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 are some quotes by or about Aristotle
that students may use in the A-sections of any term paper discussing
Aristotle
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 183 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: For PHIL 60 @ EVC Fall 2009 M&W 1040AM-1210PM in room
P106B, what are the first 574 questions on our test bank and what is a
test bank?
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?
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: For all classes, what are 10 top
quotes from Plato that students can use in the A-sections of a term
paper they write on Plato?
FAQ38: FOR PHIL 10 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY @
EVC M&W 915-1040AM IN ROOM P106B, WHAT IS THE SYLLABUS?
FAQ39: What are 7 possible contradictions in
Buddhism?
FAQ40: For all courses, what are more than 20 quotations by or about
Confucius (551-479 BC) that
students may use in the A-sections (and the C sections) of a term paper?
FAQ41: For all courses, 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: For all courses, what are some quotes
by or about
Friedrich
Nietzsche (1844-1900) that students may use in a term paper on
Nietzsche?
FAQ43: For PHIL 10 @ EVC Fall 2009 M&W 915-1040AM in room P104A,
what is the syllabus?
FAQ44: For PHIL 65 @ SJCC Fall 2009 M&W 530-840PM @ the basement
classroom @ the County Building 70 West Hedding, what is a test bank
and what is our test bank?
FAQ45: For all courses, what is Chief Seattle's emotionally
gut-wrenching letter on environmentalism?
FAQ46: For PHIL 60 @ EVC Fall 2009 M&W 1045AM to 1210PM, what is
the syllabus?
FAQ47: For all courses, what's a sample (but still imperfect)
paper on
abortion?
FAQ48: FOR PHIL 10 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY AT EVC FALL 2009 M&W 915-1040AM IN ROOM P106B, WHAT IS OUR TEST BANK AND WHAT IS A TEST BANK ANYWAY?
FAQ49: For all courses, what's the weirdest thing that Dr. Harwood thinks just might surprise us by being true, and/or what's the most unlikely conspiracy theory that Dr. Harwood thinks still rewards investigation, and/or what are 23 reasons to start questioning President Richard Nixon's claim that all 6 landings of humans on the moon in history occurred 1969-1972 during the first term of Nixon's shortened presidency?
FAQ50: What are 10 top quotes by Hegel (1770-1831) to discuss in Dr. Harwood's PHIL 10 @ EVC for Fall 2009?
FAQ51: What are 11 top quotes by or about Nietzsche (1844-1900) that students may use in the A-sections of term papers discussing Nietzsche?
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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, cell 687-8199; office 408-254-7777
faxes = 408-538-9894
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 12/21/09 when he did the
following:
A) reminded students that all extra credit assignments are now due by
noon on January 3, 2010 by email only
B) reminded students that they can email Dr. H to get updated grade info by using the code Dr. H gave each student at the final exam
C) announced that the deadline for Dr. H to submit the course grades to admissions and records is January 4, 2010
D) announced that the deadline for Dr. H to submit the details of how the course grades were calculated is January 11, 2010
E) announced that Dr. H plans to post more grades online every day (by code of course) until all are posted on Jan. 11, 2010
F) posted the final exam answers for PHIL 10 here, so students may get faster feedback by using their backup scantron forms to grade (unofficially) their final exams::
PHIL 10 FINAL EXAM ANSWERS
PHIL 60 FINAL EXAM ANSWERS:
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
FAQ3: What's my grade?
[COMING SOON TO A SCREEN NEAR YOU; SEE DR. H TO GET YOUR
CODE, SO YOU CAN READ YOUR GRADE HERE LATER]
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:
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
FAQ4: What are some quotes by or about Aristotle that students may use in the A-sections of any term paper discussing Aristotle?
1. "Man by nature has a desire to understand." ~ Aristotle, citation forthcoming;
2. "Man is by nature a political animal." ~ Aristotle, citation forthcoming;
3. "Judge no man happy until he is dead." ~ Aristotle, citation forthcoming;
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
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.
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
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).
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
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).
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
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
g 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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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.
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
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. "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",
http://www.tkc.com/resources/resources-pages/euthanasia.html, last
visited 12/28/2009.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 2. "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.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 3. "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 4.
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, 10/25/1996, p. 12.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 5.
"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, 5/4/1996, p. 1E.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 6.
"[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, 4/22/1996, p. 24.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 7. "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 8. "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 9.
"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 10. "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, West Publishing Co., 1989, p. 308.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 11. "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., Temple University Press, 1980, p. 38.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 12. "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., Temple University Press, 1980, p.
38.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 13. "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., Temple University Press, 1980, p.
38.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 14. "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.,
Temple University Press, 1980, p.38.
EUTHANSIA ARGUMENT 15. "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., Temple University Press, 1980, p.
38.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 16. 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., Temple University Press, 1980, p.
61.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 17. "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., Temple University Press, 1980, p.
53.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 18. 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., Temple University
Press, 1980, p. 53.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 19. "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", [date unknown], pp. 1-2.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 20. "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," [date unknown], pp. 6-7.
EUTHANASIA ARGUMENT 21. "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," [date unknown], pp. 10-11.
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
DAVID HUME (1711-1776) PHILOSOPHER, HISTORIAN, ECONOMIST,
EMPIRICIST, SKEPTIC, BACHELOR, ATHEIST ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
FAQ15: For all courses, what are some arguments on gun control that
students may use in a paper on gun control?
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 1: "One tempting way to intervene between the
manufacturer and the criminal end-user is to raise the price of weapons
entering the market, perhaps by taxing handguns heavily." James D.
Wright and Peter H. Rossi, "The Great American Gun War: Some Policy
Implications of the Felon Study," in Lee Nisbet, ed., The Gun Control
Debate, 2nd ed. (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001), p. 113.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 2: "[G]un ownership among the law-abiding poses no
direct risk of crime or violence in the community. Thus the only
justification for disarming the majority of the population is for the
sake of denying violence prone persons easy access (presumably mostly
through theft) to firearms owned by the law-abiding. In effect, the
justification runs this way: we must deny guns to 99 percent of the
population who will never commit a serious act of violence in their
lives in order to produce some marginal reduction in the ease of access
to guns among the 1 percent who will commit such an act." Gary Kleck,
"The Relationship Between Gun Ownership Levels and Rates of Violence in
the United States," in Lee Nisbet, ed., The Gun Control Debate
(Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001), p. 128.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 3: "Burglary is the most common type of intrusion of
the home and causes the greatest property loss, but it rarely threatens
the homeowner's life. The burglar typically seeks to commit his crime
without being discovered, if possible by entering a home that is not
occupied. Consequently, he is more likely to steal the home-defense
firearm than be driven off by it." Matthew G. Yeager with Joseph D.
Alviani and Nancy Loving, "How Well Does the Handgun Protect You and
Your Family?" in Lee Nisbet, ed., The Gun Control Debate, 2nd ed.
(Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001), p. 216.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 4: "With some 20,000 firearms regulations now on the
books, why does the clamor continue for even more laws? The answer is
obvious: none of the laws so far enacted has significantly reduced the
rate of criminal violence." James D. Wright, "Second Thoughts About Gun
Control," in Lee Nisbet, ed., The Gun Control Debate, 2nd ed. (Buffalo,
NY: Prometheus Books, 2001), p. 96. Do not quote the following in any
A-section. Note: Test the validity of this argument by asking if you
can imagine a case where the premises are true but the conclusion is
false. Can you imagine how there can be 20,000 firearms regulations,
clamor for more gun control, and yet at least some of the firearms
regulations have significantly reduced the rate of criminal violence?
Even if this argument is invalid, is it strong? When we clamor for more
of something we already have much of, do we imply that it is probably
undesirable?
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 5: "Most of the published estimates are produced by
the advocates, and thus are not to be trusted." James D. Wright,
"Second Thoughts About Gun Control," in Lee Nisbet, ed., The Gun
Control Debate, 2nd ed. (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001), p. 96.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 6: "As long as there are any handguns around (and
even 'ban handguns' advocates make an exception for police or military
handguns) they will obviously be available to anyone at some price.
Given Cook's data, the average street thug would come out ahead even if
he spent several hundred -- perhaps even a few thousand -- on a
suitable weapon. At those prices, demand will always create its own
supply just as there will always be cocaine available to anyone willing
to pay a thousand dollars to obtain [it]." James D. Wright, "Second
Thoughts About Gun Control," in Lee Nisbet, ed., The Gun Control
Debate, 2nd ed. (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001), p. 99. Do not
quote the following in any A-section. Is cocaine always available to
anyone willing to pay a thousand dollars for it? What about someone
locked in the best brig the U.S. Marines have? Does this quote commit
the fallacy of false dilemma?
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 7: "Most of the gun-owning felons in our sample grew
up around guns, were introduced to guns at an early stage, and had
owned and used guns ever since." James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi,
"The Great American Gun War: Some Policy Implications of the Felon
Study," in Lee Nisbet, ed., The Gun Control Debate, 2nd ed. (Buffalo,
NY: Prometheus Books, 2001), p. 118. Do not quote the following in your
A-section. Does 'Most' help make this a strong argument?
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 8: "If robbers were deprived of guns, there would be
a reduction in robberies against commercial places and other
well-defended victims. In general, a reduction in gun availability
would change the distribution of violent crimes, with greater
concentration on vulnerable victims." Philip J. Cook, "The Effect of
Gun Availability on Violent Crime Patterns," in Lee Nisbet, ed., The
Gun Control Debate, 2nd ed. (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001), p.
138. Do not quote the following in any A-section. Does this argument
commit the fallacy of appealing to pity? Does this argument pose a
false dilemma, since even if robbers were not deprived of guns, they
would prefer a more vulnerable victim to a less vulnerable victim (all
else being equal at least)?
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 9: "Defining 'well regulated'[:] Bill Traill
(Letters, June 23) argues that since newspaper licensing would not be
allowed under the First Amendment, gun licensing should not be allowed
under the Second. That would be a valid argument only if the First
Amendment read, "A well regulated media, being necessary to the
security of a free State, the right of the press, shall not be
infringed. "It is not by happenstance that the term 'well regulated'
appears at the start of this amendment and that the Second Amendment is
[the] only place in the Bill of Rights where that phrase appears. The
founding fathers carefully deliberated and debated over every single
word. Justifiably, they were just as afraid of an armed citizenry as
they were of an armed government.” ~ Mark Maslowski of Ben
Lomond, CA, from The San Jose Mercury News, June 26, 2001, p.7B.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 10: "The availability of a handgun and the taking of
a self-defense measure during an aggravated assault dramatically
increased the likelihood of a fatality." Matthew G. Yeager with Joseph
D. Alviani and Nancy Loving, "How Well Does the Handgun Protect You and
Your Family?" in Lee Nisbet, ed., The Gun Control Debate, 2nd ed.
(Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001), p. 215. Do not quote the
following in any A-section. Is this an enthymeme with the unstated
premise "Fatalities are bad"?
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 11: "'Schoolyard Killing' [:] I was appalled but not
surprised that your May 5 [1999] account of a murderous attack on
children in Costa Mesa was relegated to Page 3B. Can you deny that if
the man had used a firearm in his attack on children that it would have
been front page news? I would like an explanation of why an attack on
innocent children with a car as the weapon is less important than a
similar attack with a firearm.Given the fact that there are millions of
cars and firearms, and that cars are readily available, it would appear
that the threats of cars and firearms are equivalent. I suspect that
you chose not to publicize the Costa Mesa attack because it
demonstrates that our problem is not with any particular piece of
technology, but rather the fact that our society produces people who
think that committing murder is an appropriate way to express their
frustrations with life. This is a much more ocmplex and important issue
than your usual reflexive call for more 'gun control,' and you are
doing your readers a disservice by not addressing it." ~ Chris
Copeland, Cupertino, CA. San Jose Mercury News, May 7, 1999, p. 7B.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 12: "Gun control has proved to be a grievous failure,
a means of disarming honest citizens without limiting firepower
available t those who prey on the law-abiding. Attempting to use the
legal system to punish the weapon rather than the person misusing the
weapon is similarly doomed to fail." Wayne R. LaPierre, Guns, Crime,
and Freedom (Regnery Publishing, 1994), p. 102.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 13: "This is not a law enforcement issue; this is a
fundamental human rights issue. Law-abiding people carrying firearms
have never been a threat to law enforcement; and there is overwhelming
evidence to support the positive results of carrying concealed
firearms." Wayne R. LaPierre, Guns, Crime, and Freedom (Regnery
Publishing, 1994), p. 32. Do not quote the following in any A-section.
Does this commit the fallacy of false dilemma or false dichotomy in
assuming such a sharp distinction between the law-abiding and those who
violate the law? Isn't it obvious upon reflection that every person who
ever violated the law was at one time a law-abiding person?
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 14: "The public has a right to ask tough questions of
parole boards that release violent criminals before they have served 85
percent of their sentence. Where else would a failure rate of this
magnitude -- which sometimes results in the death, rape, or injury of
the innocent -- be tolerated? Would the Federal Aviation Administration
allow airplanes to fly with critical parts that failed 29 percent of
the time? Would the Federal Drug Administration allow drugs on the
market that either killed or caused crippling side effects 18 percent
of the time? Yet the American Bar Association's soft-on-crime stance
would put more criminals back on the streets, while attacking the
fundamental right of self-defense, and, indeed, the Second Amendment
itself." Wayne R. LaPierre, Guns, Crime, and Freedom (Regnery
Publishing, 1994), p. 101. Note: Does this argument fallaciously appeal
to authority, the legal authority of the Second Amendment? Does this
argument commit the fallacy of false analogy in asking questions about
different government agencies and different failure rates? Does this
argument commit the fallacy of red herring or evading the issue by
raising the issue of releasing violent criminals rather than focusing
more on the ABA's arguments for gun control (its alleged attack on the
right to self-defense and the Second Amendment)?
