Philosophy 8: Introduction to Moral Philosophy

Dartmouth College

Winter 2003

Study Guide for Final Exam

The final exam will be held on Tuesday, March 11 at 8:00 am in 13 Carpenter. Two of the following questions will be chosen by the instructors. You will have two hours to write your responses to these questions. Consultation of books or notes during the exam will not be allowed.

1. A supererogatory act is one that is above and beyond one's moral obligation. (For example, one might think that running into a burning building to save an infant is supererogatory.) Which view does a better job of accounting for the possibility of supererogatory acts, Mill's or Kant's? Explain and defend your answer.

2. Compare and contrast Aristotle's account of the good life for the individual with Nietzsche's. Whose account do you find more convincing and why?

3. For Beauvoir, like Aristotle, the morality of an action depends to a great degree on the particular circumstances surrounding the action. Explain her view and contrast it with either Kantian ethics or utilitarianism. Do you think that ethics is best conceived as the application of universal principles to individual cases, or does it require greater sensitivity to the concrete circumstances of a case? Explain and justify your answer.

4. Contrast Beauvoir’s conception of freedom as the source of morality with that of Kant, drawing on the notions of the open future and rationality. How does Beauvoir’s conception of freedom lead to the objection that existentialist ethics is relativistic, and how does she respond? Do you find her response convincing? Why or why not?