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Week 16 · Final study guide

Final Exam — Study Guide

Introduction to Philosophy Free sample edition

Coverage — what the final covers

The final is cumulative over Weeks 1–15, and it checks all nine course objectives. It opens in Week 16, the finals week, and closes at the due time your instructor sets. There is no time limit, and you get one attempt. The questions appear one at a time, and you cannot go back once you move on.

Format: 40 questions, and every question counts the same. Thirty-six ask you to pick the one option that fits, three ask you to judge a statement true or false, and one asks you to select every option that fits. Every argument, quotation, or short scene a question uses is written out in words in the question, so nothing depends on reading a chart. The only arithmetic anywhere on the form is one subtraction between two years the course pinned, and scratch paper is enough. No question keys an answer to an open question.

What is in scope, with the number of final questions on each course objective:

Final coverage by course objective: the weeks that teach it, its main skills, and its number of questions out of 40
Course objective Weeks that teach it Main skills Questions
1. What philosophy is 1, carried into 10 The definition and branches of philosophy; the Socratic method; reading Socrates through Plato 1
2. Arguments and validity 2, carried into 9, 10, 12, and 13 Standard form; valid and sound; the named valid and invalid forms; counterexamples 4
3. Reality and knowledge 3 to 5, carried into 9 The Forms; rationalism and empiricism; a priori and a posteriori; knowledge and justification 1
4. Mind, self, and free will 6 and 7, carried into 14 The mind-body positions; personal identity and no-self; the free will positions 1
5. The arguments about God 9 The ontological, cosmological, and design arguments; Hume's objections; the problem of evil and its responses; faith and reason 5
6. The ethical theories 10 to 12, carried into 13 Relativism, divine command, and egoism; utilitarianism; Kant; virtue ethics; the trolley; the theory-matching set 17
7. Justice and the state 13 Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Rawls; Mill's harm principle; Nozick 3
8. Philosophy beyond Europe 14 Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, and ubuntu ideas, compared with no ranking 5
9. Meaning and the synthesis 15 Sartre, Camus, and Beauvoir; the three answers on where meaning comes from; the reasoned position 3

Where the weight sits. The course plan weights the final toward the second half of the course, and this form leans that way strongly. All 40 questions come from the material of Weeks 9–15. Week 12 carries the most, 8 questions, so put the most review time on Kant's imperatives and his two quoted formulas, Aristotle's virtues and the mean, and the runaway trolley. Week 9 comes next with 7, then Weeks 10 and 14 with 6 each, Weeks 11 and 13 with 5 each, and Week 15 with 3. By objective, Objective 6, the ethical theories, is by far the heaviest at 17 questions. By difficulty, 17 questions are easy, 22 are medium, and 1 is hard.

The first half still matters. Seven questions check Objectives 1 to 4, and every one of them sits inside a later week's material, the way those weeks called the early tools back. Weeks 9, 10, 12, and 13 each put an argument in standard form and keyed it for validity, the Week 2 skill. Week 9 sorted the arguments about God with Week 5's line between a priori and a posteriori. Week 10 read Socrates through Plato's Euthyphro, the Week 1 method. Week 14 set the chariot beside the ship of Theseus and Locke's memory theory from Week 7. So Weeks 1–8 get a short callback section below, and Weeks 9–15 get the full review.

Topic-by-topic review

Each topic gives the key idea in plain words, the course's own definitions, the sources with their years, the strongest objection with a reply, and the mistakes students make most often with their cures. Each week also names the distinctions it asks for. The deeper review for every topic is that week's chapter, lecture page, slide deck, and readings.

Weeks 1–8 in brief — the tools the later weeks use

  • Philosophy (Week 1): philosophy examines fundamental questions about reality, knowledge, mind, value, and reasoning by careful argument, not by appeal to authority alone, and some reasons in it are better than others. Its main branches are metaphysics (what exists), epistemology (what we can know), ethics (how to live), logic (what makes reasoning good), political philosophy (justice and legitimate government), and aesthetics (beauty and art).
  • The Socratic method (Week 1): ask for a definition, test it with a counterexample, revise it, and test the revision again. Socrates wrote nothing that survives; we know him mainly through Plato's dialogues. In a translated line, the English words belong to the named translator.
  • Arguments (Week 2): an argument is a set of premises offered as reasons for a conclusion. Standard form numbers the premises P1, P2, and so on, gives the conclusion last as C, introduced by "So", and marks any premise the reconstruction adds as "(added)".
  • Valid and sound (Week 2): an argument is valid when its conclusion cannot be false if its premises are true; validity is a matter of form. It is sound when it is valid and every premise is in fact true. An inductive argument is judged for strength, which comes in degrees.
  • The forms (Week 2): the valid forms are modus ponens (if P then Q; P; so Q), denying the consequent (if P then Q; not Q; so not P), hypothetical syllogism (if P then Q; if Q then R; so if P then R), disjunctive syllogism (P or Q; not P; so Q), and the valid categorical syllogism (every A is B; every C is A; so every C is B). The invalid ones are denying the antecedent (if P then Q; not P; so not Q), running a conditional backward from Q to P, and the invalid categorical pattern (every A is B; this C is B; so this C is A).
  • Reality and knowledge (Weeks 3–5): Plato's Forms are unchanging, perfect objects of knowledge, such as Justice and Beauty, beyond the changing things we perceive. Rationalism holds that some substantive knowledge of the world comes from reason, without depending on experience; empiricism holds that all knowledge of the world comes from experience. A claim known a priori can be known independently of experience; a claim known a posteriori can be known only through experience. A priori names how a claim is known, never when you first learned it.
  • Knowledge (Week 5): the traditional analysis says you know a claim when it is true, you believe it, and you are justified. Gettier (1963) gave cases of a justified true belief that is true only by luck, so the three conditions may not be enough. Foundationalism, coherentism, and reliabilism are three answers to the regress problem.
  • Mind and self (Weeks 6–7): substance dualism says mind and body are different kinds of thing; the identity theory says mental states are brain states; functionalism says mental states are defined by their causal roles. Locke's memory theory ties a person to the experiences they can remember. The Buddhist teaching of no-self (anatta) denies a permanent self beyond a changing collection of body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. It does not deny that persons exist.
  • Free will (Week 7): determinism says that prior events, together with the laws of nature, necessitate every event; fatalism says what will happen will happen whatever anyone does. Hard determinism says determinism is true and free will does not exist; libertarianism says free will exists and determinism is false; compatibilism says free will exists and fits with determinism, taking no stand of its own on whether determinism is true.
  • The wager (Week 8): Blaise Pascal's argument in the Pensées (published after his death, in 1670) is a prudential argument, about what it is wise to believe, and not a proof that God exists.

