species. And so we have the great popularity in our time of those who see evil as inborn in man in the form of vicious aggressiveness and the other baboon traits that we discussed …” – Pulitzer Prizewinner Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man, 2nd edition (New York: The Free Press, 1971), p. 164.

My brainstorm: Wow, what a heavy, interesting and useful quote! This quote is useful for the major issue of whether human nature is basically good, evil or mixed. It’s also useful for your chapter on Freud. It’s also useful for the nature/nurture debate. Finally, it’s useful for all discussions you have about the Enlightenment and to all discussions you have about democracy (including the extent to which democracy is a form of politics well-suited to human nature). I would combine the above quote with a discussion of the rapist priests that have been exposed in recent years and with a discussion of the continuing high-level of child abuse, especially child sexual abuse.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 52: “To continue to believe in spite of all evidence to the contrary must meet on all sides with condemnation as a method. For it is a frank glorification of the irrational element in human nature, elevating the influence of emotion above that of candor and intelligence. It is a commonplace – though one always worthy of repetition – that whatever progress has taken place in the development of man, particularly in science and art, has been fostered by the attitude of open-mindedness, the tolerance of new ideas and new forms. [end of p. 49] not to be for the extension of inquiry is to be against it, and to avoid evidence is to stifle it.” – John Herman Randall, Jr. and Justus Buchler, Philosophy: An Introduction (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1942, reprinted 1956).

My brainstorm: Is there an “irrational element in human nature,” as the quote above assumes? Or is irrationality a corruption of human nature or a deviation away from our nature as rational agents? This goes to the issue of whether human nature is basically good, evil or mixed, since we might associate irrationality with evil. Further, the quote seems to pose a false dilemma in saying that “Not to be for the extension of inquiry is to be against it …” For one could be neutral on the issue. It reminds me of W’s proclamation that those who would not be with us in our fight against terrorism would therefore be against us. Is it really impossible for the Swiss remain neutral, as they often do and did even in WWII? In case some think the first sentence of the quote attacks a straw man, you can note Tertullian’s proclamation that he believed [Christianity] because it was absurd.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 53: “No sooner do we attempt to reason about that which is extra-empirical, i.e., about reality, than we find that we can manufacture arguments for either of two contradictory views with equal plausibility – a fact which proves that all such attempts at knowledge are futile.

The Kantian Contrast of Knowledge and Faith.

But Kant did not let the matter rest there. While he denied the possibility of knowledge about what transcends experience, he held that we could have faith. What is the meaning and justification of faith in this sense? Man, according to Kant’s reasoning, is not merely an animal that knows but one that acts and feels. He has not only scientific but religious and moral capacities. One of his impulses is to seek the truth about experience; but he has other and equally important functions to fulfill – those of duty and conscience and a search for the beautiful. These nonscientific types of experience are the basis of religion, ethics, and aesthetics. How can we understand their occurrence? Only by having faith that God exists, that a moral law governs the universe, and that man is immortal. Where we cannot say anything one way or another on rational grounds, we are justified in interpreting our moral and religious experiences as requiring something more; in fact, we must do so, for our nature demands it. We cannot know the [end of p. 95] higher realities, but we must have faith that there are such, in order to make intelligible what we find in human nature.” – John Herman Randall, Jr. and Justus Buchler, Philosophy: An Introduction (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1942, reprinted 1956), emphasis added.

My brainstorm: Is human nature essentially religious or inclined toward religion? Atheists Hume and Freud suggest that it is through wish-fulfilment. Kant evidently suggests it is as well, but from the different perspective of theism.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 54: “History And Human Nature

…

[J. B.] Black views Hume’s attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects as an antihistorical project: attempt to isolate the timeless [end of p. 214] laws of human nature, that is, the laws governing the mind and passions. When Hume came to write history, he was conceptually forced by this timeless model of human nature to overlook the uniqueness of historical events and so failed to understand the sort of unity required to account for them. Black quotes, with approval, Leslie Stephen’s judgment that ‘History … was to Hume an undecipherable hieroglyphic.” In this case, he was typical of his age: ‘Hume did not grasp the elements of the problem, because he was dominated, as indeed were all the eighteenth century philosophes, by the belief that human nature was uniformly the same at all times and places. Why trouble to differentiate if there were no differences worth considering?’” – Donald W. Livingston, Hume’s Philosophy of Common Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 214-215.

My brainstorm: Livingston goes on to argue against the interpretation of Hume that appears in the quotes above. This quote or a discussion of its points should help you round out or finish off any discussions of the view of human nature held by the philosophes or the Enlightenment. It also helps get a bit more of Hume into the mix, which we discussed.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 55: “Human Nature as an Ideal

And so we draw the second large circle on our discussion: there is no inherent evil in man that would subvert the ideal of democracy. The phenomenon of aggression in man is not a phylogenetic mystery that has to be approached by studying baboons in their natural habitat; it is as transparent as the problem of neurosis that we discussed in its several aspects. And when you take these aspects one by one, or together, you can see that neurosis for man is unavoidable. Usually the child’s action has been too much blocked, and he is forced to give up large parts of himself to the control of others, their images, their commands. … Or, at the other pole, the child’s action has been made too easy for him, he was not frustrated enough.” – Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man, second edition (New York: The Free Press, 1971, originally 1962), p. 174.

My brainstorm here is that Becker seems to pose a false dilemma. Why can’t the child be frustrated just enough to avoid neurosis. Neurosis does not seem inevitable and Becker seems to oversimplify the cause of neurosis by reducing it to a single scale of childhood frustration. The quotation takes a stand on the major issue of whether or not human nature is inherently evil and raises the issue of the relationship of human nature to democracy, an issue we find in Plato and Hobbes at least. We may find it in Sartre, too. It crops up in Freud in Democracy and its Discontents and Freud also seems to overestimate the inevitability of neurosis.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 56: “The question of the possibility is raised by asking whether there are limits or constraints set by ‘human nature’ on the sorts of social arrangements which can be seen as feasible. … It is this sort of question which commonly underpins commonsense or colloquial remarks about human nature … often used to express a conviction that some feature of human life is inevitable or at least very deep-rooted.” – Jean Crimshaw, Philosophy and Feminist Thinking (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), p. 104.

My brainstorm here is that appeals to human nature seem to fall into the is/ought gap but may bridge the gap by presupposing “’ought’ implies ‘can’.” If an alleged moral duty requires us to do the impossible in going against human nature too much, then we can conclude that the morality in question ought not to require us to do that impossible feat (that the alleged duty is not a a true duty).

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 57: “No theory of human nature claims, so far as I am aware, that any aspect of human behaviour is totally unalterable. It is important to grasp this, since the debate about ‘human nature’ is not usually one in which a belief in the complete fixity of human behaviour is starkly opposed to a belief in its plasticity or flexibility. It is usually, rather, a debate about what underlies human behaviour.” – Jean Crimshaw, Philosophy and Feminist Thinking (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), p. 105.

My brainstorm here is that you might take this quote as a cue to do the unusual and present the debate over the flexibility v. fixity of human nature in starker terms. Further, the emphasis she puts on what underlies human nature may be a considerable cue to discuss the nature v. nurture debate.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 58: “Beliefs about the ‘nature’ of women, for example, have been used to justify the view that they should be dominated by and dependent on men. Beliefs about ‘human nature’ have been used to justify racism and racial inequality and oppression. But it is important to note that beliefs in a fundamental or essential ‘human nature’ have not only been used in these sorts of ways; they have sometimes been used, too, in the context of trying to spell out some ideal of human liberation, and of specifying ways in which human potentialities have been stunted or thwarted by certain social arrangements.

In the history of philosophy, the notion of ‘human nature’ has often been a normative one; being fully or truly ‘human’ is seen as a goal to be achieved. Notions of ‘human-ness’ have often been linked to a conception of characteristics that are seen as distinctively or typically human, which differentiate human beings from other species. The enterprise of trying to identify what is truly or distinctively human, and of using this as a way of conceptualizing unrealized human potential and evaluating social arrangements is one that has constantly recurred in [end of p. 106] philosophical and social thought. Commonly, this enterprise has been associated with either or both of two beliefs: first, the belief that distinctively ‘human’ nature can be seen to reside only in those human activities and characteristics for which there is no analogy in other species, and second, that characteristics which are universal and can be understood as the same across all cultures.” – Jean Crimshaw, Philosophy and Feminist Thinking (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), pp. 106-107.

My brainstorm here is that the quote above raises ideas that let you present the key concept of the is/ought gap to the students reading your term paper. If human nature -- which seems to be an empirical issue of psychology and biology -- is also a normative standard, then the is/ought gap has been bridged successfully. The idea of being human as a goal has spread to popular culture. For example, the character Data in the science fiction TV and film series Star Trek is an android who tries to achieve human status by trying to improve himself. For a good statement of this, see the Paramount film from 2002 called Star Trek: Nemesis, starring Brent Spiner as Data. The film also explores the nature/nurture debate.

Further, you can explore further the issues of racism and sexism raised by the quote above.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 59: “’Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism. It is also what is called subjectivity … if existence really does precede essence, man is responsible for what he is.’ [quoting Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947), pp. 18-19)]

For Sartre, each individual is what he conceives himself to be. He creates his own essence. There are no values external to man and no fixed human nature which he is obligated to fulfill. Each person both chooses his values and creates an image of himself and humanity. Man’s subjectivity only reemphasizes the dilemma of his aloneness. Each individual is a distinct being, conscious of his own existential plight. It is the present moment which defines life, not any laws of history. Man is free – to be a different person if he wishes. ‘Man … is condemned every moment to invent man.’ [quoting Ibid., p. 28, emphasis in original]” – Paul Kurtz, Philosophical Essays in Pragmatic Naturalism (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1990), p. 145.