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 15: "Gun control proponents, intent on disarming the
American people, ignore history that reveals the greatest crimes
against humanity occur when ruthless governments disarm and then kill
powerless civilians." Wayne R. LaPierre, Guns, Crime, and Freedom
(Regnery Publishing, 1994), p. 167.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 16: "Most burglaries occur when homes are vacant, so
the handgun is the drawer is no deterrent. It would also probably be
the first item stolen." Josh Sugarmann, "The NRA is Right; But We Still
Need to Ban Handguns," in Richard C. Monk, ed., Taking Sides (Dushkin
Publishing Group, 1991), p. 268.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 17: "One tenet of the National Rifle Association's
[NRA's] faith has always been that handgun control does little to stop
criminals from obtaining handguns. For once, the NRA is right and
America's leading handgun control organization is wrong. Criminals
don't buy handguns in gun stores." Josh Sugarmann, "The NRA is Right:
But We Still Need to Ban Handguns," in Richard C. Monk, ed., Taking
Sides (Dushkin Publishing Group, 1991), p. 226.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 18: "Public health campaigns have changed the way
Americans look at cigarette smoking and drunk driving and can do the
same for handguns." Josh Sugarmann, "The NRA is Right: But We Still
Need to Ban Handguns," in Richard C. Monk, ed., Taking Sides (Dushkin
Publishing Group, 1991), p. 270.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 19: "How often are guns used merely to wound or scare
away intruders? No reliable statistics are available, but most police
officials agree that in a criminal confrontation on the street, the
handgun-toting civilian is far more likely to be killed or lose his
handgun to a criminal than successfully use the weapon in
self-defense." Josh Sugarmann, "The NRA is Right: But We Still Need to
Ban Handguns," in Richard C. Monk, ed., Taking Sides (Dushkin
publishing Group, 1991), p. 268.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 20: "The NRA maintains the gun laws don't work
because they can't work." James D. Wright "Second Thoughts About Gun
Control," in Richard C. Monk, ed., Taking Sides (Dushkin Publishing
Group, 1991), p. 275.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 21: "More women own or have access to handguns.
Between 1970 and 1978 the suicide rate for young women rose 60 percent,
primarily due to increased use of handguns." Josh Sugarmann, "The NRA
is Right: But We Still Need to Ban Handguns," in Richard C. Monk, ed.,
Taking Sides (Dushkin Publishing Group, 1991), p. 267.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 22: "More women own or have access to handguns.
Between 1970 and 1978 the suicide rate for young women rose 60 percent,
primarily due to increased use of handguns." Josh Sugarmann, "The NRA
is Right: But We Still Need to Ban Handguns," in Richard C. Monk, ed.,
Taking Sides (Dushkin Publishing Group, 1991), p. 267.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 23: "As public health professionals, if we are faced
with a disease that is carried by some type of vehicle/vector like a
mosquito, our initial response would be to control the vector. There is
no reason why if the vehicle/vector is a handgun, we should not be
interested in controlling the handgun." Josh Sugarmann, "The NRA is
Right: But We Still Need to Ban Handguns," in Richard C. Monk, ed.,
Taking Sides (Dushkin Publishing Group, 1991), p. 268. Do not quote the
following in the A-section of your paper. Harwood's helpful hint: Does
this argument commit the fallacy known as false analogy?
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 24: "The very increase of violent crime is what spurs
thousands of people to buy handguns for self-defense. Furthermore, many
of these new gun-owners lack the training to use their weapons
effectively. The very increase of violent crime is what spurs thousands
of people to buy handguns. No one can challenge the sincerity of their
concerns. Still, the very accessibility of these weapon creates a
problem." Pete Shield, Guns Don't Die, People Do, (Arbor House
Publishing Co., 1981), p. 343. Do not quote the following in any
A-section. Can we fairly fix up this argument to the following? If
there is an increase in crime, then there is a significant increase in
new gun owners. If there is a significant increase in new gun owners,
then there are many untrained and ineffective gun-users. If there are
many untrained and ineffective gun-users, then there is a life and
death problem. So, if gun control prevents an increase in new gun
owners, then gun control will prevent at least one source of a life and
death problem.
GUN CONTROL QUOTE 25: "A totalitarian society, and particularly a
totalitarian society occupying a country against its will, simply
cannot permit the private possession of weapons to any great extent,
except by those who have proven their loyalty." ~ The Legislative
Reference Service, quoted in Robert J. Kukla, Gun Control (Harrisburg,
PA, Stackpole Books, 1973), p. 440.
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
FAQ16: For all courses, what are some affirmative
action quotes
students may use in a paper on affirmative action?
Remember, you have Dr. Harwood's permission to quote in the A-sections
of your paper in ABC format anything from any published source on your
approved paper topic, including but not limited to the following:
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 1. “Your article on altering SAT
scores touches on a most sensible approach for selecting disadvantaged
students for a college education. Eight criteria are listed, with the
first seven being race/ethnicity blind, relating only to a truly
disadvantaged background, as it should be. However, the last criterion
explicitly addresses race and ethnicity.I doubt that there is a single
person in our nation who would object to supporting the higher
education of a child from a poor school with impoverished parents who
has shown he/she can be successful in college. But what does race or
ethnicity have to do with that child’s achievement? Ironically,
if only the first seven criteria are used, all black, brown or red
strivers would still be identified. As it is, by making race and
ethnicity a criterion, we taint those legitimate black, brown and red
strivers as ‘affirmative action’ ringers. How embarrassing
that must be for them. And how disappointing it will be for
impoverished strivers who will miss out of college because they are not
the right race or ethnicity.” William D. Allen Sr., Placentia,
CA, Letter to the Editor, The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 1999,
p. A23.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 2. “‘New Weights Can Alter SAT
Scores,’ you reported in your Aug. 31 [1999] Marketplace section.
And among the weights the Educational Testing Service is adding so
colleges can discern the ‘strivers’ among their applicants
are quality-of-life factors such as ‘kinds of electrical
appliances’ in their homes.Ergo, students should beware of
self-reporting household items like color TVs with premium cable
service, electric toothbrushes and computers with high-speed modems.
They should admit to nothing more advanced than wood stoves and
hand-cranked ice-cream makers lest the ETS formula plop them among the
ranks of the non-striving privileged, worthy of no bonus SAT points.I
would be an even better idea if they asked Aunt Sadie in Des Moines to
hustle up some genealogical proof of minority ancestry in the family
(or else just lie about it). Because plainly one must be a member of a
preferred group to rate being an ETS-certified striver. This weighting
game is all about continuing outlawed affirmative action by statistical
sleight. It is amazing that intellectuals strive so absurdly to kill
the ideal of individual merit.” Robert Holland, Arlington, VA,
Letter to the Editor, The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 1999, p.
A23.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 3: “Thank you for mentioning my work
in your article on adjustments to test scores in college admission. I
would make only one slight revision. My proposal is actually twofold.
First, I propose that colleges use a race-blind merit index of their
own creation. As stated in the article, this could indeed include the
extent to which a student’s test score exceeds his/her average
high school test score.But, second, along with use of its own merit
index, I also propose that institutions use a new, multistage
admissions model specifically designed to minimize the risk of legal
and political attack. Adopting a flexible, non-‘holistic’
model that uses data on race and ethnicity only where necessary is
really more important than the particular merit index the college
chooses. If colleges adopt what I refer to as a
‘merit-aware’ approach – both a merit index and a
multistage process – the tables will be turned on those who would
eliminate affirmative action in selective college admissions. That is,
it will be possible to admit more disadvantaged students of color (who
are qualified) with, on average, lower test scores even at the most
selective colleges, with legal and political impunity.” Bill
Goggin, Alexandria, VA, Letter to the Editor, The Wall Street Journal,
September 14, 1999, p. A23.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 4: “What right does the Educational
Testing Service have to judge a family breadwinner’s occupation?
According to the chart, the ETS feels free to play God by assigning a
child’s family to the socio-economic group based on
parents’ education, occupation and income. Well, my father never
made it to high school and he lays sewer pipe for a living. Of course,
he pulls in seven figures a year because he owns the company and runs
it well. Now, exactly how far down the ‘white-trash’ totem
pole are we? Please, ETS, stick to giving tests. Stop trying to cure
the ills of civilization. You are just making it worse.”
Christopher Timp, Scales Mound, IL, Letter to the Editor, The Wall
Street Journal, September 14, 1999, p. A23. Harwood’s Helpful
Hint: isn’t it inevitable when trying to advance civilization
that early efforts at inventions (e.g., airplanes) and institutions
will often make things somewhat worse than the status quo (the way
things are at the time)? Indeed, won’t some early efforts (e.g.,
airplanes) crash and burn? But even if this is so, does that mean that
we should stop trying to cure the ills of civilization? Isn’t
commanding others to stop trying to improve civilization too complacent
or too bossy? Does the writer of the letter above give any evidence
that ETS is making it worse, much less that ETS is just making it
worse? What is “it” anyway? Further, is there a false
analogy here? Do the acts of ETS really compare with the acts of God
(that is, with playing God)?
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 5: “In the equation that determines
whether a student is an ‘SAT Striver’ race is not
‘still relevant,’ it is racist. It is the coupling of junk
science and misguided social engineering. I expect more from the
Princeton agenda. Were I black, I would be offended if the equation
demonstrated that even with the balancing of socio-economic and
demographic factors, being black is the sole determinant of why there
are more Asians, Hispanics and whites who score 200 points above a
score predicted by socio-economic factors.Perhaps ETS research dollars
would be better spent micro-dissecting the private and parochial school
sector, such as the Jesuit high schools where it seems that the number
of black Strivers is equivalent, absent the race factor. Did I hear
someone say vouchers?” Augustine L. Perrotta, Clinton Township,
MI, Letter to the Editor, The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 1999,
p. A23. Harwood’s Helpful Hint: view the video “Junk
Science” by ABC News and available from Dr. Harwood. Then
evaluate this argument.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 6: “It is, again, not that
affirmative action concepts are wrongheaded. They indeed are not. They
should remain in place. But such programs are not solutions to our
problems. They are palliatives that help people like me, who are poised
to succeed when given half a chance. They do little for the millions of
African Americans bottom-mired in urban hells by the savage
time-release social debilitations of American slavery. They do little
for those Americans, disproportionately black, who inherit grinding
poverty, poor nutrition, bad schools, unsafe neighborhoods, low
expectation, and overburdened mothers. Lamentably, there will always be
poverty. But African Americans are overrepresented in that economic
class for one reason and one reason only: American slavery and the
vicious climate that followed it. Affirmative action, should it
survive, will never come anywhere near to balancing the books here.
While I can speak only for myself, I choose not to spend my limited
gifts and energy and time fighting only for the penny due when a
fortune is owed. … [S]ee the staggering breadth of
America’s crime against us. … Solutions must be tailored
to the scope of the crime in a way that would make the victim whole. In
this case, the psychic and economic injury is enormous,
multidimensional and long-running. Thus must be America’s
restitution to blacks for the damage done.” Randall Robinson, The
Debt: What America Owes to Blacks (New York: A Dutton Book, 2000), pp.
8-9. Harwood’s Helpful Hint: Is there a false analogy here? Is
affirmative action only a penny out of a fortune? Even if affirmative
action does little, must it do little? Couldn’t we expand or
improve affirmative action to do much more? Isn’t this what some
mean by President Clinton's slogan “Affirmative Action: Mend It;
Don’t End It.” Is Robinson’s argument a good a
fortiori argument (argument from the stronger, that is, the bolder
solution of reparations and hence also for the milder step of
affirmative action) affirmative argument?
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 7. “As Germany and other interests
that profited owed reparations to Jews following the holocaust of Nazi
persecution, America and other interests that profited owe reparations
to blacks following the holocaust of African slavery which has carried
forward from slavery’s inception for 350-odd years to the end of
U.S. government-embraced racial discrimination – an end that
arrived, it would seem, only just yesterday.” Randall, p. 9.
Harwood’s Helpful Hint: Is this a false analogy?
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 8: “In the state of Washington,
blacks make up less than 4 percent of the state’s population but
make up almost 40 percent of the state’s prison population.
Although blacks account for only 2.8 percent of undergraduates at the
University of Washington (the only public university in the state said
to have used affirmative action admission), Washingtonians
overwhelmingly approved in November 1998 a resolution banning
'preferential treatment' based on race or sex to any group in the
public sector. This placed the state in a group with California (which
had earlier approved a similar resolution) and three other states
(Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi) that had sought and won through the
courts bans against preferential treatment in university admissions.
Such actions underscored a disturbing general decline, roughly
coinciding with President Clinton’s tenure, in national black
college enrollment.” Randall Robinson, The Debt: What America
Owes to Blacks (New York: A Dutton Book, 2000), p. 102. Harwood’s
Helpful Hint: is this a good argument because it shows a need for
affirmative action, or a bad argument because it fails to show a need
for affirmative action?
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 9. "Affirmative action is absurd because it
would imply that we need affirmative action for whites in the National
Basketball Association (NBA), which is absurd." A version of a
frequently heard argument. Harwood's helpful hint: is this a false
analogy? Is there a difference in the history and ownership of NBA
teams? Haven't whites contolled the history of the NBA and aren't most
owners and coaches in the NBA today white?
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 10. "[E]ventually, the WASPs will have to
form their own lobby, for they too are a minority. The point is...:
there is no 'majority' in America who will not mind giving up just a
bit of their rights to make room for a favored minoirty. There are only
other minorities, each of which is discriminated against by the
favoring. The initial injustice is then repeated dozens of times, and
if each minority is granted the same right of restitution as the
others, an entire area of rule governance is dissolved into a ...
shoving match between self-interested groups." Lisa H. Newton, "Reverse
Discrimination as Unjustified," 83 Ethics 308-312 (1973), p. 311. Note:
"WASPs" means "White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants." Harwood wrote of
Newton's argument: "[T]he mere fact that there is no majority that will
not mind AA [affirmative action] is inconclusive. For, if one treated
lack of majority acceptance of AA as a conclusive reason to reject AA,
one would commit the ad populum fallacy... Newton also errs in
overlooking that our government is already involved in lobbying and
pushing and shoving between self-interested groups. ... So, Newton
poses a false dilemma in suggesting that we either reject AA or else we
will fall into this democratic pushing and shoving match." Sterling
Harwood, "Affirmative Action Is Justified: A Reply to Newton," in
Sterling Harwood, ed., Business as Ethical and Business as Usual: Text,
Readings and Cases (Boston, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 1996), p. 108.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 11. "[R]emedial rights exist only where
there is law: primary human rights are useful guides to legislation but
cannot stand as reasons for awarding remedies for injuries sustained."