Week 9 — Philosophy of Religion

  • The distinctions: a priori vs. a posteriori; valid vs. strong; the cosmological argument vs. the design argument; the logical vs. the evidential problem of evil; moral evil vs. natural evil.
  • Key idea: you meet the classic arguments on both sides, each in its strongest form, and the course keys no verdict on whether God exists. Theism is the view that God exists, atheism that God does not, and agnosticism suspends judgment. The God at issue is the God of classical theism: omnipotent (able to do anything it is possible to do), all-knowing, and wholly good.
  • The ontological argument: Anselm's Proslogion (written about 1077 to 1078) reasons from the idea of a being than which nothing greater can be conceived to the claim that such a being exists in reality. It is a priori, because it starts from an idea and uses no observation. The objection: the same pattern would prove that a greatest possible island exists. The reply from the argument's side: an island has no greatest possible form, since another beach can always be added, but a being than which nothing greater can be conceived is the one case where the idea fixes a maximum.
  • The cosmological argument: Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica gives five ways, and the first three, from change, from causes, and from things that might not have existed, are cosmological. They are a posteriori: they start from facts we observe and argue to a first cause, a cause nothing else causes, or to a necessary being, one that could not have failed to exist. The fifth way is a design argument. The objections: a chain of causes might run back forever, and a first cause need not be wholly good. The reply: the chain at issue is one of causes acting now, at once, and the first cause's other qualities are argued for in further steps.
  • The design argument: William Paley's Natural Theology (1802) gives the watch on the heath: as a watch found on a heath shows a watchmaker, the order of living things shows a designer. It starts from order, so it is a different argument from the cosmological one, which starts from change, causes, and dependence. It is an argument from analogy, an inductive argument, so it is judged for strength, not validity.
  • Hume's objections: David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (published after his death, 1779) presses two points. The universe is not much like a machine, so the analogy is weak; and order on its own could not establish that the designer is single, perfect, or still alive. The reply from the design side: an analogy can give some support without being perfect, and the designer's other qualities need further argument.
  • The problem of evil: J. L. Mackie's "Evil and Omnipotence" (1955) gives the logical version: evil cannot exist alongside a God who is wholly good and omnipotent, because the claims are inconsistent. The evidential version says that the amount and kind of suffering make God's existence unlikely, not impossible. It is an argument about whether a set of claims fits together, never an argument that religious people are bad.
  • The responses: the free will defense holds that a world that contains free creatures beats a world without them, and that even an omnipotent being cannot make creatures who are free and certain always to choose well. A soul-making theodicy holds that hardship gives people the chance to grow in courage and compassion. The critic's reply: natural evil, such as a flood, comes from no one's choice, so the free will defense does not reach it by itself. Moral evil comes from people's free choices.
  • Faith and reason: natural theology argues for God from reason and observation, without appeal to scripture. Some hold that belief should rest on argument and evidence; others hold that faith can go beyond what argument shows. The course states both fairly. Dataset G sorts 6 arguments: 3 for God's existence (ontological, cosmological, design), 1 for belief (the wager), and 2 against (Hume's objections and the problem of evil), so 3 + 1 + 2 = 6.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) the ontological argument is a posteriori. Cure: it starts from an idea alone, so it is a priori. (2) the design and cosmological arguments are one argument. Cure: design starts from order; cosmological starts from change, causes, and dependence. (3) the problem of evil says religious people are bad. Cure: it asks whether claims about God and evil fit together. (4) the design argument is judged valid or invalid. Cure: it is an analogy, judged for strength.

