DR. STERLING HARWOOD'S HOMEPAGE

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: Set 1

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

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS WEBSITE

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

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

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

FAQ3: What's my grade?

FAQ4: What 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? 

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

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

  1. 649F
  2. 650F
  3. 666T
  4. 665T
  5. 667T
  6. 604T
  7. 605F
  8. 606F
  9. 607T
  10. 608F
  11. 609T
  12. 610T
  13. 611T
  14. 612F
  15. 613F
  16. 614T
  17. 616T
  18. 617T
  19. 618T
  20. 619F
  21. 620F
  22. 621F
  23. 622T
  24. 623T
  25. 624T
  26. 625T
  27. 626T
  28. 627T
  29. 628T
  30. 629T
  31. 630F
  32. 631T
  33. 632F
  34. 633T
  35. 634F
  36. 635F
  37. 636T
  38. 637T
  39. 638F
  40. 639T
  41. 640T
  42. 641T
  43. 642F
  44. 643F
  45. 644F
  46. 645T
  47. 565T
  48. 566T
  49. 567T
  50. 568T
  51. 569T
  52. 570T
  53. 571T
  54. 572F
  55. 573T
  56. 574T
  57. 575T
  58. 576T
  59. 577F
  60. 578F
  61. 579T
  62. 580T
  63. 581T
  64. 582F
  65. 583T
  66. 584F
  67. 585F
  68. 586T
  69. 587F
  70. 588T
  71. 589F
  72. 590T
  73. 591F
  74. 592T
  75. 593F
  76. 594T
  77. 595F
  78. 596T
  79. 597T
  80. 598T
  81. 599T
  82. 600T
  83. 601T
  84. 602T
  85. 603T
G) posted the final exam answers for PHIL 60, so students may use their backup scantron to get faster feedback by grading (unofficially) their own final exams:

PHIL 60 FINAL EXAM ANSWERS:

  1. 667T
  2. 666T
  3. 665T
  4. 655T
  5. 657F
  6. 658F
  7. 649F
  8. 650F
  9. 653T
  10. 654F
  11. 659T
  12. 636T
  13. 637T
  14. 640T
  15. 641T
  16. 642F
  17. 643F
  18. 644F
  19. 645T
  20. 647T
  21. 615F
  22. 617T
  23. 619F
  24. 358T
  25. 620F
  26. 623T
  27. 629T
  28. 92F
  29. 93T
  30. 94T
  31. 95T
  32. 96T
  33. 123T
  34. 181T
  35. 189T
  36. 328T
  37. 351T
  38. 352T
  39. 353T
  40. 354F
  41. 179T
  42. 359F
  43. 360T
  44. 361F
  45. 362F
  46. 363F
  47. 364T
  48. 416T
  49. 417T
  50. 443F
  51. 444F
  52. 478F
  53. 479F
  54. 480F
  55. 481F
  56. 482F
  57. 469B
  58. 470B
  59. 471A
  60. 472A
  61. 473A
  62. 474B
  63. 475A
  64. 476B
  65. 477B
  66. 1T
  67. 154T
  68. 155T
  69. 156T
  70. 157F
  71. 158T
  72. 159T
  73. 160T
  74. 161T
  75. 162T
  76. 163F
  77. 164T
  78. 165T
  79. 166F
  80. 167T
  81. 168T
  82. 185T
  83. 208T
  84. 209T
  85. 207T

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

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.

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

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.

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
 
SOCRATES (CIRCA 469-399 BC), PHILOSOPHER, TEACHER, THEIST, HUSBAND, FATHER, SOLDIER, PRISONER, SUICIDE

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: Set 2

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

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 

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: Set 3

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

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?

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

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.

 


********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

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?

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.