Lisa H. Newton, "Reverse Discrimination as Unjustified," 83 Ethics
308-312 (1973), p. 312. Note: Harwood writes of Newton's argument:
"[S]he gives no further support for her view that law is the exclusive
source of compensatory rights. Thus, she seems to commit the fallacy of
appealing to the authority of law. Or perhaps she is equivocating on
'right' by trading on the ambiguity between legal rights and moral
rights. But, in either case, whether equivocation or appeal to
authority, her argument is fallacious. ... Finally, since AA is
well-entrenched in the law of both legislation and executive orders,
her emphasis on the supposed problem of the legal grounding of AA is
misplaced." Sterling Harwood, "Affirmative Action Is Justified: A Reply
to Newton," in Sterling Harwood, ed., Business as Ethical and Business
as Usual: Text, Readings and Cases (Boston, MA: Jones and Bartlett,
1996), p. 108.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 12: "After all, the Civil Rights Act was
established to provide equal opportunity for all citizens of the
country, and so affirmative action in employment is one sound way to do
this." quoted in Vincent Barry & William Harry Shaw, eds., Moral
Issues in Business, 5th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.), p.
436.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 13: "Social mores, expectations and
attitudes have changed dramatically for the past 30 years, especially
with regard to women's roles. Hence, racial and ethnic identities are
changing, too, which brings peace of mind." San Jose Mercury News, Dec.
29, 1996. Note: Affirmative action began in 1961 under President
Kennedy.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 14: "However, apart from the fact that we
keep talking about healing the racial rifts in our country, affirmative
action programs make everybody more racially conscious. They cause
resentment and frustration among whit men. Many black people and women
also resent being advanced on grounds other than merit. Finally, if one
hires and promotes people faster and further put them on merit, one is
asking for problems, isn't one?" quoted in Vincent Barry and William
Harry Shaw, eds., Moral Issues in Business, 5th ed. (Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth Publishing Co.), p. 432.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 15: "The white man sees himself to be
superior to the minority group and would say to himself that he has
nothing to do with the minority group because of a superiority complex
over the black man. Thus, he views blacks as outcasts, lazy,
irresponsible, poor, unworthy, and uneducated..." quoted in Vincent
Barry & William Harry Shaw, eds., Moral Issues in Business, 5th ed.
(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1995).
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 16: "Objectively, affirmative action should
be abolished in medical schools. This is because medical practice is
supposed to be based on the disadvantaged person who finds himself in a
helpless condition due to sickness. Hence, medical doctors are expected
to be sympathetic, lovely, kind, gentle, caring, humanly and these
attributes and their experience in their medical field give them the
privilege to handle patients without the doubt of the public." quoted
in the San Jose Mercury News, Dec. 29, 1996.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 17: "One the other hand, I hate affirmative
action because it does not want to give way to Proposition 209. The
government erred when it attempted to base decisions on race or sex. In
the view of the proponents, what started as a temporary effort to
correct past wrongs has assumed bureaucratic permanence. In this view,
the current system promotes injustice and ignores individual merit to
advance the interests of various groups." quoted in the San Jose
Mercury News, December 29, 1996.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 18: "Conversely, affirmative action laws
should be relaxed or eliminated. This is because affirmative action at
some level is causing more problems than good or than it is solving."
quoted in San Jose Mercury News, Dec. 29, 1996.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 19: "Everyone deserves to be treated
equally because we are all created by the same God. Therefore,
affirmative action should not be abolished in our society, even though
the white man claims that it does not favor him." quoted in Vincent
Barry & William Harry Shaw, eds., Moral Issues in Business, 5th ed.
(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1995), p. 432.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARGUMENT 20. "Discrimination is failing to treat
relevantly like cases alike and relevantly different cases differently.
So-called reverse discrimination [affirmative action] does not fit that
definition, since there is a relevant difference between blacks and
whites [for example], namely, that only blacks have been victims of
such severe and systematic racist discrimination. Only blacks deserve
so much compensation. There is less, or nothing, to compensate whites
for." -- Sterling Harwood, in "Introduction: The Pros and Cons of
Affirmative Action," in Sterling Harwood, ed., Business as Ethical and
Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1996,
republished 2000), p. 94.
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
FAQ17: For all courses, what are some quotations on prostitution
students may use in a paper about whether or not to legalize
prostitution?
Here are some links:
http://www.samueljohnson.com/prostitu.html &
http://www.iswface.org/morequote.html &
http://www.spicyquotes.com/html/Xaviera_Hollander_Prostitution.html
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 1. "To me, prostitution is morally neutral, as is
sex itself. It is how one uses prostitution that gives it moral value.
The act of paying for sex for me confers no moral value on it one way
or another. It is neither good nor bad, it is simply an act. This also
applies for me in the separation of sex from love and marriage (or a
committed relationship, etc.). If one uses prostitution, or sex itself,
to try to harm another human being it is morally bad. If one uses
either to help or give pleasure to another human being it is morally
good. It is as simple as that. There are some to whom prostitutes are
near heroes, such as Robert Heinlein who characterizes them as such in
his books ... There are others to whom prostitutes represent "fallen
women". To the vast majority of people they are an unknown quantity
apart from stereotypical received media images. To some feminists and
psychologists they are victims. Of course, the truth is that they are
none of these things. In the main they are a non-homogeneous group of
people doing a job. The same job. And that is about the only common
characteristic many prostitutes share." Mackenzie, S. (1992).
"Libertarian Alliance: Pamphlet No. 19". Retrieved March 23, 2003 from
the World Wide Web:
http://www.capital.demon.co.uk/LA/pamphlets/prostit.htm
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 2. “There is no more defiant denial of one
man’s ability to possess one woman exclusively than the
prostitute who refuses to be redeemed.” Gail Sheehy, quoted in
http://www.spicyquotes.com/html/Gail_Sheehy_Prostitution.html, visited
1/28/04.
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 3. “Actually, if my business was legitimate, I
would deduct a substantial percentage for depreciation of my
body.” Xaviera Hollander, quoted in
http://www.spicyquotes.com/html/Xaviera_Hollander_Prostitution.html ,
visited 1/28/04.
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 4. “The prostitute is not, as feminists claim,
the victim of men but rather their conqueror, an outlaw who controls
the sexual channel between nature and culture.” Camille Paglia,
Sex, Art and American Culture (Vintage, 1992), p. 18, quoted in
http://www.spicyquotes.com/html/Camille_Paglia_Prostitution.html ,
visited 1/28/04.
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 5. “Marriage is for women the commonest mode
of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women
is probably greater in marriage than in PROSTITUTION.” Bertrand
Russell, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 6. “If courtesans and strumpets were to be
prosecuted with as much rigor as some silly people would have it, what
locks or bars would be sufficient to preserve the honor of our wives
and daughters?” Bernard Mandeville, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 7. “If a woman hasn't got a tiny streak of a
harlot in her, she's a dry stick as a rule.” D. H. Lawrence,
quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 8. “These can never be true friends: Hope,
dice, a prostitute, a robber, a cheat, a goldsmith, a monkey, a doctor,
a distiller.” Indian proverb, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 9. “So do not think of helpful whores as
aberrational blots; I could not love you half so well without my
practice shots.” James Stewart Alexander Simmons, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 10. “Corruption is worse than PROSTITUTION.
The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former
invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.” Karl
Kraus, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 11. “Prostitution, when unmotivated by
economic need, might well be defined as a species of psychological
addiction, built on self-hatred through repetitions of the act of sale
by which a whore is defined.” Kate Millet, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 12. “Aren't women prudes if they don't and
prostitutes if they do?” Kate Millet, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 13. “All fighters are prostitutes and all
promoters are pimps.” Larry Holmes, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 14. “Punishing the prostitute promotes the
rape of all women. When PROSTITUTION is a crime, the message conveyed
is that women who are sexual are ''bad'', and therefore legitimate
victims of sexual assault. Sex becomes a weapon to be used by
men.” Margo St. James, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 15. “The desire for success lubricates secret
PROSTITUTION's in the soul.” Norman Mailer, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTUION QUOTE 16. “I don't think a prostitute is more moral
than a wife, but they are doing the same thing.” Prince Philip
II, husband of Queen Elizabeth II of England, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
Note: he is implying that Queen Elizabeth II is doing the same thing as
a whore.
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 17. “We are all murderers and prostitutes --no
matter to what culture, society, class, nation one belongs, no matter
how normal, moral, or mature, one takes oneself to be.” R. D.
Laing, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTUION QUOTE 18. “People call me feminist whenever I
express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a
prostitute.” Rebecca West, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 19. “Hollywood makes prostitutes out of women
and sissies out of men.” Anonymous, quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 20. “The greatest nations have all acted like
gangsters and the smallest like prostitutes.” Stanley Kubrick,
quoted in
http://www.nonstopenglish.com/reading/quotations/k_Prostitution.asp .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 21. "[T]he difference between prostitution and rape
in war is real, for there are always those men who choose, or prefer,
to rape." Susan Brownmiller, p. 75, Bantam Books paperback edition,
quoted in http://www.swimw.org/march2.html .
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 22. “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
Dr. Harwood.
PROSTITUTION QUOTE 23. “In a controversial 1998 report, the
International Labor Organization (ILO), the official labor agency of
the United Nations, calls for economic recognition of the sex industry.
Citing the expanding reach of the industry and its unrecognized
contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) of four countries in
Southeast Asia, the ILO urges official recognition of what it terms
'the sex sector.' Recognition includes extending 'labor rights and
benefits to sex workers,' improving "working conditions" (Lim, p. 212,
...) in the industry, and 'extending the taxation net to cover many of
the lucrative activities connected with it.'" from "Legitmating
prostitution as sex work: UN Labor Organization (ILO) calls for
recognition of the sex industry," Janice Raymond, December 1998,
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/26/119.html
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
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?
You may quote the following material in bits -- usually about 4
sentences long or so. The following material is found in Ch.36, by
Sterling Harwood and Anita Silvers, of the book: Sterling Harwood,
Business as Ethical and Business as Usual, pp. 190-191.
The famous Baby M case involves both moral and legal issues that arise when one person contracts with another to use the latter person's body for surrogate motherhood (that is, for creation of a baby who will become solely the former person's child). This is a real case that will enable us to practice using the moral principles we have learned to recognize. If this case seems disant from your lives, you might be interested to know that surrogate motherhood is now a not uncommon reproductive practice, although it rarely attracts as much publicity as the case of Baby M. In the future, you might find yourself considering whether to become or to employ a surrogate mother or advising a friend or ralative about doing so.As you read the facts of the case, keep track of which facts trigger the applicaton of any of the moral principles we have discussed. Use these facts in constructing well-considered evaluations of the actions in the case. Further, of course you should keep track of the actions you think are morally questionable, based on your knowledge of the 5 sets of moral principles you have learned (egalitarianism, libertarianism, utilitarianism, perfectionism, and the set of prima facie moral principles).
Here are the basic but dramatic
facts of the Baby M case.In 1985, Mary Beth Whitehead agreed to become
impregnated by artificial insemination with the sperm of William Stern
and to give up the resulting child to Stern: that is, Whitehead agreed
to become a surrogate mother. When she agreed to this, she was 29 years
old and married with two children of her own, a girl and a boy. Two of
her motivations for becoming a surrogate mother, she said, were that
giving Stern the child was "the most loving gift of happiness" and that
the $10,000 she was to earn as the surrogate mother would help pay for
her children's college education.William Stern was a 40-year old
biochemist, and his wife, Elizabeth, was a pediatrician. Both wanted
very much to have their own children. However, doctors diagnosed
Elizabeth Stern as suffering from amild case of multiple sclerosis. The
Sterns decided that becoming pregnant would therefore be too risky for
Elizabeth. The Sterns considered adopting a child. But there is a
so-called shortage of healthy, white babies available for adoption. The
Sterns also learned that many adoption agencies viewed them as too old
to adopt. Besides, Mr. Stern wanted a child of his own flesh and blood.
Mr. Stern hired Noel Keane, a lawyer who specialized in writing
ocntracts hiring surrogate mothers. Mr. Stern and Mrs. Whitehead signed
a lengthy contract Keane wrote. The contract specified that
Whitehead's
pament of $10,000 was to be held in trust until she delivered the baby
to Mr. Stern. Mr. Stern paid more than $10,000 to Keane. The
contract
specified that Mr. Stern would have all legal responsibilities for the
baby, even if it was born with serious defects or was stillborn.
Mrs.
Whitehead, the contract stated, was required to submit to
amniocentesis, a test checking on the health of the fetus. Mrs.
Whitehead agreed in the contract to have an abortion if Mr. Stern
simply requested it. The contract stated that the child would be
conceived "for the sole purpose of giving said child to William
Stern."After Mrs. Whitehead had been given standard psychological
tests, Keane thought there was little or no reason to expect
difficulties, especially because only two of his firm's more than 150
surrogate mothers had changed their minds about meeting the contractual
terms.Mrs. Whitehead gave birth to a healthy little girl. Mrs.
Whitehead turned over the baby to the Sterns. The next day,
however,
she implored the Sterns to let her have the child for just one week,
and the Sterns agreed. At the end of the week, however, Mrs. Whitehead
refused to return the baby and asked if the Sterns would agree to
giving her the child for one weekend each month and two weeks each
summer. The Sterns went to court to enforce the contract.To help
protect the anonymity of the girl, the court called her "Baby M."
Mrs.