My brainstorm is just that the phrasings from Sartre and Kurtz are nice here (including an original source for the classic ‘existence … precede[s] essence’ line in Sartre). It’s relevant for your chapter on Sartre and on the major issue of whether human nature is fixed or flexible (or nonexistent, perhaps conceivable as the far end of the flexible pole on the fixed/flexible spectrum).

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 60: “We are not united in consensus around a particular theory of human nature or man’s ultimate telos, and so our disagreements about certain moral issues have proved especially difficult to resolve, but our disagreement about what human beings are like and what is good for us does not go all the way down. In fact, it ia hrd to see how it could. As I argue in Part 1, if you puch disagreement about some matters down too far, it tends to disappear by becoming merely verbal. Complete disagreement about something leaves us unable to identify a common matter to disagree over. It therefore makes sense to speak of disagreement in morals as much as elsewhere, only if we are prepared to recognize a background of agreement. It would be a mistake, then, to think that our disagreement on the good is total or that the areas of apparently intractable moral disagreement to which MacIntyre calls attention could be the whole story.

This line of reasoning suggests a picture of our society both more complicated and less dismal than MacIntyre’s. Even though we no longer share a single theory of human nature (when did we exactly?) and despite the fact that Aristotelian teleology has long since passed out of philosophical fashion, most of us do agree on the essentials of what might be called the provisional telos of our society.” – Jeffrey Stout, Ethics After Babel: The Languages of Morals and Their Discontents (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988), p. 212, emphasis added to “human nature” but italics in original on ‘telos.’

My brainstorm here is that parts of the above quote would serve well as an epigram for a paper on Aristotle or as a springboard to discussion of Aristotle. Note that Stout’s book was the winner of the 1989 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 61: “Rorty’s recent writings defend liberal society in a nonstandard, pragmatic way. Rorty does not begin by trying to establish a philosophical foundation, like an individualist theory of human nature or a Kantian critique of practical reason, and then construct upon it an apparatus for resolving disputes by cranking out liberal conclusions. He [Rorty] is apt to be as suspicious of such attempts as any communitarian. But he does not see liberal society as dependent on foundations. Rorty defends liberal society in part by deflecting the demand for foundations and in part by pointing out contingent features of liberal society that make it the best available set of arrangements we can get under the circumstances, at least by our lights.” – Jeffrey Stout, Ethics After Babel: The Languages of Morals and Their Discontents (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988), p. 227, emphasis added.

My brainstorm here is to help understand and classify Rorty, MacIntryre, Sandel and Kant as communitarians generally or liberals generally.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 62: “Furthermore, ‘Hegel’s standpoint,’ according to Marx, ‘is that of modern political economy. He conceives of labour as the essence, the self-confirming essence of man’

‘The outstanding achievement of Hegel’s Phenomenology is, first, that Hegel grasps the self-creation of man as a process, objectification as a transcendence of this alienation, and that he, therefore, grasps the nature of labour, and conceives objective man (true, because real man) as a result of his own labour.

In short, Hegel conceives labour as man’s act of self-creation (though in abstract terms).’

On Marx’s adaptation of the Hegelian problematic, human beings objectify their natural powers and faculties by creating an objective world of material and cultural objects, and in this historical development of material and intellectual production, beings create themselves, create their own historical human natures. While there is a certain basic or essential human nature or, rather, set of natural powers and faculties common to all (normal) persons throughout history, human personality and identity are created by and through the production of systems of physical and cultural objects in each specific historical period and culture.

This creation of historical human nature, of human identity and personality, is, however, dependent upon the creation of cultural objects as much as upon the creation of physical objects.” – R. G. Peffer, Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 49, italics in original, emphasis added to “human nature” and “human natures.”

My brainstorm here is to try to help you in understanding Marx and Hegel or views related to theirs. You might include some of the above quote or some discussion of its points in any discussion of Aristotle on human powers and capacities or in places where Marx crops up.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 63: “The destiny of man lies in his soul.” – Herodotus, quoted in Alfred Adler, Understanding Human Nature: A Key To Self-Knowledge (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1927), translated by W. Beran Wolfe, p. 15.

My brainstorm here is that you might follow Adler’s lead by using this quote as an epigram, as Adler does in his Introduction to his book on human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 64: “The science of human nature may not be approached with too much presumption and pride. On the contrary, its understanding stamps those who practice it with a certain modesty. The problem of human nature is one which presents an enormous task, whose solution has been the goal of our culture since time immemorial. It is a science that can not be pursued with the sole purpose of developing occasional experts. Only the understanding of human nature by every human being can be its proper goal. …

Owing to our isolated life none of us knows very much about human nature. In former times it was impossible for human beings to live such isolated lives as they live today. We have from the earliest days of our childhood few connections with humanity. The family isolates us. Our whole way of living inhibits that necessary intimate contact with our fellow men, which is essential for the development of the science and art of knowing human nature. Since we do not find sufficient contact with our fellow men, we become their enemies. Our behavior towards them is often mistaken and our judgments frequently false, simply because we do not adequately understand human nature. It is an oft-repeated truism that human beings walk past, and talk past, ach other, fail to make contacts, because they approach each other as strangers, not only in society, but also in the very narrow circle of the family. There is no more frequent complaint than the complaint of parents that they cannot understand their children, and that of children that they are misunderstood by their parents. Our whole attitude toward our fellow man is dependent upon our understanding of him; an implicit necessity for understanding [end of p.15] him therefore is a fundamental of the social relationship. Human beings would live together more easily if their knowledge of human nature were more satisfactory.” – Alfred Adler, Understanding Human Nature: A Key To Self-Knowledge (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1927), translated by W. Beran Wolfe, pp. 15-16.

My brainstorm here is that Adler makes an insightful point about how isolation leads to ignorance about human nature. Indeed, the point may be more applicable today than to the time of the writing, 1927. Of course, radio, TV and films developed to make us less isolated in one sense but more isolated in another. Each of us can sit in silence and in the dark at the cinema and that is a form of isolation amidst a crowd. Cell phones and emails and air travel since 1927 make us less isolated, though.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 65: “As Jeffrey Gray, a British pro- [end of p. 42] fessor of psychology, has written, the evidence for genetic control of IQ suggests that to pay people differently for ‘upper-class’ and ‘lower-class’ jobs is ‘a wasteful use of resources in the guise of “incentives” that either tempt people to do what is beyond their powers or reward them more for what they would do anyway.’

…

So do we have to abolish private enterprise if we are to eliminate undeserved wealth? That suggestion raises issues too large to be discussed here; but it can be said that private enterprise has a habit of reasserting itself under the most inhospitable conditions. As the Russians and East Europeans soon found, communist societies still had their black markets, and if you wanted your plumbing fixed swiftly it was advisable to pay a bit extra on the side. Only a radical change in human nature – a decline in acquisitive and self-centered desires – could overcome the tendency for people to find a way around any system [end of p. 43] that suppresses private enterprise. Since no such change in human nature is in sight, we shall probably continue to pay most to those with inherited abilities, rather than those who have the greatest needs. To hope for something entirely different is unrealistic. To work for wider recognition of the principle of payment according to needs and effort rather than inherited ability is both realistic and, I believe, right.” – Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, second edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 42-44.

My brainstorm here is that you should agree with the Singer/Gray premise here of genetic control of IQ and thus should tend to agree with Singer on the anti-utilitarian and anti-egalitarian implications of capitalism. This is obviously an important point for your chapter/section on Marx. It may make for a nice focus at the end of your term paper, too.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 66: “We can also remind ourselves at this point of the contribution of natural law theory (Chapter VII): only principles the implementation of which do not obviously violate the facts of the human condition will be acceptable as moral guides.” – Bernard Mayo, The Philosophy of Right and Wrong (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), p. 124.

My brainstorm here is that this fits in with the earlier brainstorms about the is/ought gap and the major issue of whether human nature can serve as an ‘is’ to bridge that gap. Mayo used “human condition” here rather than “human nature” in the quote but the index lists this page under “human nature and condition” and human nature is obviously a key part of the human condition we find ourselves in – we find ourselves with a nature, if we do indeed have a nature – and I think we do have a nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 67: “It is not pretended that a moral theory based upon realities of human nature and a study of the specific connections of those realities with those of physical science would do away with moral struggle and defeat. . . . It would not assure us against failure, but it would render failure a source of instruction. . . . Until the integrity of morals with human nature and of both with the environment is recognized, we shall be deprived of the aid of past experience to cope with the most acute and deep problems of life. Accurate and extensive knowledge will continue to operate only in dealing with purely technical problems. The intelligent acknowledgment of the continuity of nature, man and society will alone secure a growth of morals which will be serious without being fanatical, aspiring withoug sentimentality, adapted to reality without conventionality, sensible without taking the form of calculation of profits, idealistic without being romantic.” – John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Henry Holt, 1922), pp. 11-13.

