Analysis Of Mackie's Argument From Queerness

Ayn Rand presents an argument against individual rights in her essay, Man’s Rights. She believes that these rights do not actually exist outside of the right to life and the right to property; or less specifically, the right to action. Many critics see flaws in her argument however, finding flaws in her reasoning. Rand attempts to argue that egoism and rights entail each other. Egoism being the theory that believes that selfishness is the foundation of morality.

In Wiggins’ case of fission he undermines the belief that all questions of personal identity must have answers. The belief when asked in response to brain division is found implausible. According to Parfit, ‘If all the possible answers are implausible, it is hard to decide which of them is true, and hard even to keep the belief that one of them must be true’. (1971, p.8) He also undermines the second belief that personal identity plays a part in survival. Wiggins’ case shows that you may not have identity but you may have everything you need for survival.

Yet, one must be causa sui to achieve true moral responsibility. Hence, nothing is able to truly be morally responsible. Strawson 's whole purpose of writing the article is to change anyone 's mind who says that we should be responsible for the way we are and what we do as a result of the way we are. He believes we are lacking freedom and control of doing so. He argues that if we do something for a reason, that is how we are, so we must be responsible.

In fact, natural and eternal law being a 'higher law' is the basis of King's philosophy of 'non-violent civil disobedience.' King views the segregation laws, a human law, to be in disagreement with natural and eternal law; therefore, he believes that these laws should not be followed. King writes, "Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality" ("Letter"). The first sentence is an appeal to 'higher law'; King claims if a law devalues someone, it is contrary to natural and eternal law, so the law cannot be just.

Cultural relativism has a variety of definitions, but the main idea is that a universal code of ethics does not exist--it varies culture to culture. Rachel’s examines cultural relativism in “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism” and argues that there are commonalities of ethics throughout every culture. Rachels sections off his argument to better explain what they believe. In this piece, they argue that cultural relativism is not a proper theory. They argue that it has many major flaws, but they acknowledge that parts of theory have some truth to it.

In his article “Framing Moral Intuitions”, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong sets out to reject moral intuitionalism by questioning whether moral intuitions can be justified non-inferentially. He defines a moral intuition as a strong and immediate belief (Sinnott-Armstrong, 47) and for it to be justified non-inferentially is to be able to justify it independently of any other belief (Sinnott-Armstrong, 48). His primary aim is to demonstrate that many of our moral intuitions are unreliable and consequently, that no moral intuition can be justified without inference. He does this by citing several studies that demonstrate how moral intuitions can be subject to “framing effects”. Framing effects are the effects that wording and context can have on our

In Loring’s article "The Scarlet Letter and Transcendentalism,” the stories of the characters from "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne are used to present the main point. Specifically, that to follow rules made by society you have to deny your own wants and needs. To do this you must harden yourself to the world, which is shown by Loring, to not be beneficial in any way. Loring’s first point about society, Puritan society especially, is that it does not value of encourage human desires. It demands a cold onlook and heart.

However, the critics are wrong to assume that the principle depends on the General Rule because Descartes explicitly states that the principle depends on the Light of Nature and not the General Rule (pg. 73). Critics also get this idea when Descartes mentions that every effect has a cause which then follows to say that everything must come from something, and then forming the principle (pg. 73). However, Descartes himself is wrong about his claims.

My perception of my body and matter in general is that it is in its essence divisible (Descartes,1641) This essay here will insert a reference to ‘Leibnitz’s Law’ or otherwise the relatively intuitive principle that for two things to be the same thing, they must share all the qualities of each other. Descartes does not specifically do so, but it is heavily inferred from his argument. Descartes now concludes that since minds are indivisible and bodies are, that according to the Leibnitz’s law they cannot be the same thing and hence: Conclusion: The mind is substantively different from the body and indeed matter in general. Because in this conception the mind is substantively distinct from the body it becomes plausible for us to doubt the intuitive connection between mind and body. Indeed there are many aspects of the external world that do not appear to have minds and yet appear none the less real in spite of this for example mountains, sticks or lamps, given this we can begin to rationalize that perhaps minds can exist without bodies, and we only lack the capacity to perceive them.

Another theory that would be useful in explaining this particular phenomenon would be postmodernism. With explaining this particular topic, Jean Baudrillard discussed hyper reality. Hyper reality is the representation of reality. Basically, hyper reality is a mixture of what is real and what is not, which means there is no clear way of separating the real from what is not real. Baudrillard argues that hyper reality does not have a positive impact on society.

Disconfirmation reasoning is when the prediction turns out to be wrong, then that is evidence against that theory. Therefore, since the theory of ectoplasmic dynamics does not attempt to confirm any predictions nor has it “survived” multiple refuted attempts, it is not in accord with the demarcation criteria, and as a result, cannot be rendered a scientific

Rowe mentions G.E. Moore theory as “The G.E. Moore’s Shift”, which ignore the classical philosophy made from skeptical philosophers that there is no evidence that supports the existence of an object. Moore uses a different strategy that questions that the existence of an object, which in such cases he used as an example a pencil. Moore makes two claims that contradict each other.