Whitehead stated, "Seeing her, holding her ... she was my child ... It
overpowered me. I had to keep her." After Mrs. Whitehead had refused to
give up the child, the Sterns taped some of their telephone
conversations with Mrs. Whitehead. In at least one of these
conversations, Mrs. Whitehead stated that she would rather kill the
child than give it up to the Sterns.A judge awarded temporary custody
of Baby M to the Sterns, but Mrs. Whitehead ran away with her the next
day. The Sterns paid over $20,000 for a private investigator, who spent
more than 3 months tracing Mrs. Whitehead to the house of her mother in
Florida. The FBI and the private eye came to that house, took Baby M,
and returned her to the Sterns. Another judge decided just after
Baby
M's first birthday that Mr. Stern had legal custody of her. Mrs.
Whitehead then appealed this decision and lost, but she appealed again
to the Supreme Court of New Jersey, which ruled that the contract was
"illegal, perhaps criminal, an dpotentially degrading to women." The
court awarded custody of Baby M to Mr. Stern and granted Mrs. Whitehead
the right to visit Baby M. The court nullified Mrs. Stern's adoption of
Baby M and stripped her of any parental rights.The court's decision
settles the legal case of Baby M, but it fails to settle the moral or
even all the legal controversies surrounding the case. In New Jersey
the legislature or a future ruling by the Supreme Court of New Jersey
can change the law, and of course the court's decision is binding
precedent only in New Jersey. The moral questions were not settled by
the court's decision, since we cannot automatically conclude that
whatever is legal is moral (remember, slavery in pre-Civil War America
and Nazi extermination of millions were technically legal). Here are
some of the questions that your study of the 5 moral principles
(egalitarianism, utilitarianism, libertarianism, prima facie
principles, and perfectionism) we have learned should have raised in
your mind as you read the case. So discuss them all in your paper or
presentation.
1 Was the making of the surrogate motherhood contract immoral?
2 Was the breaking of the surrogate motherhood contract immoral?
3 Should the Whiteheads have run away with the baby, and should Mrs.
Whitehead have threatened to kill Baby M rather than give the baby to
the Sterns?
4 Did the Supreme Court of New Jersey reach a morally justifiable
decision?
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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; do not combine paper topics)?
1. "The unexamined life is not worth living." -- Socrates
2. "We learn from history that we don't learn from history." --
Sterling Harwood, based on a much longer point by G. W. F. Hegel that
is quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.
3. "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." --
George Santayana
4. "Nothing too much." -- Socrates & The Oracle at Delphi, meaning
"Nothing in excess" or "Moderation in all things." Compare this with
Aristotle's Golden Mean (which is different from The Golden Rule).
5. "Know thyself." -- Socrates & The Oracle at Delphi in Ancient
Greece
6. "Self-discovery is usually bad news." -- John Barth
7. "You want to hear my philosophy of life? Do it to him before he does
it to you." ~ Marlon Brando, actor, in the film "On the Waterfront."
8. "All religions have a
point where they reach absurdity." paraphrase of Joseph Campbell,
Mythos video series shown in class (I plan to get the exact quote soon).
9. "[I changed the definition of myth from the search for
meaning to] the experience of life. The mind has to do with
meaning. What's the meaning of a flower. There's a Zen
story about a sermon of the Buddha in which he simply lifted a flower.
There was only one man who gave him a sign with his eyes that he
understood what was said. Now, the Buddha himself is called "the
one thus come." There's no meaning. What's the meaning of
the universe? What's the meaning of a flea [or a flower]?
It's just there. We're so engaged in doing things to
achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the
rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it's all about." ~
Joseph
Campbell, The Power of Myth, video interview by Bill Moyers, Part 3,
circa 1988.
10. "[E]xperience Life as reality. Has Life a 'meaning'? Experience Life as reality and the question becomes meaningless." ~ Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, translated by Leif Sjoberg & W. H. Auden (Ballantine Books, 1983, originally 1963), p. 111.
11."Follow
your bliss." Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), The Power of Myth,
published posthumously in 1988.
12. "Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible
energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.
Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and
historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very
dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth."
Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949),
Prologue.
13. I am that I am. Judeo-Christian quote.
15. "The only Christian died on the cross." approximate quote of
Friedrich Nietzsche (exact quote and source I plan on coming soon)
16. "As for future life, every man must judge for himself between
conflicting vague probabilities." Charles Darwin, quoted in HBQ, p. 389.
17. "My own mind is my own church." Thomas Paine, American
revolutionary, quoted in HBQ, p. 89.
18. "Religion is the way we honour our ancestors' errors." Mark M.
Otoysao, quoted in HBQ, p. 389.
19. "A minister is coming down every generation nearer and nearer to
the common level of the useful citizen -- no oracle at all, but a man
of more than average moral instincts, who if he knows anything, knows
how little he knows." Oliver Wendell Holmes, quoted in HBQ, p. 389;
compare this with Socrates's take on the Oracle at Delphi's claim that
there was none wiser than Socrates.
20. "Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day."
Albert Camus, French philosopher and winner of the Nobel prize for
literature, who died in 1960; quoted in HBQ, p. 388.
21. "What's the difference between a religion and a cult? A religion
has money." The Wizard of Id, an approximate quote from Dr. Harwood's
memory of the comic strip in the 1980s.
22. "Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason
to believe. It is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be
believed." Voltaire, quoted in HBQ, p. 389.
23. "One's religion is whatever he is most interested in." James M.
Barrie, quoted in HBQ, p. 389.
24. "The church exists for the sake of those outside it." William
Temple (aka Archbishop of Canterbury), quoted in HBQ, p. 389; compare
Paine's quote.
25. "The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are
wisely careful never to set up any of their own." Edmund Burke, quoted
in HBQ, p. 389.
26. "Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of Man." Francis
Bacon, quoted in HBQ, p. 393.
27. "If the thunder is not loud, the peasant forgets to cross himself."
Russian proverb, quoted in HBQ, p. 393.
28. "The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and
I for one must be content to remain agnostic." Charles Darwin, quoted
in HBQ, p. 392.
29. "Puritanism -- the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be
happy." H. L. Menken, quoted in HBQ, p. 392.
30. "When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a
normal and wholesome life." Sigmund Freud, quoted in HBQ, p. 392.
31. "My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the
universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to
be servants of their human interests." George Santayana, quoted in HBQ,
p. 393.
32. "There is a crack in everything God has made." Ralph Waldo Emerson,
quoted in HBQ, p. 393.
33. "The voice of the people is the voice of God." Latin proverb,
quoted in HBQ, p. 393.
34. "Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it."
George Bernard Shaw, quoted in HBQ, p. 393.
35. "An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support." Fulton
Sheen, HBQ, p. 393.
36. "I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist, and
Confucian." Gandhi, quoted in HBQ, p. 394.
37. "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." John
Morley, quoted in HBQ, p. 394.
38. "Men prefer to believe that they are degenerated angels, rather
than elevated aped." W. Winwood Roade, quoted in HBQ, p. 394.
39. "My theology, briefly,Is that the universeWas dictatedBut not
signed." Christopher Morley, quoted in HBQ, p. 393.
40. "There is one Islam only." IT, p. 6.
41. "Islam constantly points to the interlinking of everything, the
unity of the universe." IT, p. 5.
42. "[A]lthough Muslim society and Islam in the ideal are fused, in
reality many Muslims do not live by the ideal." IT, p. 5.
43. "[P]eace be upon him." Muslim saying, IT, p. 12.
44. "The Prophet [Muhammed] was born in 570 AD. His father had died a
few weeks earlier." IT, p. 14.
45. According to Muslims, "God's first house on earth [was] built by
Adam and later rebuilt by the prophet Abraham and his son Ismail." IT,
p. 14.
46. "[T]he word itself ['Islam'] means submission to the will of God."
IT, p. 17.
47. "... Muslims believe that there have been over 124,000 'prophets'
who spread the message of God, whether directly or indirectly. Such
figures, some Muslim scholars have suggested, include people like Plato
and Buddha ..." IT, p. 24.
48. "As Islam is not linked to the founder of the religion, it is also
not linked to a geographical ara. This is unlike Hinduism, which
derives its name from Hind or the river Indus, or Judaism, which
derives its name from the land of Judaea." IT, p. 25.
49. "The religion [of Islam] is not 'Muhammadanism', as it was
incorrectly called in the West until recently. The idea of
'Muhammadanism' for the West corresponded to the fact that Christianity
was named after Christ and Buddhism after Buddha -- both figures seen
as divine or semi-divine by there followers." IT, p. 25.
50. "Muslims do not allow images or [visual] representations of the
Prophet." IT, p. 22.
51. "The Quran repeatedly points out that both Jews and Christians are
'people of the Book', that the original Books came from God. Indeed,
for Islam the prophets of Judaism and Christianity are also prophets of
Islam. The prophets of Islam begin with Adam, and include Nuh (noah),
Ibrahim (Abraham), Ismail (Ishmael), Ishaq (Isaac), Loot (Lot), Yaqub
(Jacob), Yusuf (Joseph), Musa (Moses) and Ayybu (Job). There is even a
geneological link with Jews: Jews calim descent from Abraham through
his son Isaac while the Arabs claim descent through his son Ismail."
IT, p. 23.
52. "The Prophet contracted twelve marriages [after his first]. ... It
is the Prophet's treatment of his wives -- with fairness, gentleness,
and respect -- that has laid the basis for the treatment of women in
Islam. It must be understood that these marriages were only allowed to
the Prophet. A Muslim is encouraged to marry only once but under
extraordinary circumstances may marry up to four wives." IT, p. 20.
53. "...[S]he [Khadijah, wife of the Prophet] would have the singular
honor of being the first Muslim in history." IT, p. 16.
54. "The message of Islam was first revealed to the Prophet in 610,
when he was engaged in one of his periods of retreat to the cave on
Hira." IT, p. 16.
55. "'None of you can be a believer unless he loves for his brother
what he loves for himself,' said the Prophet." IT, p. 18. Compare this
to "Love thy neighbor." and the Golden Rule.
57. "Even God cannot change the past." Agathon (447?-401 BC), ODQ, p. 3.
58. "The voice of the people is the voice of God." Alcuin (735-804),
ODQ, p. 3.
59. "Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by
Proidence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."
John O'Sullivan (1813-1895), quoted in ODQ, p. 370.
60. "It is a reproach to religion and government to suffer so much
poverty and excess." William Penn (1644-1718), quoted in ODQ, p. 377.
71. “Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in
mankind.” – quoted by actor Jack Lord, playing police
captain Steve McGarrett, Hawaii Five-0 episode “Just Lucky, I
Guess.” See John Dunne on this idea.
72. "I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may
learn how to do it." --Pablo Picasso; double check the source; got it
from em from musician
73. “No one can wear one face to himself and another to the
multitude without getting bewildered about which might be true.”
– Nathaniel Hawthorne; source: The Sopranos,
“College,” broadcast on HBO on 3/2/03 at 5pm.
74. “It’s difficult to say what’s impossible, since
the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of
tomorrow.” – Robert Goddard, rocket scientist, quoted on
CNN, 1116am PT, 2/8/03.
75. 1. “Oil is too important to be left to the Arabs.”
– Henry Kissinger, quoted in Hidden Wars of Desert Storm, video.
76. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men
to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke, quoted at the end of the
film “Tears of the Sun” (2003; war), starring Bruce Willis;
Tom Skerritt; Monica Belucci; Cole Hauser; Eamonn Walker; Nick
Chinlund; Fionnula Flanagan; and Malick Bowens; Chad Smith; Paul
Francis; Charles Ingram; Sammi Rotibi; Cle Sloan; Kobby Dankyi; Allison
Deam; Michael Clossin; Alice B. Shaw; & Faustino Suco.
77. “Common sense can be frightening.” – Bill
O’Reilly, The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News Channel, 6/13/03.
78. “But you could find examples of 5 positive things he [Hitler]
said in that book [Mein Kampf].” – Bill O’Reilly,
registered Republican, The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News Channel,
5-1-03.
79. “Only that which is the other gives us fully unto
ourselves.” Philosopher Sri Yogananda, quoted in the film
“Two Weeks’ Notice” (circa 2002), a romantic comedy
starring Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock, Donald Trump, and Mike Piazza (of
the LA Dodgers and NY Mets).
80. Compare the following quote with the Golden Rule: "Good people
proceed while considering that what is best for others is best for
themselves." (Hitopadesa, Hinduism), quoted in William H. Shaw,
Business Ethics (Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1991), p. 12.
81. Compare the following quote with the Golden Rule: "Thou shalt love
they neighbor as thyself." (Leviticus 19:18, Judaism), quoted in
William H. Shaw, Business Ethics (Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1991), p.
12.
82. Compare the following quote with the Golden Rule: "Therefore all
things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them." (Matthew 7:12, Christianity), quoted in William H. Shaw,
Business Ethics (Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1991), p. 12.
83. Compare the following quote with the Golden Rule: "Hurt not others
with that which pains yourself." (Udanavarga 5:18, Buddhism), quoted in
William H. Shaw, Business Ethics (Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1991), p.
12.
84. Compare the following quote with the Golden Rule: "What you do not
want done to yourself, do not do to others." (Analects 15:23,
Confucianism), quoted in William H. Shaw, Business Ethics (Wadsworth
Publishing Co., 1991), p. 12.
85. Compare the following quote with the Golden Rule: "No one of you is
a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself."
(Traditions, Islam), quoted in William H. Shaw, Business Ethics
(Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1991), p. 12.
86. "After all, what's a cult? It just means not enough people to make
a minority." The Globe and Mail, quoted in HBQ, p. 389.
87. "One's religion is whatever it is that is one's ultimate concern."
Paul Tillich, paraphrased from Dr. Harwood's memory.
88. "Not this, not that. (neti, neti)," from Hinduism; quoted in Leslie
Stevenson & David L. Haberman, Ten Theories of Human Nature, 3rd
ed. (Oxford University Press, 1998).