My brainstorm here is that the end of the quote uses nice phrasing and the point of the quote raises the issue of the is/ought gap again – especially with the idea of a “moral theory based upon the realities of human nature …” Dewey also raises here the issue of the relationship between science and morals.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 68: “Talk about humility gives occasion for pride to the proud and humility to the humble. Similarly, skeptical arguments allow the positive to be positive. Few speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, dubiously of skepticism. We are nothing but lies, duplicity, contradiction, and we hide and disguise ourselves from ourselves.” – Blaise Pascal, Pensees (New York: Penguin Classics, 1966), p. 240, saying 655.

My brainstorm here is that this quote confirms that Pascal is clearly in the camp saying that human nature is mainly evil. Pascal shows some style and humor here.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 69: “The question cannot even legitimately arise of whether what a man wills corresponds with what is rationally good. Reason, by itself, can make no distinction whatever between what is good and what is not. Reason can only, and within limits, see what is so, and can never declare whether it ought to be so. There is, therefore, a fundamental absurdity in the idea of reason governing the will, and the fact that this idea [end of p. 14] is very old and laden with great tradition makes it no less absurd. What is significant about a man is that he wills certain ends. From one sunrise to the next, this is what gives his life meaning; indeed, it is the very expression of life itself. Human reason is employed almost exclusively in discerning the means whereby those ends, which are the product of the will, can be achieved. It is because of this that human reason and intelligence are rightly thought to confer upon men an advantage over the rest of nature. What Plato and Kant thought of as the moral corruption of human nature is, therefore, human nature itself. Far from this conception of man being the enemy of morals, a kind of human nature that we are somehow called on to transcend, it is precisely because this is what men basically are that any problems of morals arise to begin with. Good and evil are not exactly the products of the will, but they are the reflection of it, for they would not even exist to a mind that was purely and exclusively rational.

…

To grasp this whole point of view is going to require a considerable readjustment of our philosopohical thinking about morals. The justification of it will consist, in part, of the light it will throw on the errors of our predecessors, many of them great and illustrious, and the opening up of the blind alleys that they have created. The remainder of its justification will consist in the abolishment of mysteries, for many things will be found to make sense, to fall into place, when looked at in this light. This is probably the best kind of intellectual justification that can be given for any point of view, for a complete philosophy somewhat resembles a jigsaw puzzle. When everything fits, we know we have the thing right, and no further question of ‘proof’ can be asked. When, on the other hand, something not only does not fit, but creates numberless new [end of p. 15] problems with every attempt to get it into the picture we may suspect that it does not belong in the scheme at all. And this is surely what is true of many philosophical theories of morals. They more or less answer some immediate question that has been asked; but, as with many of the theories of Plato and Kant, they throw everything else out of kilter, giving birth to numberless new paradoxes that no imagination or wit can resolve, so that the general scheme becomes more disjointed than ever.” – Richard Taylor, from Ch.1 entitled “Ethics and Human Nature,” in Good and Evil: A New Direction (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1970), pp. 14-16, italics in original but bold emphasis on “human nature” added.

My brainstorm here is that Taylor’s book, especially Ch.1, is relevant to your discussions of Plato and Kant. Taylor’s writing style is clear and forceful, which is especially good for students. Adding his book and the other sources in the brainstorm emails will strengthen your bibliography at least and your substantive discussion if you can work them in a bit still. Further, the issue of the relation of reason to will raises issues such as weakness of will and psychological egoism that you should make sure you discuss enough in your term paper, probably in the sections on the ancient Greeks.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 70: “A few years ago, there was a popular song to the effect that we ought to keep on doing ‘what comes naturally.’ This point of view has evidently been prevalent as long as man has existed on our planet. In its most permissive version, it amounts to no more than William Blake’s maxim: ‘Damn braces. Bless relaxes.” …

[T]here are principles of moral conduct that apply to all men.

These universal principles have a realistic basis. Man’s basic nature and environment provide the ultimate standard of right conduct, whether of individuals or states. Human beings have fundamental needs and tendencies; their fulfillment is good; their frustration is evil. To fulfill these requirements of a good life and to harmonize with the basic forces of the universe is the realistic goal of human ideals.

This conception of ethics has certain implications. It implies that nature determines the characteristic tendencies of a species, and that these tendencies require fulfillment if good is to be achieved. A bear, a rabbit, or a human being possesses a certain nature which it shares with others of its kind. The good for a human being is both like and unlike the good for a rabbit or a bear. It is like insofar as man shares in a common animal nature; it is unlike insofar as man is distinguished by human nature.” – Melvin Rader, Ethics and the Human Community (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), p. 15, italics in original but bold emphasis on “human nature” added.

My brainstorm here is that this is another fine example of using human nature to try to bridge the is/ought gap and to establish moral realism. This seems to be an early example (from 1964) of using ‘realism’ or ‘realistic.’ You might like to include the literary reference to Blake. Improve your bibliography by adding Rader’s book.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 71: “The final objection to the argument for an obligation to assist is that it sets a standard so high that none but a saint could attain it. This objection comes in at least three versions. The first maintains that, human nature [emphasis added] being what it is, we cannot achieve so high a standard, and since it is absurd to say that we ought to do what we cannot do, we must reject the claim that we ought to give so much.

… [end of p. 242]

Those who put forward the first version of the objection are often influenced by the fact that we have evolved from a natural process in which those with a high degree of concern for their own interests, or the interests of their offspring and kin, can be expected to leave more descendants in future generations, and eventually to completely replace any who are entirely altruistic. Thus the biologist Garrett Hardin has argued, in support of his ‘lifeboat ethics’, that altruism can only exist ‘on a small scale, over the short term, and within small, intimate groups’; while Richard Dawkins has written, in his provocative book The Selfish Gene: ‘Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense.’ I have already noted, in discussing the objection that we should first take care of our own, the very strong tendency for partiality in human beings. We naturally have a stronger desire to further our own interests, and those of our close kin, than we have to further the interests of strangers. What this means is that we would be foolish to expect widespread conformity to a standard that demands impartial concern, and for that reason it would scarcely be appropriate or feasible to condemn all those who fail to reach such a standard. Yet to act impartially, though it might be very difficult, is not impossible. The commonly quoted assertion that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ is a reason for rejecting such moral judgments as ‘You ought to have saved all the people from the sinking ship’, when in fact if you had taken one more person into the lifeboat, it would have sunk and you would not have saved any. In that situation, it is absurd to say that you ought to have done what you could not possibly do. When we have money to spend on luxuries and others are starving, however, it is clear that we can all give much more than we do give, and we can therefore all come closer to the impartial standard proposed in this chapter. Nor is there, as we approach closer to this standard, any barrier beyond which we cannot go. For that reason there is no basis for saying that the impartial standard [end of p. 243] is mistaken because ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ and we cannot be impartial.” – Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, second edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 242-244.

My brainstorm here is that “’ought’ implies ‘can’” seems to bridge the is/ought gap here. Further, given your interests, you should be interested to discuss Dawkins and Hardin more, if you have discussed them enough already. Note that the impartial standard is a form of egalitarianism that, as such, you would seem to oppose. Finally, I think the idea that we universally have it in our nature to mind our own interests and those of our kin is a major overgeneralization – a bunch of BS really. Look at all the self-destructive, short-term acts of drug abuse, overeating, underexercising, laziness, procrastination, neurosis, psychosis, weakness of will, smoking, anger, revenge, unsafe sex risking AIDS, lust risking divorce, etc. all done at the expense of one’s own long-term interests. Further, look at the fact that even though strangers outnumber our close kin by billions of people, we are far more likely to be murdered by some of our close kin than by any stranger. I hope reading these quotes and/or brainstorms makes you spontaneously react to them in ways that can help you put the finishing touches on your term paper. I’ve tried to get a variety of sources, so that it is more likely that some of them will provoke such thoughts that might warrant inclusion, time permitting.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 72: “[A] justification of ethics in terms of self-interest might work, without defeating its own aim. We can now ask if such a justification exists. There is a daunting list of those who, following Plato’s lead, have offered one: Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza, Butler, Hegel, even – for all his strictures about prostituting virtue – Bradley. Like Plato, these philosophers made broad claims about human nature and the conditions under which human beings can be happy. Some were also able to fall back on a belief that virtue will be rewarded and wickedness punished in a life after our bodily death. Philosophers cannot use this argument if they want to carry conviction nowadays; nor can they adopt sweeping psychological theories on the basis of their own general experience of their fellows, as philosophers used to do when psychology was a branch of philosophy.” – Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, second edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 326.

My brainstorm here is that you might want to say more about Aquinas, Spinoza, Butler, Hegel, and Bradley. Further, you might react to Singer ruling out of hand any appeals to heavenly rewards, especially given how effective such appeals seem to work with so many suicide bombers and terrorists found among Islamic fanatics. Finally, Adler’s point in earlier Brainstorm 64 reinforces Singer’s point above that philosophers cannot credibly “adopt sweeping psychological theories on the basis of their own general experience of their fellows.”

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 73: “What facts about human nature could show that ethics and self-interest coincide? One theory is that we all have benevolent or sympathetic inclinations that make us concerned about the welfare of others. …

To meet this objection those who would link ethics and happiness must assert that we cannot be happy if these elements of our nature are suppressed. Benevolence and sympathy, they might argue, are tied up with the capacity to take part in friendly or loving relations with others, and there can be no real happiness without such relationships. For the same reason it is necessary to take at least some ethical standards seriously, and to be open and honest n living by them – for a life of deception and dishonesty is a furtive life, in which the possibility of discovery always clouds the horizon. …

These claims about the connection between our character and our prospects of happiness are no more than hypotheses. Attempts to confirm them by detailed research are sparse and inadequate. A.H. Maslow, an American psychologist, asserted that human beings have a need for self-actualisation that involves growing toward courage, kindness, knowledge, love [end of p. 327] honesty, and unselfishness. When we fulfill this need, we feel serene, joyful, filled with zest, sometimes euphoric, and generally heappy. When we act contrary to our need for self-actualisation, we experience anxiety, despair, boredom, shame, emptiness and are generally unable to enjoy ourselves. It would be nice if Maslow should turn out to be right; unfortunately, the data Maslow produced in support of his theory consisted of limited studies of selected people and cannot be considered anything more than suggestive.