Week 10 — Ethics I: Relativism, God, and Self-Interest

  • The distinctions: descriptive vs. normative; the two forms of cultural relativism; the two horns of the Euthyphro dilemma; psychological vs. ethical egoism.
  • Key idea: three challenges each offer a source for morality: a culture's beliefs, God's commands, or self-interest. Each is pressed by one strong objection, and what grounds morality stays open.
  • Two kinds of question: a descriptive question asks how things are, including what people do and believe, and observation can settle it. A normative question asks how things ought to be. David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (Books 1 and 2 in 1739, Book 3 in 1740, so 1740 − 1739 = 1 year apart) raises the is-ought problem: writers slide from what is to what ought to be without saying how the step is made.
  • Cultural relativism: the descriptive form reports that moral beliefs vary from culture to culture and says nothing about which are right. The normative form claims that right is whatever a culture believes is right. Its strongest form asks for humility toward ways of life you did not grow up in. The step from the first to the second needs an added premise, and that premise is exactly what the is-ought problem questions.
  • The reformer objection: if right were whatever a culture believes, a reformer who calls her own community's custom wrong would be wrong by definition, and a culture could change but never improve. The relativist's reply: a reformer can appeal to her culture's own deeper values, such as fairness, and progress can mean living up to them better.
  • Divine command theory: what makes an act right is that God commands it, and what makes it wrong is that God forbids it. Its strongest appeal: it explains why morality is objective, the same for every culture, and binding when no one is watching.
  • The Euthyphro dilemma: in Plato's Euthyphro, Socrates asks whether the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious, or pious because the gods love it. The modern form asks: is an act right because God commands it, or does God command it because it is right? A horn is one of a dilemma's two options. The first horn makes rightness look arbitrary; the second makes it independent of the commands. The reply from the divine command side: God's commands flow from God's unchanging good nature, so they are neither arbitrary nor answerable to an outside standard. It is a question about what makes acts right, not an attack on religion.
  • Egoism: psychological egoism is a descriptive claim that people always act from self-interest. Ethical egoism is a normative claim that people ought to. Its strongest form, enlightened self-interest, counts a person's good over a whole life, so honesty and promise-keeping usually pay. The main objection to psychological egoism: it confuses whose desire moves you with what the desire is for. The main objection to ethical egoism: it favors one person with no relevant difference, and in a conflict it tells each side to win.
  • The ring of Gyges: Glaucon's story in Book II of Plato's Republic, about a shepherd whose ring makes him invisible, asks whether you would be just if you could never be caught. It is Glaucon's story, not Socrates' own argument.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) differences between cultures prove morality is relative. Cure: a descriptive fact does not settle a normative claim without an added premise. (2) psychological egoism tells us what we ought to do. Cure: it is a descriptive claim. (3) the Euthyphro dilemma attacks religion. Cure: it asks what makes an act right. (4) a true psychological egoism would prove ethical egoism. Cure: that move crosses the is-ought gap.

Week 11 — Ethics II: Utilitarianism

  • The distinctions: consequences vs. duties; Bentham vs. Mill on pleasure; act vs. rule utilitarianism; an impartial count vs. counting only yourself.
  • Key idea: consequentialism says an act's rightness depends only on what it brings about. Utilitarianism is the consequentialist theory that the right act produces the greatest overall happiness, with each person's happiness counted equally. That equal counting is impartiality, and the agent is only one of the people counted. A view that counted only the agent's good would be ethical egoism.
  • Bentham: Jeremy Bentham's An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (published 1789) opens, in the English original (Dataset C, Q5): "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."
  • Mill: John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism appeared as magazine articles in 1861 and as a book in 1863. Chapter II states the Greatest Happiness Principle. In paraphrase: acts are right to the degree that they tend to bring about happiness, and wrong to the degree that they tend to bring about its reverse. Mill parts from Bentham on higher and lower pleasures: for Mill, pleasures differ in quality as well as amount.
  • Act and rule: act utilitarianism judges each act by its own consequences. Rule utilitarianism judges acts by rules whose general acceptance would bring the best consequences, so it can keep a promise even when breaking it once would add a little happiness.
  • The objections and replies: the justice objection says the best total can still share benefits and burdens unfairly. The rights objection says an act could raise the total by overriding someone's rights. The demandingness objection says nearly every spare hour and dollar would be owed to others. The utilitarian replies: fair rules and protected rights have great utility, and a theory can separate the best act from the acts that deserve blame.
  • The drowning child: Peter Singer's "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" (1972) imagines a child drowning in a shallow pond you could wade into at the cost of your clothes, and asks whether, if you can save a life at small cost, you must. Singer's principle, said in words: if we can prevent something bad without giving up anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to. Singer says the principle does not depend on utilitarianism.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) utilitarianism counts only the agent's happiness. Cure: it counts everyone equally. (2) Mill agrees with Bentham on every point. Cure: they part on the quality of pleasures. (3) rule utilitarianism is not utilitarian. Cure: it picks rules by their consequences.