89. From a Buddhist point of view, [it] is standing the truth on its
head by considering goods as more important than people and consumption
as more important than creative activity. It means shifting the
emphasis from the worker to the product of work, that is, from the
human to the subhuman, a surrender to the forces of evil. The very
start of Buddhist economic planning would be planning for full
employment, and the primary purpose of this would in fact be employment
for everyone who needs an 'outside' job: it would not be the
maximisation of employment nor the maximisation of production. Women,
on the whole, do not need an 'outside' job, and the large-scale
employment of women in ofices or factories would be considered a sign
of serious economic failure. In particular, to let mothers of young
children work in factories while the children run wild would be as
uneconomic in the eyes of a Buddhist economist as the employment of a
skilled worker as a soldier in the eyes of a modern economist.
While the materialist is mainly interested in goods, the Buddhist is
mainly interested in liberation. But Buddhism is 'The Middle Way' and
therefore in no way antagonistic to physical well-being. It is not
wealth that stands in the way of liberation but the attachment to
wealth; not the enjoyment of pleasurable things but the craving for
them. The keynote of Buddhist economics, therefore, is simplicity and
nonviolence. From an economist's point of view, the marvel of the
Buddhist way of life is the utter rationality of its pattern --
amazingly small means leading to extraordinarily satisfactory results."
~ E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful (New York: Harper & Row,
Publishers, Inc., 1973), pp. 56-57.
90. "Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere!"
George Washington
Note to the gardener at Mount Vernon, 1794
"The Writings of George Washington"
Volume 33, page 270 (Library of Congress)
91. “To see what is right, and not do it, is want of courage, or
of principle.” ~ Confucius, quoted in Donald O. Bolander, Dolores
D. Varner, Gary B. Wright, and Stephanie H. Greene, eds., Instant
Quotation Dictionary (New York: Dell Publishing, 1972), p. 227.
92. “Honeyed words and flattering looks seldom speak of
love.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes
and Noble, 1994), p. 1.
93. “Of a gentleman who is frivolous none stand in awe, nor can
his learning be sound. Make faithfulness and truth thy masters: have no
friends unlike thyself; be not ashamed to mend thy faults.” ~
Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994),
p. 2.
94. “A gentleman who is not a greedy eater, nor a lover of ease
at home, who is earnest in deed and careful of speech who seeks the
righteous and profits by them, may be called fond of learning.” ~
Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994),
p. 3.
95. “Not to be known should not grieve you; grieve that ye know
not men.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes
and Noble, 1994), p. 4. Compare the old saying: “It’s not
what you know but who you know that counts.” Further, compare the
countersaying: “It’s not who you know that counts but who
knows you.”
96. “Guide the people by law, subdue them by punishment; they may
shun crime, but will be void of shame. Guide them by example, subdue
them by courtesy; they will learn shame, and come to be good.” ~
Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994),
p. 5.
97. “At fifteen, I was bent on study; at thirty, I could stand;
at forty, doubts ceased; at fifty, I understood the laws of Heaven; at
sixty, my ears obeyed me; at seventy, I could do as my heart lusted,
and never swerve from right.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings
of Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 5.
98. “If I talk all day to Hui [Confucius’s favorite
disciple], like a dullard, he never stops me. But when he is gone, if I
pry into his life, I find he can do what I say. No, Hui is no
dullard.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes
and Noble, 1994), p. 7.
99. “Look at a man’s acts; watch his motives; find out what
pleases him; can the man evade you? Can the man evade you?” ~
Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994),
p. 7.
100. “He [a gentleman] is broad and fair; the vulgar are biassed
[sic, biased] and petty.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of
Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 7.
101. “Work on strange doctrines does harm.” ~ Confucius,
quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 7.
102. “Listen much, keep silent when in doubt, and always take
heed of the tongue; thou wilt make few mistakes. See much, beware of
pitfalls, and always give heed to thy walk; thou wilt have little to
rue. If thy words are seldom wrong, thy deeds leave little to rue, pay
will follow.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius
(Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 8. Most of the things you regret are
things undone.
103. Confucius, to a questioner, on why Confucius is not in power:
“What does the book say of a good son? ‘An always dutiful
son, who is a friend to his brothers, showeth the way to rule.’
This also is to rule. What need to be in power?” ~ Confucius,
quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 8
104. “Without truth I know not how man can live. A cart without a
crosspole, a carriage without harness, how could they be moved?”
~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and Noble,
1994), p. 9.
105. Confucius, to the questioner Tzu-chang, on whether we can know
what is to be ten generations hence: “The Yin inherited the
manners of the Hsia; the harm and the good that they wrought them is
[sic: are] known. The Chou inherited the manners of the Yin; the harm
and the good that they wrought them is [sic: are] known. And we may
know what is to be, even an hundred generations hence, when others
follow Chou.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius
(Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 9.
106. “A friend to love, a foe to evil, I have yet to meet. A
friend to love will set nothing higher. In love’s service, a foe
to evil will let no evil touch him. Were a man to give himself to love,
but for one day, I have seen no one whose strength would fail him. Such
men there may be, but I have not seen one.” ~ Confucius, quoted
in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 18.
107. “A scholar in search of truth who is ashamed of poor clothes
and poor food it is idle talking to.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The
Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 18.
108. “The chase of gain is rich in hate.” ~ Confucius,
quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 18.
109. “Be not concerned at want of place; be concerned that thou
stand thyself. Sorrow not at being unknown, but seek to be worthy of
note.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes
and Noble, 1994), p. 19.
110. “One thread, Shen [a disciple of Confucius], runs through
all my teaching.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius
(Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 19.
111. “A gentleman considers what is right; the vulgar consider
what will pay.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius
(Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 19.
112. “Who contains himself goes seldom wrong.” ~ Confucius,
quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 20.
113. “A gentleman wishes to be slow to speak and quick to
act.” ~ Confucius, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius (Barnes and
Noble, 1994), p. 20. Cf. Be quick but never hurry.
114. “The Master’s teaching all hangs on faithfulness and
fellow-feeling.” ~ Tseng-tzu, quoted in The Sayings of Confucius
(Barnes and Noble, 1994), p. 19.
115. "God works in strange and mysterious ways."
-- Christian saying
116. "Religion ... is the opium of the people." -- Karl Marx, Critique
of
the Hegelian Philosophy of Right (1844), introduction, quoted in
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, p. 481; quoted as "Religion is the
opiate of the people" -- without ellipses -- in HBQ, p. 393.4. Note
that HBQ = Robert I. Fitzhenry, ed., The Harper Book of Quotations, 3rd
ed. (HarperCollins, 1993). 'ODQ' = The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations,
second edition, Oxford University Press, 1966.
117. "Judaism had been a religion of the
father; Christianity became a
religion of the son. The old God the Father fell back behind Christ;
Christ, the Son, took his place, just as every son had hoped to do in
primeval times." Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism, pt. III, sec. 1
(1938), quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, p. 569.
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
FAQ20: For all courses, what are some arguments on capital punishment
that students may use in a paper on capital punishment?
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 1. "Between 1980 and 1990, the nation's prison
inmate population soared to nearly 700,000 and it is growing more every
day. Over 3.6 million persons were in prison, in jail, on probation, or
on parole. Corrections has become the fastest growing single item in
most state budgets and the bureau of prisons has become the fastest
growing agency in the federal government. Our correction system is
built on the concept of rehabilitation, but clearly it doesn't work.
The recidivist rate, billions of wasted dollars and the failure of
countless prison job-training programs have left little room for
argument. Perhaps it's time to change the premise of corrections from
one of rehabilitation to death punishment." Kent W. Perry, Newsweek,
March 13, 1989. Note: the conclusion of all of these arguments is that
captial punishment is justified, or that it is unjustified. So note
that Perry may be understating his point too much in using 'Perhaps.'
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 2. "Most liberals say that the death penalty
does not deter murderers. I don't know why. There is not a case on
record where a killer who has been executed has killed again. It
certainly deters him. The graveyards of this nation are inundated with
the bodies of second and third victims of killers who via escape,
furlough or parole have lived to kill again." B. M. Lybrand, letter to
the editor, The Dallas Morning News, July 28, 1990, p. 30A, quoted in
Irving M. Copy and K. Burgess-Jackson, Informal Logic, 2nd ed. (New
York: Macmillan, 1992), p. 119. Suggestion: Distinguish between
deterrence and incapacitation, and distinguish between special
deterrence and general deterrence. Incapacitation is making the
prisoner unable to repeat his/her crime. Special deterrence is allowing
the prisoner to live but discouraging him/her from repeating a crime by
making him/her too afraid of further punishment. General deterrence is
discouraging the public at large from committing a crime by making the
public fearful of being punished for committing that crime.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 3. "An inmate who follows the hard-living
lifestyle will typically leave the penitentiary and then quickly get
tired of looking for work. Instead of going out and pounding the
pavement until he finds a job, he will start lying around the house.
His wife doesn't like this because she expected him to find a job and
help support the family once he does. He has no job, no money, and no
place to go. Then, because of his anger, and because he has returned to
his old way of thinking, he takes that anger out on a new victim. This
hard living will cause inmates to return to prison." Daniel J. Bayse,
As Free As An Eagle (Virginia: Kirby Lithographic Co., 1991), p. 117.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 4. "Because of increased juvenile crime, more
and more juvenile offenders are being viewed as vicious redators and
lost forever. For such individuals, parole would simply give them the
opportunity to kill again as adults. Violence among teenagers and
juvenile homicide has reached epidemic level. If the current trend
continues, killing by children could triple or even quadruple by the
end of the 1990s." Dr. Charles Patrick Ewing, ed., "Abuse, Alcohol and
Drugs Turn More Kids into Killers," quoted in Star Tribune
(Minneapolis, MN), Aug. 14, 1990, p. 7A.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 5. "Few questions stir more passion than the
ancient debate over the relative importance of heredity and the
environment. The debate is often stated in extreme form: genes are
destiny and environment does not matter. Yet there is no organism
without both genes and environment. Heredity affects traits and
behavior and the evidence is strong that many individual
characteristics have a genetic basis, no matter how slight. The
possibility that the tendency toward law-abidingness or criminality has
a genetic basis canot be dismissed out of hand." Morgan O. Reynolds,
"Crime by Choice," 1985, quoted in David K. Bender and Bruno Leone, the
editors, Crime and Criminals, (Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1989), p. 46.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 6. "From a religious point of view, the more
systematically we eliminate murderers by executions, the greater will
be the reinforcement against killing and the greater the number of
innocent lives saved. There are many Biblical commandments from God for
imposition of the death penalty for a variety of crimes. One of the
most familiar is in Genesis 9:6: Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man
shall his blood be shed." Chattanooga News, Free Press, 1983, quoted in
Gary E. McCuen and R. A. Baumgart, eds., (Wisconsin, GEM Publications,
Inc., 1985), p. 67. Note: Does this argument fallaciously appeal to
authority (religious or scriptural authority)?
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 7. "If all those caught producing or
processing addictive drugs, plus all those caught selling addictive
drugs in our country, were confronted with capital punishment
administered without recourse, then gradually this intolerable
situation of crimes of drugs would be ameliorated." W. H. Long,
Manchester Union Leaders, October 3, 1989, quoted in Donald Macgillis
and ABC News, Crime in America, (Chilton Book Company, 1990), p. 173.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 8. "Capriciousness and irrelevant
discrimination in the distribution of the death penalty to convicted
murderers - and even in the distribution of fines to people who double
park - should be corrected, for they outrage our desire for equality
and above all allow guilty personal to escape deserved punishment."
Ernest van den Haag, Letter to the Editor, The New Republic, Jan. 23,
1984, p. 2, quoted in Irving M. Copi and K. Burgess-Jackson, Informal
Logic, 2nd edition, (New York: Macmillan), p. 39.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 9. "But, contrary to abolitionist hopes and
expectations, the [Supreme] Court did not invalidate the death penalty.
It upheld it. It upheld it on retributive grounds. In doing so, it
recognized, at least implicitly, that the American people are entitled
as a people to demand that criminal be paid back, and that the worst of
them be made to pay back with their lives." Walter Berns, "Is Capital
Punishment Justified?," in Taking Sides, 3rd ed., (Dushkin Publishing,
Co., 19??), p. 176.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 10. "In 1972 Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote
that, punishment for the sake of retribution is not permissible under
the eighth amendment. That is absurd. The element of retribution -
vengeance, if you will - does not make punishment cruel and unusual, it
makes punishment intelligible. It distinguishes punishment from
therapy. Rehabilitation may be the ancillary result of punishment, but
we punish to serve justice, by giving people what they deserve." George
F. Will, "The Value of Punishment," Newsweek, May 24, 1982, p. 92,
quoted in Irving M. Copi and K. Burgess-Jackson, Informal Logic, 2nd
edition, p. 29.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 11. "We also reject petitioners' argument that
we should invalidate capital punishment of 16 to 17 years old offenders
on the ground that it fails to serve the legitimate goals of penology.
According to petitioners (the arguers), it fails to deter, because
juveniles processing less developed cognitive skills than adults, are
less likely to fear death; and it fails to exact just retribution,
because juveniles being less mature and responsible, are also less
morally blameworthy." Justice Antonin Scalia, for the U.S. supreme
Court, Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989), quoted in Irving M.