Human nature is so diverse that one may doubt if any generalization about the kind of character that leads to happiness could hold for all human beings. What, for instance, of those we call ‘psychopaths’? … At least on the surface, they do not suffer from their condition, and it is not obvioius that it is in their interest to be ‘cured.’” – Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, second edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 327-328, italics in original but bold emphasis on “human nature” is added.

My brainstorm here is that Singer makes a good point against many thinkers you consider when Singer suggests that human nature is too diverse to allow the kinds of generalizations a theorist would need to make about human nature in order to use a particular conception of human nature to do the tasks philosophers usually attempt traditionally. You discuss Maslow, so you might wish to use Singer’s overall view of Maslow in order to put Maslow in context or present a view limiting or criticizing Maslow’s view.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 74: “Bourgeois society is ‘inhuman’ or a form of ‘inhumanity’ because it does not allow for the majority of its members to be treated as human beings should be treated. It does not allow people to realize the positive aspects of their human nature: sociability and free, conscious creative activity. Marx argues in The Holy Family that humanity is ‘abstracted’ from the proletariat and that ‘man has lost himself in the proletariat’ precisely because the proletarian’s ‘species-being’ is not allowed to flourish. The resulting poverty, misery, and abasement of the proletariat ‘arouse man’s indignation.’” – R. G. Peffer, Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 57, italics in original.

My brainstorm here is that this is another instance where a major philosopher uses the facts of human nature to try to bridge the is/ought gap, though nothing is said here about how we determine which aspects of human nature are positive. So that is really doing the work to avoid the is/ought gap by having an ought+is/ought move instead. This passage identifies the positive aspects of human nature according to Peffer’s understanding of Marx at least. Other quotes from Peffer suggest Marx has an at least partly normative sense of human nature, but here Peffer refers to the positive aspects of human nature, as if human nature has negative aspects as well and as if human nature is being used as a merely descriptive, non-normative concept (and thus allowing both positive and negative aspects).

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 75: “While the concept of alienation is rarely seen in most of his later works, it is utilized extensively in the Grundrisse. As in the Paris Manuscripts, Marx’s theory of alienation of humanity-in-capitalist-society can be divided here into the categories of alienation of the product of production, alienation of the activity of production, alienation of the individual from other individuals, and alienation of the individual from his or her own self and/or his or her own (human) nature. …

Similarly, ‘The universal nature of production creates an alienation of the individual from himself and others,’ and thus contravenes the value of human community. The condition of alienation in capitalism also works against the self-realization of individuals. Capitalism prevents people from developing and realizing their individual talents and capacities spontaneously and cooperatively and becoming all-around, well-developed person because [end of p. 66]

Universal prostitution appears as a necessary phase of the development of the social character of personal talents, abilities, capacities, and activities. This could be more delicately expressed as the general condition of serviceability and usefulness. It is the bringing to a common level of different things, which is the significance that already Shakespeare gave to money. [quoting Karl Marx, The Grundrisse (David McClellan, ed.) New York: Harper & Row, 1971, p. 66.]" -- R. G. Peffer, Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 66-67, italics in original, bold emphasis added.

My brainstorm is that you might discuss this reductionism of capitalism, how it tries to reduce so many different things to a least common denominator of money and crass commercialism, something W tried to distance himself from in a recent speech clarifying what he means by the liberty he wants for the Islamic world we are battling in now. You should take every opportunity you can to discuss Shakespeare, who is among the most insightful on the topic of human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 76: “We have all met such a lot of people that we feel sure that we [end of p. 34] know something about human nature, even if the people we have met in Senior Common Rooms have had rather little of it.” – F. E. Sparshott, An Enquiry into Goodness (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 34-35, italics in original.

My brainstorm here is that you should add Sparshott’s book to your bibliography on human nature, since it has index entries with 7 pages indexed to “human nature.” Further, Sparshott’s point here echoes Rene Descartes’ familiar quotation stating that nothing seems as fairly and equally distributed as good sense since everyone, even those hardest to please in other ways, is satisfied that he or she has enough good sense.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 77: “As long as men have speculated about the nature of politics, it has been common to relate it to the nature of man. Most of the speculators have had no doubt that man had a ‘nature’ and therefore believed certain generalizations could be made about the way men tended to behave under certain conditions. Some to be sure focused upon the differences among kinds of human nature whether of gold, of silver, or of bronze; but even Plato and Nietzsche (if the juxtaposition may be forgiven) assumed a common substratum.” – J. Roland Pennock, from ‘Introduction,’ in J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman, eds., Human Nature in Politics (New York: New York University Press, 1977), p. 1.

My brainstorm here is that you should add this book to the bibliography of your term paper, if you have not done so already. You can use part of the quote above to show how Sartre is in the minority on the issue of whether human nature exists.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 78: “In particular, he [Edward O. Wilson] defends the hypothesis that human beings, as a result of natural selection, are genetically determined to be altruistic in the sense of being disposed to help other people even when they do not think it is to their long-run advantage. … What is wrong with the ‘innate/acquired’ dichotomy is that nothing is wholly innate or ‘from nature’ and nothing is wholly acquired or ‘from nurture’: Behavior as well as bodily structures are always jointly affected by both genes and environment. This means that similar genes may have different behavioral effects in different cultures, just as in similar environments different genes may produce different effects.” – Andrew Oldenquist, Moral Philosophy: Text and Readings, 2nd edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1978), p. 76. This page is indexed under the heading “human nature.”

My brainstorm here is that Wilson seems to have an explanation for altruism that differs sharply with the explanation offered by Schopenhauer and Joseph Campbell. Wilson thinks the explanation is genetic (and thus presumably operating on the level of the species rather than at the level of the individual) whereas Schopenhauer and Campbell think the altruism is part of a metaphysical realization (which presumably is not genetic) that takes place at the individual level. So you might discuss Wilson after the spot where you discuss the example Campell gives to illustrate Schopenhauer’s point about the metaphysical realization leading to altruism (the example of the cop helping someone going over the rail in Hawaii, if my memory serves). Further, if this process of metaphysical realism is rational, then it may serve as a rational bridge of the is/ought gap: the altruistic person makes the metaphysical realization (is) and then rationally decides that he/she ought to act altruistically (ought).

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 79: “At any rate, I would call attention to the fact that the decision theorists’ definition [of ‘rational’] is hardly a mere account of the accepted English usage, which is far too vague to fit their definition. Professor Patrick Suppes, in a paper in The Journal of Philosophy in 1961 (p. 607), remarked that the disagreements in decision theory show that [end of p. 267] we ‘do not yet understand what we mean by rationality,’ or, as he put it in the very next sentence, ‘it turns out to be extremely difficult to characterize what we intuitively would want to mean by a rational choice among alternative courses of action.’ I find these statements puzzling …” – Richard Brandt, “The Concept of Rationality in Ethical and Political Theory,” in J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman, eds., Human Nature in Politics (New York: New York University Press, 1977), pp. 267-268.

My brainstorm here is that Suppes’s admissions seem scandalous. It’s a scandal that our state of knowledge about such a basic term as late as 1961 was so poor. You might put Suppes’s admission in your discussion of rationality in your section on Aristotle.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 80: “Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal.” – Aristotle, Politics I,2 (1253a), quoted in Lisa H. Newton, “The Political Animal,” in J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman, eds., Human Nature in Politics (New York: New York University Press, 1977), p. 142.

My brainstorm here is that you should be sure not to reduce your coverage of this famous quote of Aristotle’s in making the reductions that I think you said were requested for the chapter on Aristotle. Further, you might link any alleged political nature of human nature with the idea in E. O. Wilson that human nature is altruistic. The altruistic sympathy, compassion or sociability of humans may be what gives rise to the state. Are we by nature built to be governed and to act in groups? If so, that might explain why human individuals are generally not especially large, fast, strong or acute in senses compared with many other animals.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 81: “What I am maintaining is that cutting off your legs, blinding yourself, or killing yourself in the most painful way possible simply because you desire to do so, is to act irrationally. If taken as basic, that is, not as the result of considerations of other consequences, such desires are irrational. What Brandt has realized [in the article I cited in Brainstorm 79] is the standard philosophical account of rationality provides no sure way of labeling such desires as irrational. By the standard account of rationality, the only way one can label such a desire as irrational is to show that it conflicts with other more important desires. That is, the standard account does not deal with the rationality of a desire on its own: only its relationship to other desires can make it irrational.” – Bernard Gert, “Irrational Desires,” in J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman, eds., Human Nature in Politics (New York: New York University Press, 1977), 287.

My brainstorm here is that this issue of intrinsic versus merely instrumental rationality can lead you into a discussion of the rationality of ends in Kant or a deeper discussion of rationality in Aristotle.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 82: “My point is that even idealists must be realists about what human nature might achieve in the conditions of organismic life on this planet; but my conclusion is that we can’t rest content with this. We are after all striving organisms who must follow out the directives of our aspirations. And one of our central, historical and human aspirations is to help bring to birth a better world by pursuing the ideal of democracy; the empirical data of a mature psychology tell us that this pursuit is logical.” – Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man, 2nd edition (New York: The Free Press, 1971), p. 179.