Week 12 — Ethics III: Kant, Virtue, and the Trolley Problem

  • The distinctions: hypothetical vs. categorical imperative; the formula of universal law vs. the golden rule; "never as means only" vs. "never as means"; the mean vs. a halfway point; consequences vs. duties.
  • Kant's starting point: Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) puts duty and respect for persons first. Duty is what morality requires whatever you happen to want. A maxim is the personal rule you act on, with its reason. An act has moral worth when it is done because it is right.
  • Two imperatives: a hypothetical imperative tells you what to do if you want some end; drop the end, and the command lapses. A categorical imperative commands unconditionally, whatever you want. Kant's categorical imperative is the supreme principle of this second kind.
  • The first formula: in Thomas Kingsmill Abbott's translation (Dataset C, Q7): "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law." The words "thou canst" are Abbott's; Kant wrote in German. The 3-step test: state the maxim, imagine everyone acting on it, and ask whether you could still will it. The golden rule turns on what you happen to want; this test asks whether the maxim could hold as a law for everyone, whatever anyone wants.
  • The second formula: the formula of humanity, also in Abbott's English (Dataset C, Q8), tells you to treat humanity, in yourself and in others, always as an end and never as means only. To treat someone as an end is to respect their own goals and choices. To treat someone merely as a means is to use them as a tool in a way they could not agree to. Using a person as a means while also respecting them, as when you pay a cashier, is permitted.
  • The rigidity objection: Kant's duties seem to allow no exceptions, even when a lie would spare someone serious harm. The Kantian reply: the duty not to deceive protects the trust everyone depends on, and an honest option is often still open.
  • Virtue ethics: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics puts character and flourishing first. Eudaimonia is flourishing, a whole life lived well. A virtue is a settled trait of good character; each is a mean between two vices, as courage lies between cowardice and rashness. The mean is the fitting response for this person in this situation, not an arithmetic midpoint. Virtues grow by habituation, practice repeated until it comes from who you are. The action-guidance objection says "do what a good person would do" gives too little direction in a hard case; the reply is that the virtues give real guidance and hard cases call for trained judgment.
  • The runaway trolley: Philippa Foot devised the runaway-tram case in 1967, and Judith Jarvis Thomson named it the trolley problem in 1976. It asks whether it is permissible to kill one to save five, and it tests consequences against duties. It has no keyed answer.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) the formula of universal law is the golden rule. Cure: it asks whether a maxim could hold for all, whatever anyone wants. (2) "never as means only" means never use anyone. Cure: using someone is fine if you also treat them as an end. (3) the mean is a halfway point. Cure: it is what fits this person here. (4) the trolley problem has a right answer the course keys. Cure: it stays open.

Week 13 — Political Philosophy: The State, Justice, and Liberty

  • The distinctions: legitimacy vs. mere power; a thought experiment vs. a historical era; the general will vs. what most people want; harm to others vs. a person's own good; a pattern of holdings vs. a history of holdings.
  • Key idea: legitimacy is a government's rightful authority to make and enforce rules. Social contract theory says legitimate authority comes from what free, rational people would agree to for living together. It is the fourth theory in Dataset D, and it puts agreement first.
  • Hobbes: Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) pictures a state of nature with no government at all as a war of every one against every one. The course quotes his Chapter XIII description of that life in his own spelling (Dataset C, Q9). Rational people hand their power to an absolute sovereign for peace and security. The state of nature is a thought experiment, not an era of history.
  • Locke: John Locke's Second Treatise (title page dated 1690) starts from natural rights to life, liberty, and property, which people hold before any government. Government exists to protect them and rests on consent. The consent objection: most people alive now never agreed to their government. The reply: people can consent without words, by staying and accepting the government's protection.
  • Rousseau: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract (1762) grounds authority in the general will, the will of the people as a whole aimed at the common good. It is not whatever most people happen to want. The dissenter objection: an outvoted citizen seems ruled by the majority. The reply: laws aimed at the good of each and all are rules the citizen shares in making.
  • Mill's harm principle: John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1859) holds, in the English original (Dataset C, Q10): "That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." The spelling "civilised" is Mill's. It rules out paternalism, limiting a person's liberty for their own good, without forbidding every limit on liberty.
  • Rawls: John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) imagines an original position in which people choose principles of justice behind a veil of ignorance. The veil hides facts about yourself, such as your wealth, talents, and what you most value, but leaves general knowledge of how societies work. Rawls's two principles are equal basic liberties, ranked first, and the difference principle, which lets social and economic inequalities stand only when they do the most good they can for the least advantaged.
  • Nozick: Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974, said in words) gives the entitlement theory, judging holdings by how they were acquired and transferred, and defends a minimal state limited to protection against force, theft, and fraud and to enforcing contracts. The history objection: many holdings trace back through force and theft. The reply: the theory includes correcting past injustice. Nozick's experience machine asks whether you would plug into a machine that gave you any experiences you wanted, to question whether pleasure is all that matters.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) the state of nature is a period of history. Cure: it is a thought experiment. (2) the harm principle forbids every limit on liberty. Cure: it permits limits that prevent harm to others. (3) the veil hides everything. Cure: it hides facts about yourself, not general knowledge. (4) the general will is majority rule. Cure: it aims at the common good.