Copi and K. Burgess-Jackson, Informal Logic, 2nd edition, (New York:
Macmillan, 1992), p. 51.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 12. "The majority of prisoners on death row,
however, are too poor to pay private attorney. Their legal help has
been appointed by the state. But State-appointed attorneys are often
overworked, underpaid, and not as well supported by a paid staff as the
prosecuting attorneys." Fred Burning, Countdown to the Electric Chair,
Macleans, October 26, 1987, quoted in JoAnn Bren Guernsey, ed., Should
We Have Capital Punishment?, (Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company,
1993), p. 21.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 13. "Judges have studied and worked long and
hard to take on such life-and-death responsibilities. Most judges
believe strongly in the judicial system and want to serve it to the
best of their abilities. But what about juries? They are made up of
people who have varying abilities, probably little knowledge of the
law, and little choice about service as a juror. It doesn't take much
to be a member of a jury in a murder case. So, if they are not experts,
we shouldn't trust their judgment." Charles L. Black, Jr., Capital
Punishment: The Inevitability of Caprice and Mistake, p. 78.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 14. "I have always been against capital
punishment in any form. None of us has the right to take the life of
another human being, because if we're wrong, we can't give back the
life we took. I don't necessarily think of killing someone as
punishment of the condemned, it is the punishment of his family. When a
person is dead, you're no longer punishing him. You're punishing only
the people who love the person you've sentenced to die." Coretta
Scott King, quoted in Walter Berns, For Capital Punishment: Crime and
the Morality of the Death
Penalty, (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1979), p. 136.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 15. "As for the argument that it is cheaper to
execute a capital offender than to imprison him for life, is simply
incorrect: (1) A disproportionate amount of money spent on prisons is
attributable to death row. Appeals are often automatic, and courts
admittedly spend more time with a death case. At trial, the selection
of jurors is likely to become a costly, time consuming problem in a
capital case. All of these exhaust the time, money and effort of the
court. When all is said and done, there can be no doubt that it costs
more to execute a man than to keep him in prison for life." David
Gottleib, speech at the University of Kansas, quoted in David L.
Bender, ed., Death Penalty, Greenhaven Press, Inc., p. 214.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 16. "To sanction the death penalty for
economic reasons means equating the value of human life with money.
That's tantamount to killing for the sake of economy. To justify it on
the principle of 'an eye for an eye' is contrary to any strivings for
humanitarian principle. Thus the number one consideration is whether
capital punishment does reduce the incidence of crime." Robert H. Loeb,
Crime and Capital Punishment, (New York: Frankline Watts, 1986), p. 61.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 17. "We discern neither a historical nor a
modern societal consensus forbidding imposition of capital punishment
on any person who murders at 16 or 17 years of age. Accordingly, we
conclude that such punishment does not offend the Eighth Amendment's
prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment." Justice Antonin
Scalia, for the U.S. Supreme Court, Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361
(1989), quote in Irving M. Copi and K. Burgess-Jackson, Informal Logic,
2nd edition (Macmillan, 1992), p. ?
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 18. "CP [capital punishment] incapacitates
with 100% effectiveness. Unlike life imprisonment or any other
alternative, no more innocent people will be murdered by escapees or
prisoners." Ernest van den Haag, quoted in Michael J. Gorr and Sterling
Harwood, eds., Crime and Punishment: Philosophic Explorations (Boston:
Jones & Bartlett, 1995), p. 516. Note: Wadsworth Publishing Company
in Belmont, CA now owns and distributes this book.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 19. "CP [capital punishment] is feared above
all punishment because it is not merely irreversible as most other
penalties are, but also irrevocable. It hastens an event, which unlike
pain, deprivation or injury is unique in every life and never has been
reported on by anyone. Death is an experience that cannot actually be
experienced and ends all experiences." Ernest van den Haag, quoted in
Michael J. Gorr and Sterling Harwood, eds., Crime and Punishment:
Philosophic Exploration (Boston: Jones and Bartlett, 1995), p. 516.
Suggestion: search for any inconsistencies in this argument. Is there a
self-contradiction in this argument?
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 20. "End the death penalty""The current
assault on the death penalty concerns whether we should execute people
who are mentally retarded. The other major rallying point is the
argument that we can never be 100 percent certain that we are executing
the right person.The designation of a person as 'mentally retarded' is
somewhat arbitrary. We pick an IQ test score of 70 and say, "That's the
line." Does that mean it is OK to execute a person with an IQ of 71 and
not someone with an IQ of 69?The death penalty is wrong because it is
outrageous that we cede government the right to legally take the lives
of its citizens. Opponents of the death enalty should stop taking the
piecemeal approach and protest instead on the sound and convincing
grounds of its moral and ethical repugnance." Donald M. Olson, Redwood
City, San Jose Mercury News, 3/29/01, p. 9B.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 21. "End the death penalty""Those of us who
were at the San Quentin vigil Monday night (Page 1A, March 27) are
fully aware of the victims, but for me, the larger focus is upon our
inhumanity. I struggle to understand why we have so much hatred and
desire for revenge that we believe that to execute a person will bring
closure to a victim's family. Closure occurs when we can move beyond
hatred and revenge, and find forgiveness.What is behind the motivation
of the few people at the vigil who were there anxiously waiting for
Robert Massie's death? What motivates their desire for the death of
another? Where did we fail in teaching them the way beyond hatred?The
focus of a vigil at an execution is to bring to the attention of those
not at the vigil that we must move beyond hatred and revenge." Bob
Carter, San Carlos, San Jose Mercury News, 3/29/01, p. 9B.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 22: "Capital punishment is as fundamentally
wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty."~
Henry Ford, from
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henryford106263.html, last
visited 11/10/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 23: “Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws.” ~Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 24: “Justice is open to everyone in the same way as the Ritz Hotel.” ~Judge Sturgess, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 25: “People who love sausage and people who believe in justice should never watch either of them being made.” ~ Otto Bismark, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 26: “Justice is the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don't believe there is any royal road to attain such accommodation concretely.” ~ Judge Learned Hand, in P. Hamburger, The Great Judge, 1946.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 27: “When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.” ~Norm Crosby, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 28: “A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.” ~Robert Frost, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 29: “This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 30: “The trouble with the laws these days is that criminals know their rights better than their wrongs.” ~Author Unknown, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 31: “Justice is incidental to law and order.” ~John Edgar Hoover, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 32: “Justice may be blind, but she has very sophisticated listening devices.” ~Edgar Argo, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 33: “Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.” ~Thomas Szasz, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 34: “Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.” ~Erik Pepke, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 35: No man suffers injustice without learning, vaguely but surely, what justice is. ~Isaac Rosenfeld, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 36: “Somebody recently figured out that we have 35 million laws to enforce the ten commandments.” ~ Attributed to both Bert Masterson and Earl Wilson, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 37: “I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police.” ~ Keith Richards, lead guitarist, The Rolling Stones, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 38: “There is plenty of law at the end of a nightstick.” ~ Grover Whalen, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 39: In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls. ~Lenny Bruce, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 40: Although the legal and ethical definitions of right are the antithesis of each other, most writers use them as synonyms. They confuse power with goodness, and mistake law for justice. ~Charles T. Sprading, Freedom and its Fundamentals, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 41: If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of the lawyers in the first place. ~Lord Halifax, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 42: It's strange that men should take up crime when there are so many legal ways to be dishonest. ~Author unknown, quoted in Sunshine magazine, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 43: Hunger makes a thief of any man. ~Pearl S. Buck, quoted in You Said a Mouthful, edited by Ronald D. Fuchs, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 44: Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. ~Edmund Burke, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 45: But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. ~Frederic Bastiat, The Law, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 46: “The more laws the more offenders.” ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 47: “It ain't no sin if you crack a few laws now and then, just so long as you don't break any.” ~Mae West, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 48: “Law never made men a whit more just.” ~Henry David Thoreau, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 49: “If you don't know there's a trampoline in the room, you're not going to dust the ceiling for prints.” ~From the television show Law & Order, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 50: “Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.” ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 51: “The United States is the greatest law factory the world has ever known. ~Charles Evans Hughes, from www.quotegarden.com, last visited 11/9/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 52: “We’ve have 245 DNA exonerations so far and half those guys were on death row. How can … how do these cases happen? And they’re all a combination of bad police work, overzealous prosecutors, jailhouse snitches, junk science, bad defense lawyering, … [political ambition], judge’s who were asleep, … bad eyewitness identification…” ~ John Grisham, interviewed by Charlie Rose, Charlie Rose, PBS-TV, first aired 11/06/2009.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT QUOTE 53: “They [prosecutors, police] are never, never, never held accountable for that [the wrongdoing of willful misconduct by the police and prosecutors] because they are the law and they are not going to prosecute themselves.” ~ John Grisham, interviewed by Charlie Rose, Charlie Rose, PBS-TV, first aired 11/06/2009.
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
A
test bank is a list of questions that Dr. H plans to draw upon when
giving
tests in class. The test bank for PHIL 60 Fall 2009 @ EVC M&W
1045am-1210pm is as follows and Dr. H plans to add to the test bank
periodically throughout our course. I have answered at least some
of
those questions I have asked in class, so you can unofficially grade
your own
tests and get faster feedback. We use scantrons for the final
exam but
all other exams/tests/quizzes are on 5x8 cards. Answers submitted
on
anything but 5x8 cards will be refused except for final exam answers on
scantrons.
Abbreviations
& Clarifications: Note that ‘some’ means “at
least one” and does not mean
“only some.” Note also that ‘L’ means
libertarianism, ‘E’ means
egalitarianism, ‘U’ means utilitarianism, and “Dr.
H” means “Dr. Sterling
Harwood.” ‘Sagan’ means
“Carl Sagan,”
the author of one of our required textbooks.
1.
Dr.
H said in class that in
the "About the Author" section found in the hardback edition of
Sagan's book (but usually omitted from the paperback) is this claim:
"As a
community of scholars, we acknowledge with admiration his relentless
pursuit of
the really big question ... and the twin philosophies by which he lives
and
teaches: that 'Science is never finished' and that 'We make our world
significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our
answers.'"
2.
In Ch.1, Carl Sagan says the evidence for
channeling is crummy.
3.
In
Ch.1 of Sagan, Albert
Einstein says “All our science, measured against reality, is
primitive and
childlike – and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”
4.
In
Ch.1, Sagan says Plato
reported the story of Atlantis as hearsay coming down to him from
remote ages.
5.
In
Ch.1, Sagan says there
are hundreds of books about Atlantis.
6.
In
Ch.1, Sagan says that
Atlantis is the mythical continent that is said to have existed
something like
10,000 years ago in the Atlantic Ocean (or somewhere; a recent book
locates it
in Antarctica).
7.
In
Ch.1, Sagan says the
story of Atlantis goes back to Plato.
8.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says the laws
of motion and the inverse square law of gravitation associated with the
name of
Isaac Newton are properly considered among the crowing achievements of
the
human species.
9.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says that
the word “Spirit” comes from the Latin word “to
breathe.”
10.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says science is not compatible with spirituality.
11.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says science is a profound source of spirituality.
12.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says that Taylor and Hulse were co-recipients of the 1993
Nobel
Prize in Physics.
13.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says that when the findings and methods of science get
through to
us, when we understand and put this knowledge to use, many feel deep
satisfaction, and that this is true for everyone, but especially for
children –
born with a zest for knowledge.
14.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says that when we recognize our place in an immensity of
light-years and in the passage of ages, we feel so puny that we cannot
be
spiritual.
15.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says one of the great commandments of science is,
“Mistrust
arguments from authority.”
16.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says one of the great commandments of science is,
“Trust arguments
from authority by standing on the shoulders of the good scientists who
have
come before.”
17.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says the independence of science, its occasional
unwillingness to
accept conventional wisdom, makes it dangerous to doctrines less
self-critical,
or with pretensions to certitude.
18.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says that scientists, being primates, and thus given to
dominance
hierarchies, of course do not always follow the commandment to mistrust
arguments from authority.
19.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says scientists, being primates, and thus given to
dominance
hierarchies, always follow the commandment to trust arguments from
authority by
standing on the shoulders of the good scientists who have come before.
20.
In
Ch.2, Sagan said that the accuracy of Newtonian dynamics (with only
tiny
corrections from Einstein) is astonishing.
21.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says that when the findings and methods of science get
through to
us, when we understand and put this knowledge to use, many feel deep
satisfaction,
and that this is true for everyone, but especially for children –
born with a
zest for knowledge.
22.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says the independence of science, its occasional
unwillingness to
accept conventional wisdom, makes it dangerous to doctrines less
self-critical,
or with pretensions to certitude.
23.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says that scientists, being primates, and thus given to
dominance
hierarchies, of course do not always follow the commandment to mistrust
arguments from authority.
24.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says scientists, being primates, and thus given to
dominance
hierarchies, always follow the commandment to trust arguments from
authority by
standing on the shoulders of the good scientists who have come before.
25.
In
Ch.2 Sagan says science is not compatible with spirituality.
26.
In
Ch.2 Sagan says science is a profound source of spirituality.
27.
In
Ch.2 Sagan says that when we recognize our place in an immensity of
light-years
and in the passage of ages, we feel so puny that we cannot be spiritual.
28.
In
Ch.2 Sagan says that when we recognize our place in an immensity of
light-years
and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and
subtlty of
life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility
combined is
surely spiritual.
29.
In
Ch.2 Sagan says one of the great commandments of scient is
“Mistrust arguments
from authority.”
30.
In
Ch.2 Sagan says one of the great commandments of science is,
“Trust arguments
from authority by standing on the shoulders of the good scientists who
have
come before.”
31.
In
Ch.2 Sagan says the independence of science, its occasional
unwillingness to
accept conventional wisdom, makes it dangerous to doctrines less
self-critical,
or with pretensions to certitude.
32.
In
Ch.2, Sagan says that scientists, being primates, and thus given to
dominance
hierarchies, of course do not always follow the commandment to mistrust
arguments from authority.
33.
In
Ch.2 Sagan says scientists, being primates, and thus given to dominance
hierarchies, always follow the commandment to trust arguments from
authority by
standing on the shoulders of the good scientists who have come before.
34.
In
Ch.3 Sagan says that radioactive dating of samples returned from the
moon by
the Apollo astronauts shows that ancient cratered highlands on the moon
are
almost 4.5 billion years old.
35.
In
Ch.3 Sagan says that Antonin Artaud claimed to see, in part under the
influence
of peyote, erotic images in the patterns on the outside of rocks.
36.
In
Ch.3 Sagan says that perhaps the most famous spurious claim of a
portentous
pattern involves the canals of Mars.
37.
In
Ch.3 Sagan says the canals of Mars were first observed in 1977.
38.
In
Ch.3 Sagan says Venus is much more clement than Mars.
39.