My brainstorm here is to disagree with Becker. He’s wrong to use ‘must’ in the second sentence above, since we have a choice to avoid following the directives of our aspirations. Indeed, this may be the most distinctive feature of human nature, our conscience with its ability to subject our instincts, drives, and strivings to critical scrutiny and to then follow only the ones that survive our critical thinking about them. Becker has a way with words, though.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 83: “And we can understand why the theory of democracy has not yet found a graceful merger with the best of modern psychology: there are too many people today who will not admit the fruit of this psychology. This has given rise to a great debate between two approaches to man: on the one hand, those who see evil in society, and who call the other side cynics, opportunist, and antihumanists; and the other, those who see the evil in man, in evolution, and who call the other side romantics, wishful dreamers. Imagine, they say, claiming that the child is born neutral and potentially good, when all around us we see the most horrendous forms of evil: murder, rape of women and children, delight in blood, pleasure in another’s suffering, in piles of corpses of children of the ‘enemy,’ and on and on. … And the ‘romantics’ tell us that man has no innate aggression: this is an argument with fools or with those who find comfort in self-delusion. So, with apparent good reason, say the empirical realists.

The curious thing about this bitter argument in the contemporary theory of human nature, is that it never need have taken place. The ‘romantics’ – at least those whose work is worth reading – never claimed that aggression was not a fact of human life. They didn’t look at reality wishfully or self-deludingly: they saw aggression everywhere anyone else saw it. In fact, they saw it even where others did not. … [C]learing up this problem is one of the urgent tasks for a rounded view of man.” – Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man, 2nd edition (New York: The Free Press, 1971), p. 165.

My brainstorm here is that you might expand your discussion of the nature versus nurture debate, which Becker puts in terms of romantics and realists. This quote also bears on the issue of whether human nature is mainly good, mainly evil or mainly mixed. Further, this quote bears on the issue of whether human nature is fixed or flexible, since our genes seem harder to alter, with current technology at least, than our social conditions. [Note to revise later: Compare this to old quote 53.]

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 84: “Yet, the problem remains of how to explain the real aggression that we see [end of p. 165] all around us? On the most elemental level we get a picture like this: a human organism in its skin that has to get along in the world, and that does this by taking what it needs from the environment. It uses energetic initiative, manipulates, incorporates, destroys or banishes objects, and expresses anger in response to frustrations; these are all part of an organism’s way of surviving whether it has an innate destructive drive or not. It has to reject and blot out invading microorganisms or larger dangerous objects; it has to incorporate food – animals and plants – digesting an assimilating them; male animals have to penetrate forcefully the female, among humans rupturing the hymen, and so on. Aggression is a condition of life, each life aggresses on nature, tears what it needs out of the world. This aggression in the service of the sustenance of life is rarely a matter of argument; some might prefer not to call it aggression but rather organismic self-affirmation or some such neutral idea, but whatever we call it, it shows itself as a powerful force, and it damages the world around one. Some quiet peoples who seek minimum interference by the organism with the world around it avoid eating meat, or killing insects – the Jains of India even wearing a veil so as not to accidentally inhale an insect, and sweeping the street in front of them as they walk, so as not to inadvertently crush any. But even Jains crunch leaves and mash fragile plant stalks – which are surely alive and (who knows?) might even feel pain, as we mused in Chapter Four; when I once baited a vegetarian with these thoughts he answered: ‘Well, at least plants don’t make any noise when you kill them.’” – Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man, 2nd edition (New York: The Free Press, 1971), pp. 165-166.

My brainstorm here is that you might discuss the more neutral issue of whether human nature is aggressive, or how aggressive it is compared to how altruistic some think it is. This might be a good substitute or supplement for some discussion of whether human nature is mainly good, mainly evil or mainly mixed. Becker seems to think that human nature is biologically and genetically aggressive but not in any evil way, and that evil seems to come mainly from nurture, the human condition, the environment rather than human nature. Becker gets support on some issues from Joseph Campbell who says in his book and video series The Power of Myth that life feeds on death, which is one point Becker makes in the quote above. Campbell also discusses the Jains. I find the idea that plants feels pain implausible in the extreme, despite books like The Secret Life of Plants, since there seems no evolutionary reason for immobile plants to feel pain; for the plants in pain cannot fight or flee fast enough in response to pain. Further, there seem to be no structures resembling a brain or nervous system in plants, only xylem and phloem, which makes plants out to be glorified pumps with photosynthesis as an additional source of food. It would make more sense for faster moving plants (beyond slow geotropism and heliotropism) like Venus Fly Traps to feel pain in order to get stimulus response movements fast enough to catch a fly, which is fast. I like the joke at the expense of the vegetarian. I suggest that you find a way to include it, since you should include humor at every reasonable opportunity, especially with such a serious if not somber topic as human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 85: “Not only should one be cautious in applying the findings of so difficult a science [psychology] to the complexities of everyday life, to which the indefinite adjustments of practical reason may be thought a safter guide than the specialized clarities of scientific research, but there is a constant danger that a psychologist working in a single society will mistake what he finds universal there for what is inseparable from human nature, whereas it may be a socially determined peculiarity of that society. It is easier to recognize this danger than to obviate it. The psychologist may then have great difficulty in making what would be his great contribution to ethics by isolating what is unalterable in human nature.” – F. E. Sparshott, An Enquiry into Goodness (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 45.

My brainstorm here is that this is applicable to Freud and the other psychologists in my brainstorms and your term paper. Sparshott’s caution seems a good one here, suggesting that there is an edge to the nurture side of the nurture v. nature debate that psychologists often overlook.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 86: “If no lawgiver [such as God] is supposed, but instead the prescriptions of the ‘natural law’ are derived from a study of ‘human nature,’ being considered either inborn behaviour patterns which cannot be violated without distress or necessary conditions of human happiness, then the authority of the ‘law’ derives not from its legal status but from the manifest unreasonableness and unnaturalness (hence disadvantageiousness) of acting otherwise. It is then no true law, but merely lawlike: a general counsel of prudence. However, if we follow A. L. Goodhart in regarding as a law any rule recognized (whether by those who enforce it or by those who obey it) as obligatory, we may describe as a ‘natural law’ any rule which all [end of p. 189] men recognize as obligatory, no matter what authority or reason, if any, for obedience may be suggested. Its legal status would then depend upon the fact of its recognition, its naturalness upon its connection with ‘human nature’ in the way already suggested. It seems doubtful whether the necessary c onsensus exists or is obtainable.” – F. E. Sparshott, An Enquiry into Goodness (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 189-190.

My brainstorm here is that you might spend more space discussing human nature and natural law. Further, you can clarify more what each major author means, and what you mean, by human nature by saying if you consider human nature inborn behavior patterns which cannot be violated without distress or necessary conditions of human happiness or something else again. You might explore the extent to which human nature is one given to the rule of law. The classic The Island of Dr. Moreau explores the difference between human nature and merely animal nature by postulating conscious obedience to law as the key difference. You might explore this literary example.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 87: “One must suppose that there is some invariant element in human nature, since human babies usually grow up to be human adults but chimpanzees never do; but whether man as such has any inescapable needs other than those for a certain amount of food and drink and warmth is an open question. Although one may suspect, for example, that all men need some symbolic and ritual apparatus for ordering experience, and some sexual gratification or substitute therefore, such suspicions are virtually impossible to confirm: cultures already known to be viable show such diversity that it is hard to say what limits there may be to what is workable. The universal needs of mankind, then, though theoretically capable of providing a criterion whose satisfactoriness could not be doubted, are not in practice a useful basis for judgement. …

The need for health and for whatever is necessary to sustain strength must be supposed common to all men, and hence part of ‘human nature’; and failure to satisfy this need must to some extent condemn a society. [end of p. 267]

…

A more positive interpretation of the ‘demands of human nature’ is that in terms of ‘self-fulfilment,’ ‘scope for the development of the personality,’ ‘realization of all man’s potentialities’ or some such phrase. This usually turns out to be the praise of institutional complexity, and is usually thought of as being unfavourable to preliterate societies, which seem to the literate to be simple and primitive. One does feel that life would be poorer without all those symphony concerts and cocktail lounges; but the appeal of such a comparison is primarily emotional; while one pictures vividly what one would miss by going to Melanesia, one is prevented by inexperience frompicturing what one would gain.” – F. E. Sparshott, An Enquiry into Goodness (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 267-268.

My brainstorm here is that you might use the bit of humor about the cocktail lounges. Further, his point about the chimps seems so simplistic but may just mean that human nature must be at least partly genetic. What needs we have beyond the biological needs from out genetic structure seem to fill out the picture. Some try to define human nature in terms of capacities, but here Sparshott suggests we should define the rest of human nature in terms of needs instead of capacities (such as the faculty of reason, as Aristotle used). Maybe we should use them all, genes, capacities and needs. On needs, remember the book The Needs of Strangers that I sent to you in the mail. I was impressed by it. He's a fine writer, and a prolific one.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 88: “It is easy to show that the ego ideal answers to everything that is expected of the higher nature of man. As a substitute for a longing for the father, it contains the germ from which all religions have evolved. The self-judgement which declares that the ego falls short of its ideal produces the religious sense of humility to [end of p. 281] which the believer appeals in his longing. As a child grows up, the role of father is carried on by teachers and others in authority; their injunctions and prohibitions remain powerful in the ego ideal and continue, in the form of conscience, to exercise the moral censorship. The tension between the demands of conscience and the actual performances of the ego is experienced as a sense of guilt. Social feelings rest on identifications with other people, on the basis of having the same ego ideal.