Week 14 — Philosophy Beyond Europe

  • The distinctions: philosophy vs. a religion in place of argument; fitting conduct vs. mere custom; non-forcing action vs. doing nothing; no permanent self vs. no person at all; a gloss vs. the original words; relationships that form the individual vs. a group that erases the individual.
  • The frame: Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, and ubuntu philosophy are each presented as philosophy with its own arguments, beside the European tradition, and none is ranked.
  • Confucian ethics: the Analects, the sayings of Confucius compiled by his followers, center on ren (humaneness, goodness toward others), li (ritual propriety, fitting conduct), xiao (filial piety, the care and respect owed to parents and elders), and the junzi (the exemplary person). The conformity objection: morality might shrink into following whatever customs exist. The reply: li is fitting conduct, and conduct is fitting only when it expresses ren, so a harmful custom fails li's own standard.
  • Daoism: the Daodejing, which tradition credits to Laozi, teaches the dao (the way of things), wu wei (effortless, non-forcing action), and ziran (naturalness, a thing's being so of itself). Wu wei is real action that does not fight the way things go. The passivity objection: the view seems to counsel doing nothing. The reply: wu wei is still action, as a skilled potter changes the clay completely without forcing it.
  • Buddhist philosophy: the Buddha's Four Noble Truths move from a problem to its cause, to the claim that it can end, to a way to end it: there is suffering (dukkha), it has its origin in craving, it can cease, and the Noble Eightfold Path leads to its cessation. Dukkha means suffering or unsatisfactoriness, the unsatisfying quality of good things that change. The pessimism objection calls this gloomy; the reply is that the claim is not that nothing is good, and the truths themselves say suffering can cease.
  • The chariot: the Week 14 case on the roster, from the Questions of King Milinda, compares a person to a chariot that is nothing over and above its parts, to ask whether a person is anything over and above their parts. The course's reconstruction (P1 added; if a person is nothing over and above a changing collection of parts, there is no permanent self; P2 a person is such a collection; so there is no permanent self) is valid by modus ponens, and its soundness is not keyed. The unity objection: experience comes together in one point of view, which a chariot lacks. The reply: consciousness is one of the five parts, so the sense of one point of view belongs to the collection itself.
  • Ubuntu: ubuntu is a Southern African idea of personhood, humanness shown toward others, often glossed with the Zulu maxim umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (in Xhosa, umntu ngumntu ngabantu). In English the maxim is often rendered "a person is a person through other persons", but that line is a gloss; the maxim's own words are Zulu. Relational personhood means growing into a person through relationships and community. The override objection says the community would have the final say over each person. The reply: the maxim speaks about a person becoming a person, so relationships shape the individual rather than erasing them.
  • Comparing without ranking: on the self, Locke ties a person to memory, Buddhist no-self finds no permanent self, and ubuntu finds a person made through others. On acting well, Kant asks for action from duty, whatever you want, and Daoism asks for non-forcing action. On living together, social contract theory starts from individuals who agree, and ubuntu starts from persons already formed by one another. In each pair, both sides are philosophy with arguments, and the course keys no winner.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) Confucian or Daoist thought is religion rather than philosophy. Cure: each gives argued answers to philosophical questions. (2) no-self denies that persons exist. Cure: it denies a permanent self. (3) ubuntu erases the individual. Cure: relationships form the individual. (4) the English gloss is the maxim's original wording. Cure: the original words are Zulu.

Week 15 — Existentialism, the Meaning of Life, and the Course Synthesis

  • The distinctions: existence vs. essence; the absurd as a clash vs. a feeling of despair; freedom vs. the situation; meaning given vs. made vs. found; the strongest objection vs. a weakened one.
  • Sartre: Jean-Paul Sartre's lecture "Existentialism Is a Humanism" (given 1945, published 1946, said in words) argues that for human beings existence precedes essence. An essence is what a thing is, its defining nature or purpose. A mug's purpose comes before the mug, but a person exists first and makes themselves through their choices. The situation objection: body, history, and society limit what a person can make of themselves. The reply: the view keeps those facts, and says that what they come to mean in a life depends on how the person takes them up. Existentialism is not the view that nothing matters; it makes choices matter more.
  • Camus: Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) calls life absurd. In the course's words, the absurd is a clash: on one side, our demand for meaning; on the other, a world that supplies none. It is not a mood of hopelessness. Sisyphus, condemned to push a rock up a hill forever, can be imagined happy, living with full awareness and no false hope. The brave-face objection: imagining him happy changes nothing about his task. The reply: the claim is not that the task gains a purpose, but that a life lived with its eyes open can be embraced as it is.
  • Beauvoir: Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949, said in words) argues that woman has been defined as the Other in relation to man and that becoming a woman is shaped by society rather than fixed by nature. Freedom is exercised in a situation (a body, a history, and a society), and the situation can widen or narrow the choices a person really has. Freedom and the situation are both real at once.
  • The three answers on where meaning comes from: meaning given from outside, by God or a cosmic purpose; meaning created by the individual, who chooses and commits; and meaning found in valuable activities and relationships worth caring about. Each has a strongest objection and a reply, and they can be combined. The course keys no answer.
  • The synthesis: the 15 roster cases are read again by unit, each credited to its pinned source and none given a keyed answer. A reasoned position is built in 6 steps: state the question; state your position in one sentence; put the argument in standard form, marking added premises; judge its validity and name its open premises; state the strongest objection as its best defender would; and answer it, ending in one plain sentence naming where you and the objector disagree.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) existentialism says nothing matters. Cure: it makes your choices matter. (2) the absurd is despair. Cure: it names a clash, and Camus answers it by living fully. (3) a meaningful life needs one answer. Cure: the three answers can be combined. (4) the strongest objection is the easiest to answer. Cure: it is the one the best critic would press.