In
Ch.3 Sagan says a few small mountains on Mars resemble pyramids.
40.
In
Ch.3 Sagan says in the Elysium high plateau on Mars, there is a cluster
of
small mountains resembling pyramids – the biggest a few
kilometers across
at the base – all oriented in the same direction.
41.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says there is something a little eerie about the pyramids
in the
desert of Mars that are so reminiscent of the Gizeh plateau in Egypt.
42.
In
Ch. 3 Sagan says that if we scrutinize 100,000 pictures, it’s not
surprising
that occasionally we’ll come upon something like a face.
43.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says that radioactive dating of samples returned from the
moon by
the Apollo astronauts shows that ancient cratered highlands on the moon
are
almost 4.5 billion year old.
44.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says that Antonin Artaud claimed to see, in part under the
influence of peyote, erotic images in the patters on the outsides of
rocks.
45.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says that John Michell is a British enthusiast of the
occult.
46.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says that John Michell refuses to take at face value
Artaud’s
claims about erotic rocks.
47.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says that perhaps the most famous spurious claim of a
portentous
pattern involves the canals of Mars.
48.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says the canals of Mars were first observed in 1977.
49.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says Venus is much more clement than Mars.
50.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says a few small mountains on Mars resemble pyramids.
51.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says in the Elysium high plateau on Mars, there is a
cluster of of
small mountains resembling pyramids – the biggest a few
kilometers across at
the base – all oriented in the same direction.
52.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says there is something a little eerie about the pyramids
in the
desert of Mars that are so reminiscent of the Gizeh plateau in Egypt.
53.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says our brains are programmed from infancy for finding
faces.
54.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says that perhaps the most famous spurious claim of a
portentous
pattern involves the canals of Mars.In Ch.3, Sagan says Venus is much
more
clement than Mars.
55.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says a few small mountains on Mars resemble pyramids.
56.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says that if we scrutinize 100,000 pictures, it’s not
surprising
that occasionally we’ll come upon something like a face.
57.
In
Ch.3, Sagan says our brains are programmed from infancy for finding
faces.
58.
In
Ch.4, Sagan asks: how could humans be the result of an alien breeding
program
if we share 99.6% of our active genes with the chimpanzees?
59.
In
Ch.4, Sagan says we’re more closely related to chimps than rats
are to mice.
60.
In
Ch.4, Sagan mentions the report that Andrew Crosse created microscopic
insects
electrically from salts.
61.
In
Ch.4, Sagan quotes John Locke saying in 1690: One unerring mark of the
love of
truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than
the
proofs it is built upon will warrant.
62.
In
Ch.4, Sagan discusses Charles Mackay’s 1841 book Extraordinary
Popular
Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
63.
In
Ch.4, Sagan mentions Wilhelm Reich’s claim to have uncovered the
key to the
structure of galaxies in the energy of the human orgasm.
64.
In
Ch.4, Sagan mentions the claim that Charles Piazzi Smyth discovered in
the
dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh a world chronology from the
Creation
to the Second Coming.
65.
In
Ch.4, Sagan reports that L. Ron Hubbard wrote a manuscript able to
drive its
readers insane (with Sagan wondering if Hubbard’s manuscript was
ever proofed
or proofread).
66.
In
Ch.4, Sagan says Hans Horbiger, under Nazi aegis, announced the Milky
Way was
made not of stars but of snowballs.
67.
In
Ch.4, Sagan mentions Wilhelm Reich’s claim to have uncovered the
key to the
structure of galaxies in the energy of the human orgasm.
68.
In
Ch.4, Sagan mentions the claim that Charles Piazzi Smyth discovered in
the
dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh a world chronology from the
Creation
to the Second Coming.
69.
In
Ch.4, Sagan reports that the Bridey Murphy case led millions into
concluding
serious evidence of reincarnation exists.
70.
In
Ch.4,
Sagan reports that L. Ron Hubbard wrote a manuscript able to drive its
readers
insane (with Sagan wondering if Hubbard’s manuscript was ever
proofed or
proofread).
71.
In
Ch.4, Sagan calls Martin Gardner’s book Fads and Fallacies in
the Name of
Science an eye-opener.
72.
In
Ch.4, Sagan says that Voltaire wrote: “’Truly, that which
makes me believe
there is no inhabitant on this sphere, is that it seems to me that no
sensible
being would be willing to live here.’ ‘Well, then!”
said Micromegas, ‘perhaps
the beings that inhabit it do not possess good sense.’”
[One alien to another,
on approaching the Earth, in Voltaire’s Micromegas: A
Philosophical History
(1752)]
73.
In
Ch.5, Sagan says there is no difficulty in understanding the motivation
of the
hoaxers.
74.
In
Ch.5, Sagan says there is difficulty in understanding the motivation of
the
hoaxers.
75.
In
Ch.5, Sagan suggests the book of Deuteronomy is a more or less typical
example
of a hoax.
76.
In
Ch.5, Sagan says the only sure way to test your adversary’s
defenses is to fly
an aircraft over their borders and see how long it takes for them to
notice,
and that the U.S. did this routinely to test Soviet air defenses.
77.
In
Ch.5, Sagan says Lorenzo of Valla was a polymath and a controversialist
and a
pedant who was crusty, critical, arrogant and who was attacked by his
contemporaries for sacrilege, impudence, temerity and presumption.
78.
In
Ch.5, Sagan says that high-altitude balloons can seem saucer-shaped
when seen
from the ground, that if you misestimate how far away they are, you can
easily
imagine them going absurdly fast, that occasionally, propelled by a
gust of
wind, they make abrupt changes in direction uncharacteristic of
aircraft and in
seeming defiance of the conservation of momentum – if you
don’t realize that
they’re hollow and weigh almost nothing.
79.
In
Ch.5, Sagan says he was a member of the U.S. Air Force Scientific
Advisory
Board committee that investigated the Air Force’s UFO study
– called “Project
Bluebook,” but earlier called “Project Grudge.”
80.
In
Ch.5, the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board committee found the
on-going
effort of Project Bluebook to be lackadaisical and dismissive.
81.
In
Ch.5, Sagan says by the middle 1960s Project Bluebook was headquartered
in the
same Air Force Base in Ohio where the Foreign Technical Intelligence
was
located, and that Foreign Technical Intelligence was concerned chiefly
with
understanding what new weapons the Soviets had.
82.
In
Ch.5, Sagan says the only sure way to test your adversary’s
defenses is to fly
an aircraft over their borders and see how long it takes for them to
notice,
and that the U.S. did this routinely to test Soviet air defenses.
83.
In
Ch.5, Sagan says there are no cases – despite well over a million
UFO reports
since 1947 – in which something so strange that it could only be
an
extraterrestrial spacecraft is reported so reliably that
misapprehension, hoax,
or hallucination can be reliably excluded and there’s still a
part of Sagan
that says “Too bad.”
84.
In
Ch.5, Sagan suggests the Donation of Constantine is a hoax.
85.
In
Ch.5, Sagan asks “After misapprehended natural events and hoaxes
and
psychological aberrations are removed from the data set, is there any
residue
of very credible but extremely bizarre cases, especially ones supported
by
physical evidence? Is there a ‘signal’ hiding in all that
noise?” and answers
that no signal has been detected.
86.
In
Ch.6 Sagan quotes Lucretius, from On the
Nature of Things (circa 60 B.C.), as saying that as children
tremble and
fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes
fear what
is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in
terror.
87.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says that, from 1894 to the time of his writing, repeated
surveys
have shown that 10 to 25 percent of ordinary, functioning people have
experienced, at least once in their lifetimes, a vivid hallucination
– hearing
a voice, usually, or seeing a form when there’s no one there.
88.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says that probably a dozen times since the deaths of his
parents he
has heard his mother or father, in a conversational tone of voice, call
his
name.
89.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says that since the death of his parents he has not heard
the voice
of his mother or father.
90.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says that since the death of his parents, he saw them
riding inside
a UFO.
91.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says Admiral Richard Byrd, Captain Joshua Slocum and Sir
Ernest
Shackleton all experienced vivid hallucinations when coping with
unusual
isolation and loneliness.
92.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says serious explorers such as Admiral Richard Byrd,
Captain Joshua
Slocum and Sir Ernest Shackleton never experienced vivid hallucinations
even
when coping with unusual isolation and loneliness.
93.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says psychedelic-induced religious experiences were a
hallmark of
the Western youth culture of the 1960s.
94.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says the Yale anthropologist Weston La Barre goes dso far
as to
argue that “a surprisingly good case could be made that much of
culture is
hallucination,” and that “the whole intent and function of
ritual appears to be
… [a] group wish to hallucinate reality.”
95.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says roughly 10% of Americans report having seen one or
more
ghosts.
96.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says 5% to 10% of us are extremely suggestible, able to
move at a
command into a deep hypnotic trance.
97.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says at least 1% of all of us is schizophrenic, amounting
to over
50 million schizophrenics on the planet, more than the population of
England.
98.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says that in 1970 John Mack published a book on nightmares.
99.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says advertisers must know their audiences.
100.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says audiences must know their advertisers.
101.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says advertisers need not know their audiences.
102.
In
Ch.6, Sagan says audiences need not know their advertisers.
103.
In
Ch.7, Sagan quotes philosopher Thomas Hobbes as saying in Leviathan
(1651)
“Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which every
one in
himself calleth religion.”
104.
In
Ch.7, Sagan quotes The Isa Upanishad (India, ca. 600 B.C.) as saying:
“There
are demon-haunted worlds, regions of utter darkness.”
105.
In
Ch.7, Sagan reports that St. Augustine was much vexed with demons.
106.
In
Ch.7, Sagan suggests that Augustine wrote The City of God.
107.
In
Ch.7, Sagan reports that Aristotle was Plato’s famous student.
108.
In
Ch.7, Sagan reports that Aristotle seriously considered the contention
that
demons script dreams.
109.
In
Ch.7, Sagan reports that Plutarch proposed that the demons came from
the Moon.
110.
In
Ch.7, Sagan reports that Porphyry proposed that the demons came from
the Moon.
111.
In
Ch.7, Sagan reports that Michael Psellus was someone who described
demons and
who was influential philosopher and a shady politician.
112.
In
Ch.7, Sagan reports that some thought 12,000 witches darkened the skies
as they
flew to Newfoundland.
113.
In
Ch.8, Sagan fails to write on the distinction between true and false
visions.
114.
In
Ch.8, Sagan discusses the role in our time of much dismissive chortling
and
ridicule.
115.
In
Ch. 8, Sagan says there are many instances of Reagan failing to
distinguish
fact from fiction.
116.
In
Ch. 8, Sagan says President Reagan claimed that he (Reagan) liberated
Nazi
concentration camp victims.
117.
In
Ch. 8, Sagan reports that Reagan spent WWII in Hollywood and did not
liberate
any concentration camp victims.
118.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says it is hard to imagine serious public dangers emerging
out of
instances in which political, military, scientific or religious leaders
are
unable to distinguish fact from vivid fiction.
119.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says Alfonso the Wise was king of Castile around 1248.
120.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says Jeanne d’Arc and Girolamo Savonarola were burnt
at the stake
for their visions.
121.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says the Inquisition’s punishment for Francisca la
Brava was to put
her on an ass and give her one hundred lashes in public through the
streets of
Belmonte naked from the waist up.
122.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says it is not hard to imagine serious public dangers
emerging out
of instances in which political, military, scientific or religious
leaders are
unable to distinguish fact from vivid fiction.
123.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says memory can be contaminated.
124.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says memory cannot be contaminated.
125.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says false memories can be implanted even in minds that do
not
consider themselves vulnerable and uncritical.
126.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says no false memories can be implanted in minds that
consider
themselves invulnerable and critical.
127.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says that Stephen Ceci of Cornell University, Loftus and
their
colleagues found that preschoolers are exceptionally vulnerable to
suggestion.
128.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says preschoolers’ exceptional vulnerability to
suggestion is
surprising.
129.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says preschoolers’ exceptional vulnerability to
suggestion is
unsurprising.
130.
In
Ch.8, Sagan says there is no distinction between true and false visions.
131.
In
Ch.9, Sagan says therapy does not exist.
132.
In
Ch.9, Sagan quotes the fictional character Sherlock Holmes as saying
that it is
a capital mistake to collect data before one has a theory to test
against the
data.
133.
In
Ch.9, Sagan quotes the fictional character Sherlock Holmes as saying
that it is
a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
134.
In
Ch.9, Sagan quotes Gabriel Garcia Marquez as saying that true memories
seemed
like phantoms.
135.
In
Ch.9, Sagan quotes Gabriel Garcia Marques as saying that false memories
were so
convincing that they replaced reality.
136.
In
Ch.9, Sagan says there is not much to this UFO business, except of
course on
the psychiatric side.
137.
In
Ch.9, Sagan says there is much more to this UFO business than the
psychiatric
side of it.
138.
In
Ch.9, Sagan says some estimates from opnion surveys range as high as
one in
four American women having been sexually abused in childhood, though
Sagan says
these estimates are probably too high.
139.
In
Ch.9, Sagan says some estimates from opnion surveys range as high as
one in six
American men having been sexually abused in childhood, though Sagan
says these
estimates are probably too high.
140.
In
Ch.9, Sagan reports one survey saying that 85% of all violent prison
inmates
were abused in childhood.
141.
In
Ch.9, Sagan reports there are many real cases of ghoulish sexual
predation by
parents or those acting in the role of parents.
142.
In
Ch.9, Sagan reports that rape victims are ten times more likely than
other
women to use alcohol and other drugs to excess and that the problem is
real and
urgent.
143.
In
Ch.9, Sagan reports that two-thirds of all teenage mothers were raped
or
sexually abused as children or teenagers.
144.
In
Ch.9, Sagan reports that a century ago Sigmund Freud introduced the
concept of
repression, the forgetting of events in order to avoid intense psychic
pain.
145.
In
Ch.9, Sagan gives a longer quote from FBI expert Kenneth V. Lanning,
who says
faith, not logic and reason, governs the religious beliefs of most
people.