Religion, morality, and a social sense – the chief elements in the higher side of man – were originally one and the same thing. According to the hypothesis which I put forward in Totem and Taboo they were acquired phylogentically out of the father-complex: religion and moral restraint through the process of mastering the Oedipus complex itself, and social feeling through the necessity for overcoming the rivalry that then remained between the members of the younger generation. The male sex seems to have taken the lead in all these moral acquisitions; and they seem to have then been transmitted to women by cross-inheritance. Even to-day the social feelings arise in the individual as a superstructure built upon impulses of jealous rivalry against his brothers and sisters. Since the hostility cannot be satisfied, an identification with the former rival develops. The study of mild cases of homosexuality confirms the suspicion that in this instance, too, the identification is a substitute for an affectionate object-choice which has taken the place of the aggressive, hostile attitude …” – Sigmund Freud, in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, ed., Freud on Women: A Reader (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990), pp. 281-282.

My brainstorm here is that this passage should be a springboard to improving your discussion of Freud. It also suggests that his conception of human nature is somewhat normative or includes a moral element, since he speaks of man’s higher nature. Combine this with the death wish, man’s evil nature, etc.

HUMAN NATURE 89: “But Corwin’s Law was established in advice he gave a budding speaker: ‘Never make people laugh. If you would succeed in life, you must be solemn, solemn as an ass. All the great monuments are built over solemn asses.” – Thomas Corwin, quoted by American politican Clayton Fritchey, “A Politician Must Watch His Wit,” New York Times Magazine, July 3, 1960, quoted in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 130.

My brainstorm here is that you should include Corwin’s Law because it is really funny, even though I disagree with the substance; for I recommend adding good-natured humor in philosophy at every reasonable opportunity. I agree with the great comedian John Cleese that one can be serious without being somber (and without be as solemn as an ass). Humor is well-appreciated in politics, too, since monuments are (and will continue to be) erected to Ronald Reagan, who is famous for his excellent, Irish sense of humor. The same goes for Reagan’s fellow Irishman ‘Tip’ O’Neil.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 90: “Every law which the state enacts indicates a fact in human nature.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘History,’ Essays, 1899, quoted in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 129.

My brainstorm here is that I should tell you that this and Brainstorm 89 appear in the section entitled “Human Nature,” section 63, of the book cited above by Shrager and Frost. I tend to agree with Emerson here, since I think laws are designed to deal with perceived needs or desires of the people involved or the lobbying interests. Laws are significant human creations and thus indicate something significant about the human who create them. This assumes legal positivism, but legal positivism’s main rival -- natural law -- would seem to be even more closely tied to human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 91: “Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762, quoted in the section entitled “Human Nature” in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 129.

My brainstorm is that Rousseau is being silly here. Nature deceives us on a regular basis, from optical illusions like an oar seemingly bent in water to the camouflage of many animals, etc. Even the sense of how much time has passed seems to be a matter of nature deceiving us with good times seeming to pass quickly, and bad times seeming to drag, rather than a matter of self-deception. You can also use this quote to discredit Rousseau’s idea of the Noble Savage, since it seems inconsistent with it. It is not noble of the savage to deceive himself, though perhaps Rousseau would make the implausible claim that the noble savage is never deceived at all.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 92: "No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.” – Michel de Montaigne, Essais, 1588, quoted in the section entitled “Human Nature” in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 129.

My brainstorm here is that this is obvious overstatement by the Frenchman, but it’s hyperbole to good effect. It bears on the issue of whether human nature is mainly good, mainly evil, or mainly mixed. You should explore more the issue of whether every human has his/her price. Plato’s Ring of Gyges is a good case in point. So you could discuss explore this issue more in your section on Plato or Aristotle.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 93: “Those who fear men like laws.” – Marquis de Vauvenargues, French moralist, Reflexions, 1746, quoted in the section entitled “Human Nature” in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 129.

My brainstorm here is that I appreciate the Marquis’s brevity here. It would be nice for you to include quotations from a variety of times and nations/cultures. So this and brainstorm 92 should help you get more French thought into your survey of many theories of human nature. Again, this French quote – like the one in Brainstorm 92 -- favors the evil side in the debate over whether human nature is mainly evil, good or mixed.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 94: “For behaviour, men learn it, as they take diseases, one of another.” – Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, 1605, quoted in the section entitled “Human Nature” in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 129.

My brainstorm here is that Bacon seems on the side of nurture in the nature/nurture debate. Of course, Bacon probably knew little or nothing of genetic diseases, so his analogy between behavior and diseases seems dated.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 95: “Man may be a little lower than the angels, but he has not yet shaken off the brute. … His path is strewn with carnage, murder lurks always not far beneath, to break out from time to time, peace resolution to the contrary notwithstanding.” – Learned Hand, “Democracy! Its Presumptions and Realities,” 1 Federal Bar Association Journal 2 (1932), quoted in the section entitled “Human Nature” in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 129.

My brainstorm here is that Hand seems to be on the mixed side of the debate over whether human nature is mainly good, bad or mixed.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 96: "I wish I loved my fellow men more than I do, but to love one's neighbor as oneself, taken literally, would mean to realize all his impulses as one's own, which no one can, and which I humbly think would not be desirable if one could." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1841-1935, quoted in Harry C. Shriver, ed., Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: His Book Notices and Uncollected Letters and Papers, quoted in the section entitled “Human Nature” in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 129.

My brainstorm here is that Holmes seems to disagree with both Christianity and utilitarianism here in rejecting “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Holmes seems to be a utilitarian. See, H. L. Pohlman, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and Utilitarian Jurisprudence (Harvard University Press, 1984).

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 97: “Possibly gaiety is the miasmic mist of misery.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., 1841-1935, quoted in Mark De Wolfe Howe, Holmes-Pollock Letters, 1946, quoted in the section entitled “Human Nature” in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 129.

My brainstorm here is that this is a nice bit of humor and alliteration by Holmes. Good show, Holmes.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 98: “Neither Law nor Human Nature is an exact science.” – George W. Keeton, ed., Harris’s Hints on Advocacy, 1943, quoted in the section entitled “Human Nature” in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 129.

My brainstorm here is that Keeton seems right here. I enjoyed his book Venturing to Do Justice on Harvard University Press. Keeton’s point here seems to support the mixed side of the debate over whether human nature is mainly good, bad or mixed.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 99: “…[Government employees] are subject to that very human weakness, especially displayed in Washington, which leads men to ‘crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning.’” – Robert H. Jackson, Frazier v. United States, 335 U.S. 497, 515 (1948), quoted in the section entitled “Human Nature” in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 129.

My brainstorm here is that I need help understanding Jackson. Maybe you get the uncited allusion to the quote within the quote but it eludes me at the moment. Anyway, without getting the allusion I seem not to be getting Jackson’s point. Well, I’m guessing that Jackson is making the point that human nature is profligate rather than thrifty. That’s another measure of or spectrum on which to measure human nature. He seems to be saying that it is human nature to be weak of will rather than disciplined and thrifty in one’s spending.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 100: “Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry.” – Spanish proverb, quoted in Lewis C. Henry, ed., Best Quotations for All Occasions (New York: Permabooks, 1948), p. 4.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 101: “There are men of whom we can never believe evil without having seen it. Yet there are few in whom we should be surprised to see it.” – La Rochefoucauld, Maximes, 1665, quoted in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 105.

My brainstorm here is that the quote supports the mainly evil side in the debate on whether human nature is mainly evil, mainly good or mainly evil.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 102: “There is in many, if not in all men, a constant inward struggle between the principles of good and evil; and because a man has grossly fallen, and at the time of his fall added the guilt of hypocrisy to another sort of immorality, it is not necessary, therefore, to believe that his whole life has been false, or that all the good which he ever professed was insincere or unreal.” – Roundell Palmer, 1st earl of Selborne, British jurist; lord chancellor; Symington v. Symington (1875), L.R. 2 Sc. & D. 428, quoted in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 105.

My brainstorm here is that this quote might help on the issue of whether human nature is mainly evil, mainly good or mainly mixed, since it seems to favor mainly mixed due to the constant struggle between good and evil in the nature of man. This citation is indexed under 'human nature,' as was the quote for Brainstorm 101 and all the Brainstorm quotes from the human nature section of the book cited above.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 103 “It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.” – H. L. Mencken, A Book of Burlesques, 1916, quoted in David S. Shrager and Elizabeth Frost, eds., The Quotable Lawyer (New York: Facts on File, 1986), p. 105.

My brainstorm here is that Mencken often has quotable quotes, though not all of them are politically correct nowadays. Anyway, this quote is not indexed under human nature in the book above but it could have been, since it is on the mainly evil side of the debate over whether human nature is mainly evil, mainly good or mainly mixed. Putting Mencken in your work might heighten interest, since Mencken is somewhat infamous.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 104: “A related objection raised by Elizabeth Wolgast, among others, interprets the original position [of Rawls] as making a metaphysical claim about our essential nature. Since the original position requires that we imagine ourselves to be ignorant of virtually all of our particular traits, this is seen to imply the view that none of those traits are [sic, is] essential to who we are. … Fortunately, the original position need not be interpreted as implying anything about our essential nature.” – James Sterba, Contemporary Social and Political Philosophy (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1995), p. 21.