Representative practice

These are fresh variants, not the final's questions. Work each worked example yourself first, then compare your steps. Every scene below is illustrative, invented for this guide, and attributed to no real person or place. The people get roles, not names. The only quotations, works, and years are the ones the course pinned, and every number comes from the course's own outlines, computed and checked in advance.

Worked example — after the storm: two kinds of evil (Week 9)

An illustrative coastal town is hit by a storm. The river floods two streets, and on the same night someone breaks into a closed pharmacy and steals from it. At a town meeting the next week, a resident asks how a wholly good, all-powerful God could allow either.

  1. Sort the two harms. The flood comes from a natural event, so it is natural evil. The break-in comes from a person's free choice, so it is moral evil.
  2. Name the version of the problem. If the resident says such a God and this evil cannot both exist, that is the logical version, Mackie's (1955). If the resident says the amount of suffering makes such a God unlikely, that is the evidential version, an inductive argument judged for strength.
  3. Ask which response reaches which harm. The free will defense reaches the break-in, which came from a free choice. It does not reach the flood by itself, which no one chose. A soul-making theodicy offers a different reply for both: hardship gives people the chance to grow in courage and compassion.
  4. Place the sources in time. Paley's Natural Theology came in 1802 and Mackie's paper in 1955, so 1955 − 1802 = 153 years apart.
  5. Say the reading in one plain sentence. The flood and the break-in press the problem of evil in different ways, and the free will defense answers only the harm that came from a choice, so the question stays open.

Why it matters: the problem of evil is a question about whether claims fit together, and every response has a reply. The course keys no verdict.

Worked example — a line of rail cars and the way from causes (Weeks 9, 5, and 2)

An illustrative rail yard worker watches an engine pull a line of cars: the engine moves the first car, which moves the second, which moves the third, all at once.

  1. Count the ways. Aquinas gives 5 ways, and the first 3 are cosmological, so 5 − 3 = 2 ways remain, the fourth and the fifth. The fifth is a design argument.
  2. Write the way from causes in standard form. P1 Some things are caused to exist. P2 Nothing is the cause of itself, directly or through a loop. P3 A chain of causes cannot go back forever. C So there is a first cause that nothing else causes.
  3. Key it. As reconstructed it is valid: if all three premises are true, every chain stops at a first cause. Soundness is not keyed, because P3 is an open question.
  4. Name the kind. Its premises rest on what we observe about the world, so it is a posteriori, unlike an argument that starts from an idea alone.
  5. Give the objection and the reply. Objectors press P3 and ask why a first cause must be wholly good. The rail cars show the reply: the chain at issue is one of causes acting now, at once, and the first cause's other qualities need further steps.

Why it matters: Week 9 runs the Week 2 skill (standard form and validity) and the Week 5 line (a priori or a posteriori) on one argument.

Worked example — a shared kitchen and a reformer (Week 10)

An illustrative community kitchen hosts cooking nights for two neighborhoods. In one, guests always serve the eldest person first; in the other, guests serve themselves in whatever order they arrive.

  1. Sort the claim. "The two neighborhoods serve food in different orders" reports what people do, so it is descriptive.
  2. Find the gap. To get from that difference to "so whatever each neighborhood believes about serving is right for it," you need an added premise linking belief to rightness. That premise carries the whole weight, and it is the step the is-ought problem questions.
  3. Run the reformer objection. Suppose an illustrative custom elsewhere let only the oldest child eat until the others had waited an hour, and a young reformer called it unkind. If right were whatever a culture believes, she would be wrong by definition, and her community could change but never improve.
  4. Give the reply. The relativist answers that she can appeal to her community's own deeper values, such as care for every child, and that progress can mean living up to them better.
  5. Say the reading in one plain sentence. Different customs alone do not show that right is whatever a culture believes, and the reformer objection and its reply leave the question open.

Why it matters: Week 10 keeps the descriptive and the normative apart, and every challenge to morality gets its strongest objection and a reply.

Worked example — a book club and the Euthyphro dilemma (Weeks 10 and 2)

An illustrative book club reading Plato's Euthyphro wants to write the dilemma in standard form.

  1. State it. P1 Either acts are right because God commands them, or God commands acts because they are right. P2 Acts are not right merely because God commands them. C So God commands acts because they are right.
  2. Key it. If P1 and P2 are true, C cannot be false, so it is valid, by disjunctive syllogism (P or Q; not P; so Q).
  3. Find the premise the defender rejects. The divine command defender rejects P1 as a false dilemma. God's commands flow from God's unchanging good nature, so they are neither arbitrary nor answerable to a standard outside God.
  4. Press one step further. Critics ask whether that nature is good by some standard, or good only because it is God's. The debate goes on from there.
  5. Say the reading in one plain sentence. The dilemma is valid as written, so the argument turns on whether P1 offers the only two options, a question about what makes acts right rather than an attack on religion.

Why it matters: a valid argument can still be answered by rejecting a premise, and this is how the course reads a philosophical dilemma.

Worked example — a promised library shift (Week 11)

An illustrative student promised to cover a friend's evening shift at a campus library. That afternoon, a paid tutoring session is offered for the same hour.