146.
In
Ch.9, Sagan suggests that perhaps the startle reflex (sometimes when
falling
asleep we have the sense of toppling from a height and our limbs
suddenly flail
on their own) is left over from when our ancestors slept in trees.
147.
In
Ch.10, Sagan mentions the Scottish verdict of “not proved.”
148.
In
Ch.10, Sagan says magic requires tacit cooperation of the audience with
the
magician.
149.
In
Ch.10, Sagan says he remembered reading in college Robert
Lindner’s book from
1954 called The Fifty-Minute Hour.
150.
In
Ch.10, Sagan quotes E. M. Butler (from The Myth of the Magus (1948)) as
saying:
“[M]agic, it must be remembered, is an art which demands
collaboration between
the artist and his public.”
151.
In
Ch.10, Sagan reports that Anthony ewish won the Nobel Prize in physics
for the
discovery of pulsars.
152.
In
Ch.11, Sagan quotes the poet Rainer Maria Rilke (from “The Tenth
Elegy” (1923))
as stating: “… how alien, alas, are the streets of the
city of grief.”
153.
In
Ch.11, Sagan discusses Raymond Moody’s alleged evidence that we
survive death.
154.
Regarding
Ch.12 in Sagan, Dr. H thinks that on p.206 of Sagan gives a reasonable
scientific basis for believing that all of us will live an infinite
number of
years.
155.
In
Ch.12, Sagan notes “the success of the tobacco industry
…”
156.
In
Ch.12, Sagan discusses Occam’s Razor as a tool in Sagan’s
baloney-detection
kit.
157.
In
Ch.12, Sagan asks no questions on page 205.
158.
Ch.12
is the chapter in Sagan that Dr. H says is the most important chapter
in that
book.
159.
In
Ch.12, Sagan gives us a baloney detection kit to use to help our
critical
thinking.
160.
In
Ch.12, Sagan says gullibility kills.
161.
In
Ch.12, Sagan says tobacco is, by many criteria, more addictive than
heroin.
162.
In
Ch.12, Sagan says there was a reason people would, as the 1940s ad put
it,
“walk a mile for a Camel.”
163.
In
Ch.12, Sagan says there was no reason why people would, as the 1940s ad
put it,
“walk a mile for a Camel.”
164.
In
Ch.12, Sagan says more people have died of tobacco than in all of World
War II.
165.
In
Ch.12, Sagan says that, according to the World Health Organization,
smoking
kills three million people every year worldwide.
166.
In
Ch.12, Sagan says that more people died in all of World War II than
those who
have died of tobacco.
167.
In
Ch.12, Sagan says the death toll from tobacco will rise to 10 million
annual
deaths by 2020 – in part because of a massive advertising
campaign to portray
smoking as advanced and fashionable to young women in the developing
world.
168.
In
Ch.12, Sagan says part of the success of the tobacco industry in
purveying a
brew of addictive poisons can be attributed to widespread unfamiliarity
with
baloney detection, critical thinking, and the scientific method.
169.
In
Ch.13, Sagan says James “The Amazing” Randi won a MacArthur
Foundation Prize
Fellowship.
170.
In
Ch. 13, Sagan says the death rate for some goes down after the Harvest
Moon
Festival.
171.
In
Ch.13, Sagan says baloney, bamboozles, careless thinking, flimflam, and
wishes
disguised as facts are restricted to parlor magic and ambiguous advice
on
matters of the heart.
172.
In
Ch.13, Sagan says baloney, bamboozles, careless thinking, flimflam, and
wishes
disguised as facts unfortunately ripple through mainstream political,
social,
religious, and economic issues in every nation.
173.
In
Ch.13, Sagan says British hoaxers confessed to having made “crop
circles,”
geometrical figures generated in grain fields.
174.
In
Ch.13, Sagan says one of the saddest lessons of history is that if
we’ve been
bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.
175.
In
Ch.13, Sagan says one of the saddest lessons of history is that if
we’ve been
bamboozled long enough, we tend eventually to realize our mistake and
become
depressingly sad about it.
176.
In
Ch. 13, Sagan reports that Moses Maimonides was a Jewish philosopher.
177.
In Ch.14, Sagan gives an extended quotation
from Morris Cohen, a celebrated philosopher of science.
178.
In
Ch.14, Sagan never quotes Charles Darwin.
179.
In
Ch.14, Sagan quotes Cicero as saying that the first law is that the
historian
shall never dare to set down what is false.
180.
In
Ch.14, Sagan says Mao Zedon’s “Great Leap Forward”
caused tens of millions of
deaths.
181.
In
Ch.14, Sagan says Darwin militantly opposed racism.
182.
In
Ch.14 Sagan says Harold C. Urey was an American chemistry Nobel
laureate
(winner of the Nobel prize for chemistry).
183.
In
Ch.14, Sagan says we need to understand the theory to see what it
predicts.
184.
In
Ch. 15 of Sagan, no questions appear on page 270.
185.
In Ch.15 Sagan says St. Thomas Aquinas wrote
"Against the Gentiles”.
186.
In
Ch.15, Sagan has a longer quote from Charles Tart.
187.
In
Ch.15 Sagan says some of mainstream Christianity and Judaism embraces
and even
anticipated at least a portion of the humility, self-criticism,
reasoned
debate, and questioning of received wisdom that the best of science
offers.
188.
In
Ch.15 Sagan quotes William Blake's prayer saying may God keep us from
double
vision.
189.
In
Ch.15 Sagan says the Dalai Lama was plainly right on some matters.
190.
In
Ch. 15 Sagan denied that Moses Maimonides wrote "Guide for the
Perplexed.”
191.
In
Ch. 16 Carl Sagan makes some criticisms of nuclear scientist Edward
Teller.
192.
In
Ch.16, specifically on page 290, Sagan gives a few examples of
seemingly
contradictory aphorisms.
193.
In
Ch.16 Sagan makes no criticisms of nuclear scientist Edward Teller.
194.
In
Ch.16 Sagan quotes Euripides.
195.
In
Ch.16 Sagan reports that J. Robert Oppenheimer claimed that scientists
had
bloody hands.
196.
In
Ch.16 Sagan reports that President Truman instructed his aides that he
(Truman)
never wishesd to see J. Robert Oppenheimer again.
197.
In
Ch.16 Sagan reports that Edwin Teller lost part of his leg in a
streetcar
accident.
198.
In
Ch. 16 Sagan reports that the U.S. thermonuclear device was exploded in
1952.
199.
In
Ch.16 Sagan reports that Life magazine had an article in 1954 that
admired
Edwin Teller.
200.
In
Ch.16 Sagan says there was a nuclear accident in Pennsylvania in 1979.
201.
In
Ch.16 Sagan denies that he ever met privately with Dr. Teller.
202.
In
Ch.16 Sagan writes that in 1995 the CIA Inspector General said absolute
secrecy
corrupts absolutely.
203.
In
Ch.16 Sagan says that the Bible is full of so many stories of
contradictory
moral purpose that every generation can find scriptural justification
for
nearly any action it proposes – from incest, slavery, and mass
murder to the
most refined love, courage, and self-sacrifice.
204.
In
Ch.16 Sagan says it is not the particular task of scientists to alert
the
public to possible dangers emanating from science or foreseeable though
the use
of science.
205.
In
Ch.16 Sagan speaks of men being perhaps “testosterone-inflamed.
206.
In
Ch.16 Sagan says “In Joshua and the second half of Numbers [in
the Old
Testament of The Bible] is celebrated the mass murder of men, women,
children,
down to the domestic animals in city after city across the whole land
of
Canaan.”
207.
In
Ch.16 Sagan says “Even folk institutions that purport to give us
advice on
behavior and ethics seem fraught with contradictions.”
208.
In
Ch.16 Sagan says “In Joshua and the second half of Numbers [in
the Old
Testament of The Bible] is celebrated the mass murder of men, women,
children,
down to the domestic animals in city after city across the whole land
of
Canaan.”
209.
In
Ch.16 Sagan says “…stories of mass murder … can be
found in the books of Saul,
Esther, and elsewhere in the Bible, with hardly a pang of moral
doubt. It
was all, of course, troubling to liberal theologians of a later
age.”
210.
In
Ch.16 Sagan says: “It is properly said that the Devil can
‘quote Scripture to
his purpose.’”
211.
In
Ch.16 Sagan says “The Bible is full of so many stories of
contradictory moral
purpose that every generation can find scriptural justification for
nearly any
action it proposes – from incest, slavery, and mass murder to the
most refined
love, courage, and self-sacrifice. And this moral multiple personality
disorder
is hardly restricted to Judaism and Christianity. You can find it
deep within
Islam, the Hindu tradition, indeed nearly all the world’s
religions.”
212.
In
Ch.16 Sagan says “if we must make errors, given the stakes, they
should be on
the side of safety.”
213.
In
Ch.16 Sagan suggests these two pieces of commonsense folk wisdom are
contradictory: 1) Haste makes waste; and 2) a stitch in time saves nine.
214.
In
Ch.16 Sagan suggests these two pieces of commonsense folk wisdom are
contradictory: 1) Better safe than sorry; and 2) nothing ventured,
nothing
gained.
215.
In
Ch. 16 Sagan suggests these two pieces of commonsense folk wisdom are
contradictory: 1) Where there’s smoke there’s fire; and 2)
you can’t tell a
book by its cover.
216.
In
Ch. 16 Sagan suggests these two pieces of commonsense folk wisdom are
contradictory: 1) A penny saved is a penny earned; and 2) you
can’t take it
with you.
217.
In
Ch. 16 Sagan suggests these two pieces of commonsense folk wisdom are
contradictory: 1) He who hesitates is lost; and 2) fools rush in where
angels
fear to tread.
218.
In
Ch. 16 Sagan suggests these two pieces of commonsense folk wisdom are
contradictory: 1) Two heads are better than one; and 2) too many cooks
spoil
the broth.
219.
In
Ch.17 Sagan mentions crop circles.
220.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says there are no limits to the uses of skepticism.
221.
In
Ch.17 Sagan cautions us not to abet (help maintain) a general climate
in which
skepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous
thinking
somehow stuffy and inappropriate.
222.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says he thinks skepticism is impolite.
223.
In
Ch.17 Sagan writes about University of Buffalo philosopher Paul Kurtz.
224.
In
Ch.17 Sagan quotes Bertrand Russell as saying that insight, untested
and
unsupported, is an insufficient guarantee of truth.
225.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says many pseudoscientific and New Age belief systems
emerge out of
dissatisfaction with conventional values and perspectives.
226.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says some skeptics compel belief.
227.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says Alfred Wegener refuted the theory of continental drift.
228.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says astrology has been with us for 4,000 years or more.
229.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says astrology seems not to be as popular today as it used
to be.
230.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says a quarter of all Americans believe in astrology.
231.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says a third of all Americans believe Sun-sign astrology is
scientific.
232.
In
Ch. 17 Sagan says the fraction of schoolchildren believing in astrology
rose
from 40% to 59% from 1978 to 1984.
233.
In
Ch.17 Sagan quotes Michael Faraday as saying that nothing is too
wonderful to
be true.
234.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says most scientists would agree with the ancient Chinese
proverb
“Better to be too credulous than too skeptical .
235.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says many scientists tend to be diffident (unconfident)
about
describing their own sense of wonder at the dawning of a wild surmise
236.
In
Ch.17 Sagan tries to stress (that is, emphasize) that at the heart of
science
is an essential balance of two seemingly contradictory attitudes
– an openness
to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most
ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new.
237.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says that the essential balance at the heart of science is
how deep
truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.
238.
In
Ch. 17 Sagan says the collective enterprise of creative thinking and
skeptical
thinking, working together, fail to keep the field on track.
239.
In
Ch.17 Sagan says if you’re only skeptical, then no new ideas make
it through to
you, you never learn anything, and you become a crotchety misanthrope
convinced
that nonsense is ruling the world.
240.
In
Ch.17, Sagan reports that in France there are more astrologers than
Roman
Catholic clergy.
241.
Regarding
Ch. 18 of Sagan, Dr. H said in class that he thinks there is a serious
typo on
page 317 in Sagan, where Dr. H thinks Sagan meant to say that the
pro-atheism
and pro-polytheistic approach of the pre-Socratics was quashed rather
than
“quenched” by Plato, Aristotle, and then Christian
theologians.
242.
In
Ch.18, Sagan denies that the wind makes dust.
243.
In
Ch.18 Sagan says Alfred Nobel of Sweden invented gunpowder.
244.
In
Ch.18 Sagan says European civilization inundated and destroyed Aztec
civilization.
245.
In
Ch.18 Sagan says the zero is the key to comfortable arithmetic and
therefore to
quantitative science.
246.
In
Ch.18 Sagan says Germany invented movable type.
247.
In
Ch.18 Sagan presents the idea that the wind makes dust because it
intends to
blow, taking away our footprints.T 4/14/09.
248.
In
Ch.18 Sagan quotes Thomas H. Huxley comparing a “savage”
hunter with a “man of
science.
249.
In
Ch.18 Sagan says Alan Cromer wrote Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature
of
Science (1993).
250.
In
Ch.18 Sagan reports that Indian mathematicians invented the zero.
251.
In
Ch.18 Sagan reports that modern science has produced a far better
calendar in
European civilization today than the calendar used in Aztec
civilization long
ago.
252.
In
Ch.18 Sagan says Germany invented the rocket.
253.
In
Ch.18 Sagan says the Spanish invented the magnetic compass.
254.
In
Ch.18 Sagan says Americans invented the seismograph.
255.
In
Ch.18 Sagan says the ancient Egyptians invented the systematic
observations and
chronicles of the heavens.
256.
In
Ch.18 Sagan says Chinese civilization invented movable type, gunpowder,
the
rocket, the magnetic compass, the seismograph, and systematic
observations and
chronicles of the heavens.
257.
In
Ch.19 Sagan suggests there’s no such thing as a dumb question.
258.
In
Ch.19 Sagan quotes Heinrich Heine.