My brainstorm here is that Sterba seems right, since Rawls wrote an essay with “Political Not Metaphysical” in it. I think it appeared in Philosophy and Public Affairs and in his recent book collecting his essays. This quote is a springboard to discuss Rawls more, if you wish, and it is a chance to include another point from a woman philosopher, Elizabeth Wolgast, which would be useful.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 105: “Second, the Welfare Liberal Conception of Justice does not require that one endorse a completely ahistorical conception of human nature. Welfare liberals can certainly admit that human nature manifests itself in different ways in different social conditions. As Rawls has put it (1978: 55),

everyone recognizes that the institutional form of society affects its members and determines in large part the kind of persons they want to be as well as the kind of persons they are. The social structure also limits peoples’ ambitions and hopes in different ways; for they will with reason view themselves in part according to their position in it and take account of the means and opportunities they can realistically expect. So an economic regime, say, is not only an institutional scheme for satisfying existing desires and aspirations but a way of fashioning desires and aspirations in the future. More generally, the basic structure shapes the way the social system produces and reproduces over time a certain form of culture shared by persons with certain conceptions of their good.” – James Sterba, How To Make People Just: A Practical Reconciliation of Alternative Conceptions of Justice (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1988), p. 70.

My brainstorm here is that your term paper should have more discussion of this contemporary debate over human nature and liberalism. It’s an important issue and it has generated a significant literature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 106: “A more specific problem is that capitalism does not seem to be a fetter on the growth of productive power. Further, we must doubt that communism is the ultimate release Marx described. Marx argued that communism would be such a release because it resolves the contradictions of capitalism, but this ignores the possibility of communism bringing its own distinctive fetters with it. For [end of p. 123] example, we might think that democracy and collective control may inhibit growth through the unadventurous and unimaginative rule of th emajority and the dead hand of the bureaucracy. Similarly, the removal of stimulus (of need or greed) may render us degenerate, unconcerned with more power over nature. It may be, then, that communism cannot play the role Marx allocated it. And Marx’s grounds for doing so are not compelling. Fundamentally he relies on an ungrounded belief in the perfectibility of human nature under communism, a belief relying more on quasi-Hegelian philosophy of mind than on anthropology.” – Alan Brown, Modern Political Philosophy: Theories of the Just Society (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), pp. 123-124.

My brainstorm here is tht this might add a bit to your discussion of Marx and that this book should appear in your bibliography, since it has two longer discussions of human nature and 9 other pages on human nature listed in its index.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 107: “Albeit in barest outline, we now have eudaimonism’s conception of personhood in our hands, and it will be useful to begin to see what light it casts into shadowed regions of practicallife. Deep within the antagonisms, frustrations, cruelties, and thwartings that taint life’s unfolding in the world, the keenly focused investigative eye detects a common denominator in one hallmark of human nature – its duplicity.” – David L. Norton, Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 27.

My brainstorm here is that the second sentence of this quote is an especially quotable quote, since I find it well-worded and a bit surprising at the end. Further, it is relevant for discussion of whether human nature is mainly good, mainly evil or mainly mixed, since the quote seems to put Norton in the mainly evil or mainly mixed camp. Furthermore, Norton’s book should ideally appear in your bibliography, since it has one 3-page discussion listed in its index under human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 108: “The popular view of the sexual instinct is beautifully reflected in the poetic fable which tells how the original human beings were cut up into two halves – man and woman – and how these are always striving to unite again in love. It comes as a great surprise therefore to learn that there are men whose sexual object is a man and not a woman, and women whose sexual object is a woman and not a man. People of this kind are described as having ‘contrary sexual feelings’, or better, as being ‘inverts’, and the fact is described as ‘inversion’. The number of such people is very considerable, though there are difficulties in establishing it precisely.” – Sigmund Freud, in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, ed., Freud on Women: A Reader (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990), p. 90.

My brainstorm here is that you might include this bit of poetry about human nature, and perhaps some of Freud’s remarks on homosexuality, too.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 109: “Freud’s assessment of causality was careful. First he rejected the idea that inversion [homosexuality] was a form of degeneracy, because it was so obvious that many – if not most – inverts functioned at a superior level intellectually, particularly in societies where inversion was not considered pathological. Then he indicated that only in absolute inverts can a constitutional or innate factor be argued as crucial, but even in these cases, it is likely that the inmate factor is one common to all people, not just to inverts – namely, bisexuality.” – Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, ed., Freud on Women: A Reader (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990), p. 91.

My brainstorm here is that students might find it interesting to learn that Freud thought bisexuality was common to all people, and thus evidently part of human nature, and that Freud and Young-Bruehl find it so obvious that so many homosexuals function at a superior level intellectually. This is likely to spark some debate and critical thinking.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 110: “It is popularly believed that a human being is either a man or a woman. Science, however, knows of cases in which the sexual characters are obscured, and in which it is consequently difficult to determine the sex. This arises in the first instance in the field of anatomy. The genitals of the individuals concerned combine male and female characteristics. (This condition is known as hermaphroditism.) In rare cases both kinds of sexual apparatus are found side by side fully developed (true hermaphroditism); but far more frequently both sets of organs are found in an atrophied condition.

The importance of these abnormalities lies in the unexpected fact that they facilitate our understanding of normal development. For it appears that a certain degree of anatomical hermaphroditism occurs normally. In every normal male or female individual, traces are found of the apparatus of the opposite sex. These either persist without function as rudimentary organs or become modified and take on other functions.

These long-familiar facts of anatomy lead us to suppose that an originally bisexual physical disposition has, in the course of evolution, become modified into a unisexual one, leaving behind only a few traces of the sex that has become atrophied.” – Sigmund Freud, in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, ed., Freud on Women: A Reader (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990), p. 91.

My brainstorm here is that this is a new ism to include – hermaphroditism. Further, I think many students will find Freuds remarks here of significant interest. Freud sees a role for evolution in changing normal human nature from bisexual to unisexual. Hey, it might encourage some students doubtful of evolution's existence to accept evolution if the alternative is to accept the bisexuality of their human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 111: “It is an instructive fact that under the influence of seduction children can become polymorphously perverse, and can be led into all possible kinds of sexual irregularities. This shows that an aptitude for them in innately present in their disposition. There is consequently little resistance towards carrying them out, since the mental dams against sexual excesses – shame, disgust and morality – have either not yet been constructed at all or are only in [the] course of construction, according to the age of the child. In this respect children behave in the same kind of way as an average uncultivated woman in whom the same polymorphously perverse disposition persists. Under ordinary conditions she may remain normal sexually, but if she is led on by a clever seducer she will find every sort of perversion to her taste, and will retain them as part of her own sexual activities. Prostitutes exploit the same polymorphous, that is, infantile, disposition for the purposes of their profession; and, considering the immense number of women who are prostitutes or who must be supposed to have an aptitude for prostitution without becoming engaged in it, it becomes impossible not to recognize that this same disposition to pervrsions of every kind is a general and fundamental human characteristic.” – Sigmund Freud, in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, ed., Freud on Women: A Reader (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990), p. 119, ‘the’ in square brackets added by Harwood.

My brainstorm is: Wow, Freud is making quite a few interesting and sweeping generalizations here. He seems to imply above that a serious aptitude of prostitution and perversity is part of human nature.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 112: "It is commonly assumed that Freud counted masochism among the defining characteristics of femininity, ‘an expression of feminine nature,’ as he indeed wrote toward the beginning of this 1924 essay [“The Economic Problem of Masochism”].” – Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, ed., Freud on Women: A Reader (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990), p. 283.

My brainstorm is that you should make sure you discuss this claim of Freud’s, which is bound to be controversial and interesting.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 113: “The female sex, too, develops an Oedipus complex, a super-ego and a latency period. May we also attribute a phallic organization and a castration complex to it? The answer is in the affirmative; but these things cannot be the same as they are in boys. Here the feminist demand for equal rights for the sexes does not take us far, for the morphological distinction is bound to find expression in differences of psychical development. ‘Anatomy is Destiny’, to vary a saying of Napoleon’s. The little girl’s clitoris behaves just like a penis to begin with; but, when she makes a comparison with a playfellow of the other sex, she perceives that she has ‘come off badly’ and she feels this as a wrong done to her and as a ground for inferiority.” – Sigmund Freud, in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, ed., Freud on Women: A Reader (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990), p. 299.

My brainstorm here is that we have more controversial and fascinating ideas from Freud here to discuss. What makes it all the more amazing is that he’s writing in 1934, in his essay “The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex.” He uses at least two phrases that seem very modern: “the feminist demand for equal rights” and “‘Anatomy is Destiny.’”

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 114: “I cannot evade the notion (though I hesitate to give it expression) that for women the level of what is ethically normal is different from what it is in men. Their super-ego is never so inexorable, so impersonal, so independent of its emotional origins as we require it to be in men. Character-traits which critics of every epoch have brought up against women – that they show less sense of justice than men, that they are less ready to submit to the great exigencies of life, that they are more often influenced in their judgements by feelings of affection or hostility – all these would be amply accounted for by the modification in the formation of their super-ego which we have inferred above. We must not allow ourselves to be deflected from such conclusions by the denials of the feminists, who are anxious to force us to regard the two sexes as completely equal in position and worth; but we shall, of course, willingly agree that the majority of men are also far behind the masculine ideal and that all human individuals, as a result of their bisexual disposition and of cross-inheritance, combine in themselves both masculine and feminine characteristics, so that pure masculinity and feminity remain theoretical constructions of uncertain content.” – Sigmund Freud, in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, ed., Freud on Women: A Reader (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990), p. 314.