  1. Run act utilitarianism. Ask which act, keeping the promise or taking the session, brings more total happiness to everyone affected, the friend, the library's visitors, and the student, each counted equally.
  2. Run rule utilitarianism. Ask which rule, if generally accepted, brings the best consequences. A rule of keeping promises lets people plan and trust one another, so the rule utilitarian keeps this promise, even if breaking it once might add a little happiness.
  3. Check the impartial count. Counting only the student's own gain would be ethical egoism, not utilitarianism.
  4. Place the sources in time. Bentham's Principles was published in 1789. Mill's articles came 1861 − 1789 = 72 years later, his book 1863 − 1861 = 2 years after the articles, and Singer's paper 1972 − 1863 = 109 years after Mill's book.
  5. Say the reading in one plain sentence. Act and rule utilitarianism can reach different verdicts on one promise because one judges the act and the other judges the rule, and the course keys neither as correct.

Why it matters: both forms are utilitarian; they part over what gets judged by its consequences.

Worked example — three objections, three scenes (Week 11)

Sort each illustrative scene by the objection to utilitarianism it presses, then give the reply.

  1. A festival planner could please the largest crowd by giving every evening slot to the two most popular bands, leaving local performers only the empty morning hours. A total can hide an unfair share: the justice objection. Reply: fair rules for sharing build the trust a festival needs, so a rule utilitarian supports them.
  2. A building manager could end a feud that upsets every tenant by secretly opening one tenant's mail. Raising the total by overriding a person's rights: the rights objection. Reply: rules that protect rights have great utility, since people who fear losing them live worse lives.
  3. A nurse with a free weekend wonders whether every spare hour and dollar is owed to strangers in need. The demandingness objection. Reply: a theory of what is best may be demanding and still separate the best act from the acts that deserve blame.

Why it matters: each objection has a reply from the utilitarian side, and which ethical theory is right stays open.

Worked example — the universal-law test at a returns desk (Week 12)

An illustrative shopper wants a refund after a store's return window has closed and considers claiming the item arrived broken.

  1. State the maxim. "When I want a refund after the return window closes, I will claim the item arrived broken."
  2. Imagine everyone acting on it. Every shopper who wants a late refund makes the same false claim.
  3. Ask whether you could still will it. No. Stores would stop believing claims of breakage, so the claim could no longer get anyone a refund, and the maxim defeats itself.
  4. Name the imperative. The test applies a categorical imperative: it binds whatever the shopper wants.
  5. Say the reading in one plain sentence. The maxim fails the universal-law test because a world of such claims would make the claim useless, so Kant's view counts the false claim as wrong whatever it would gain.

Why it matters: the test never asks whether the shopper would mind being lied to; it asks whether the maxim could hold as a law for all.

Worked example — the trolley, counted and compared (Week 12)

Take the roster's runaway trolley and the course's two labelled variations, the bystander at a switch and the stranger on a footbridge.

  1. Count each version. In every version, acting leaves 1 person dead and not acting leaves 5 dead, so acting means 5 − 1 = 4 fewer deaths. The count is the same in all 3 versions.
  2. Read it as a utilitarian. Consequences come first, and on the count the 3 versions are alike.
  3. Read it as a Kantian. On the footbridge, the stranger's body is used as a tool to stop the trolley, merely as a means. At the switch, the person on the side track is not used, since the plan would work as well if no one were there.
  4. Read it with virtue ethics. Ask what a person of compassion, courage, and good judgment would do, and what pushing a stranger would make of the person who does it.
  5. Say the reading in one plain sentence. All three theories take the five deaths seriously and part over whether the count settles the case, so the trolley problem has no keyed answer.

Why it matters: a case that keeps the count fixed shows where consequences and duties come apart.

Worked example — a housing co-op behind the veil (Week 13)

An illustrative housing co-op must share a repair fund among its four buildings, and members are asked to vote as if they did not know which building they live in.

  1. Lay out the plans. Plan A gives every building an equal share. Plan B gives some buildings more, and leaves the worst-off building better off than under Plan A. Plan C gives the best-off buildings far more and leaves the worst-off building worse off than under Plan A.
  2. Apply the difference principle. An inequality may stand only when it does the most good it can for the least advantaged, so Plan B's inequality is permitted and Plan C's is ruled out.
  3. State the objection. A member who likes to gamble might vote for Plan C, hoping to land in a best-off building.
  4. Give Rawls's reply. The stakes are a whole life, so a reasonable chooser secures the worst position first.
  5. Place the sources in time. Leviathan came in 1651 and Locke's title page in 1690, 1690 − 1651 = 39 years later. Then 1762 − 1690 = 72 years to Rousseau, 1859 − 1762 = 97 to On Liberty, 1971 − 1859 = 112 to Rawls, and 1974 − 1971 = 3 to Nozick. From Leviathan to A Theory of Justice is 1971 − 1651 = 320 years.

Why it matters: the veil turns "what is fair?" into "what would you choose not knowing your place?", and the course keys no verdict on which political theory is right.

Worked example — six views on how much power a state may hold (Week 13)

Line up Dataset H's 4 accounts and the 2 limits Mill and Nozick add, so 4 + 2 = 6 views, from the most power to the least.