My brainstorm here is that Freud again provides a quotable quote and a fertile ground for much discussion here.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 115: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn, quoted in Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams, eds., Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1991), p. v.

My brainstorm here is that this is an especially quotable quote. Further, it may apply to your cosmopolitanism paper, too. The quote is relevant putting Solzhenitsyn on the side of mainly mixed in the debate over whether human nature is mainly good, mainly evil, or mainly mixed. Finally, the book cited above should appear in your bibliography. You might use the quote above in your discussion of Marx and the USSR, including the idea of the New Soviet Man.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 116: “People won’t do for themselves what government will do for them; that’s human nature.” – Tucker Carlson, speaking about the prescription medicine bill signed into law by President George W. Bush recently, on the TV show “Tucker Carlson Unfiltered” (PBS), broadcast 7/18/04.

My brainstorm here is that Carlson’s conservative view might help with a discussion of the issue of whether human nature is lazy or greedy, especially concerning politics.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 117: “Plato explicitly rejected conventional morality … and Kant’s own view here points in the same direction. … [end of p. 8]

Since Kant has previously said that happiness will follow from the moral perfection of humanity, whereas now it is said to be the result of a perfect constitution and its corresponding laws, we can infer that the moral perfection of humanity and, hence, the moral society will develop within the framework of the state. Thus, the thesis that the conscience within us will rule the world when the moral society is realized means not that the state will be abolished, but that it will lose its repressive character. Another conclusion that emerges is that the duty to promote the highest good encompasses the duty to realize the perfect state. This conclusion is supported by Kant’s further considerations of Plato.

Kant continues his criticism of the opponents of Plato with the contention that any appeal to adverse experience as a basis for claiming that visions of a perfect state have no practical value is misplaced, because such adverse experience would not have occurred in the first place if pure ideas had been used to make the laws. Kant turns the tables in similar fashion on those opponents who argue that present imperfect political institutions are the inevitable and unchangeable product of a flawed human nature. He argues that the real explanation for political imperfection is ‘the neglect of the pure ideas in the making the laws’ (ibid.). The interesting suggestion here is that what appears as a flawed human nature is itself in large measure the product of faulty political structures. This leads Kant to develop the radical claim that the more legislation and government harmonize with the idea of a perfect constitution the rarer punishment will become, and he argues that it is, therefore, rational to maintain, with Plato, that in a perfect state no punishment will be necessary. This radical claim – wrong ascribed to Plato – shows again that Kant perceptively held that certain sociopolitical conditions block moral progress. It also shows that the duty to seek the highest good includes the duty to pursue the perfect state, and, indeed, Kant asserts here that it is a duty of humanity to bring existing legal institutions as close as possible to the ideal. To what degree this can be accomplished cannot be said in advance …

The merit of Plato’s work, Kant proceeds to argue, is that it demonstrates that ideas originate not in empirical reality but in [end of p. 9] reason. This is of crucial importance, since ‘[n]othing is more reprehensible than to derive the laws prescribing what ought to be done from what is done, or to impose upon them the limits by which the latter is circumscribed’ (313; 259). Kant’s ethics, then, makes its own progressive nature a question of principle.” – Harry van der Linden, Kantian Ethics and Socialism (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1988), pp. 8-10, emphasis added in bold.

My brainstorm here is that this quote seems relevant for both your human nature book and your cosmopolitan paper. A Plato/Kant team is interesting and hard to beat. Van der Linden’s remarks here seem to contradict his remarks I quoted in cosmopolitan comment 7, where he says that Kant’s politics on cosmopolitanism seem not to grow out of Kant’s ethics.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 118: “The implicit ‘realism’ of ordinary moral language, like that of the ordinary language of colour, was therefore a serious error. Hobbes indeed usually treated this error as the major difficulty in the way of a peaceful life, rather than (as is often supposed) viewing the clash of naked self-interest as the fundamental problem in human social existence.

The account of the passions which Hobbes gave, after all, treated them as broadly beneficial: what men feel strongly about or desire strongly is what helps them to survive and they cannot for long want a state of affairs in which their survival is endangered. Such a view was common ground between Hobbes and many of his contemporaries, including Descartes: all argued that the traditional idea that reason should control the passions was an error, and that (properly understood) our emotions would guide us in the right direction. Men, on Hobbes’s account, do not want to harm other men for the sake of harming them; they wish for power over them, it is true, but power only to secure their own preservation. The common idea that Hobbes was in some sense ‘pessimistic’ about human nature is wide of the mark, for his natural men (rather like Grotius’s) were in principle stand-offish toward one another rather than inherently belligerent.” – Richard Tuck, Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 65, emphasis added in bold but italics are in original.

My brainstorm here is that contrarian Tuck is surprisingly going against the mainstream of interpreting Hobbes on two points: 1) that Hobbes thought a linguistic error of ordinary language (rather than clashing self-interest) was the major obstacle to peaceful living; and 2) that Hobbes was not in any way pessimistic about human nature. I find 1) even harder to believe than 2), but Tuck has a very respected reputation. Check to see if you are going with the flow of mainstream interpretation of Hobbes and thus run afoul of Tuck here. You might adjudicate issue 2) at least. Tuck’s quote affects how one would classify Hobbes if you classify Hobbes on the issue of whether human nature is mainly good, mainly evil or mainly mixed.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 119: “The Development of Roman Ethics

From what has been said above it should be clear that the Romans, quite apart from Greek philosophy, had a strong, though unsystematic, set of ethical concepts. The traditional emphasis on virtus, while rendered problematic by its link to public recognition, made Romans familiar with Stoicism receptive to the doctrine that ethical virtue is sufficient by itself to constitute the summum bonum. In Stoicism fame, wealth, and noble birth count as ‘preferable’ but as completely nonessential to human flourishing. Thus Stoic ethics could serve as a means of justifying part of the pre-philosophical values, while also providing reasons for rejecting their dependence on external success and approval. In addition, the Stoics had developed a doctrine of ‘proper functions’ (kathekonta), which served as moral rules for determining how people should act in specific circumstances. These were grounded in a ‘reasonable’ understanding of human nature from self-regarding and from other-regarding perspectives. Independently of Stoicism, the Romans had a concept that they called officium. The term, like its English derivative ‘office,’ signifies a person’s functions or roles and the conduct appropriate to the execution of these. Romans who encountered Stoicism could readily adapt the Stoic concept of ‘proper functions’ to their traditional view of propriety in the fulfillment of offices they had undertaken.

In his De officiis (On Duties), which has already been mentioned, Cicero seeks to do three things: first, he expounds a series of appropriate actions, grounding these in the four cardinal virtues – wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice – which are represented as the perfections of human nature. Second, he argues that genuine conflict between morality and expediency is impossible. Third, he explores and disposes of apparent conflicts of this kind.” – A. A. Long, “Roman Ethics,” in Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker, eds., A History of Western Ethics (New York: Garland Publishing, 1992), p. 36, emphasis added in bold but italics are in original.

My brainstorm here is that grounding duties in a reasonable understanding of human nature is an attempt to bridge the is/ought gap. This book has 5 pages indexed under “human nature,” and so you might include it in your bibliography.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 120: “As Stoics they take moral rules to be grounded in human nature, but it is not what they say about thes rules that is chiefly interesting, but the questions, answers, objections and illustrations they attach to these.” – A. A. Long, “Roman Ethics,” in Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker, eds., A History of Western Ethics (New York: Garland Publishing, 1992), p. 42.

My brainstorm is, again, the grounding of moral rules in human nature would be a bridge to the is/ought gap.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 121: “Marx’s professed thoroughgoing naturalism blocks any appeal to religious, metaphysical or teleological principles transcending human life; and yet the moral vision that inspires both his polemic and his advocacy of revolution requires some sort of grounding if it is to withstand critical scrutiny. The only recourse available to him for this purpose would appear to be to appeal to considerations pertaining to our fundamental human nature; but in view of his own criticisms of this notion, this recourse would not seem to be a very promising one for him.” – Richard Schacht, “Nineteenth-Century Continental Ethics,” in Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker, eds., A History of Western Ethics (New York: Garland Publishing, 1992), p. 112, emphasis added in bold.

My brainstorm is that here’s another knock on Marx you might add, suggesting he is saddled with a contradiction. This quote adds another ism to touch base with in your analysis: Marx’s naturalism.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 122: “[M]ost people remain more committed to their own ambitions than to the public interest, and ‘never do anything good except by necessity’ …” – Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 76.

My brainstorm here is that this quote may help classify Machiavelli on issues of human nature such as the extent to which human nature verifies psychological egoism, claims that humans are by nature aggressive, and claims that human nature is mainly mixed or mainly evil or mainly good.

HUMAN NATURE QUOTE 123: “Civilized ages inherit the human nature which was victorious in barbarous ages, and that nature is, in many respects, not at all suited to civilized circumstances.” – Bagehot, quoted in W. H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger, eds., The Viking Book of Aphorisms: A Personal Selection (New York: Compass Books, 1966), p. 232.

My brainstorm here is that Bagehot seems to to be on the flexible side of the d