  1. Hobbes: an absolute sovereign, because any power that keeps the peace beats the war of every one against every one.
  2. Rousseau: authority grounded in the general will, aimed at the common good.
  3. Locke and Rawls: government limited by rights and liberties, Locke's natural rights and consent, Rawls's equal basic liberties.
  4. Mill: a limit on any government: preventing harm to others is the one rightful reason to use power over someone against their will.
  5. Nozick: the minimal state, the smallest of the six, limited to protection against force, theft, and fraud and to enforcing contracts.
  6. Say the reading in one plain sentence. The six views disagree about where agreement starts and how much power it hands over, and the course keys no winner.

Why it matters: each view answers the same question, what makes authority legitimate, from a different starting point.

Worked example — new headphones and dukkha (Week 14)

An illustrative commuter buys new headphones, loves them for a week, then starts reading reviews of the next model, and the cycle repeats.

  1. Name the sense of dukkha. Nothing here is physical pain, yet the cycle is unsatisfying: good things change and cannot be held onto. That is dukkha as unsatisfactoriness.
  2. Name the origin. The second truth places the origin of suffering in craving, here the craving for the next model.
  3. Answer the pessimism objection. The claim is not that nothing is ever good, and the truths also hold that suffering can cease, which is the opposite of despair.
  4. Say the reading in one plain sentence. The headphone cycle shows suffering as unsatisfactoriness rooted in craving, and whether the truths are true stays open.

Why it matters: Buddhist philosophy treats suffering as something to understand and address, a philosophical claim with its own argument.

Worked example — a rowing crew and wu wei (Week 14)

An illustrative rowing coach tells a new crew that the boat moves fastest when no one fights the water.

  1. Spot the action. The rowers work hard the whole race, with years of training. Wu wei is effortless, non-forcing action, not inaction.
  2. Spot the forcing. A rower who yanks the oar against the boat's rhythm slows everyone. What wu wei avoids is the forcing that makes the work fail.
  3. Answer the passivity objection. The view does not say to stop rowing; it says to row with the water rather than against it.
  4. Compare without ranking. Kant asks you to act from duty, whatever you want; the Daoist asks for action that flows without forcing. They part over whether acting well means effort against your wants or a flow that forces nothing.

Why it matters: wu wei is often misread as doing nothing, and the cure is to look for the skill.

Worked example — a reasoned position on the Chinese room (Weeks 15, 6, and 2)

Run the course synthesis's 6 steps on one question from Week 6, using an illustrative argument.

  1. The question: is following a program enough for understanding?
  2. A position in one sentence: following a program is not enough for understanding.
  3. Standard form: P1 If following a program were enough for understanding, the person in Searle's room would understand Chinese. P2 The person in the room does not understand Chinese. C So following a program is not enough for understanding.
  4. Validity: valid, by denying the consequent. Both premises are open questions, so soundness is not keyed.
  5. The strongest objection: the systems reply. The person is one part of a larger system of person, rule-books, and room, and the whole system may understand.
  6. An answer, and where they disagree: the position's defender might reply that nothing in the room adds understanding to the rule-following. In one plain sentence: the two sides disagree over whether understanding can belong to a system when no part of it understands.

Why it matters: the final checks the skills this method uses, and the course keys no verdict on the Chinese room.

Self-check questions

Try each one, then read the check and the one-line why.

  1. A wildfire started by lightning burns a forest. Which kind of evil is it, and which response does not reach it by itself? Check: natural evil; the free will defense. Why: the fire came from no one's free choice.
  2. How many of Aquinas's 5 ways are not cosmological, and which of those is a design argument? Check: 5 − 3 = 2; the fifth. Why: the first three ways argue from change, causes, and things that might not have existed.
  3. How many years separate Hume's Dialogues and Paley's Natural Theology? Check: 1802 − 1779 = 23 years. Why: Paley's watch came after Hume's objections were already in print.
  4. According to the reformer objection, what would normative cultural relativism make of a reformer? Check: she would be wrong by definition, and a culture could change but never improve. Why: if right is what a culture believes, disagreeing with your culture is always a mistake.
  5. In the Euthyphro dilemma written as a disjunctive syllogism, which premise does the divine command defender reject? Check: the either-or premise, as a false dilemma. Why: on the reply, God's commands flow from God's good nature, which is neither horn.
  6. What is enlightened self-interest, and what is the strongest objection to ethical egoism? Check: ethical egoism counting your good over a whole life; it favors one person with no relevant difference. Why: in a conflict it tells each side to win.
  7. An illustrative clinic never lets staff skip hand-washing, even on a rushed shift when skipping once would save a few minutes, because a general practice of washing every time brings the best results. Is that act or rule reasoning? Check: rule utilitarian reasoning. Why: the rule is chosen for the consequences of its general acceptance, not one shift at a time.
  8. How many years passed between Mill's book and Singer's paper? Check: 1972 − 1863 = 109 years. Why: Mill's book appeared in 1863 and Singer's paper in 1972.
  9. What does the rigidity objection say about Kant, and what is the Kantian reply? Check: his duties seem to allow no exceptions even to prevent harm; the duty not to deceive protects the trust everyone depends on. Why: every objection gets a reply from the position's side.
  10. In all three trolley versions, how many fewer deaths does acting bring? Check: 5 − 1 = 4. Why: the count is fixed, so the case tests whether the count settles what is right.
  11. Behind the veil, which plan does the difference principle rule out: one that leaves the worst-off better off than equal shares, or one that leaves them worse off? Check: the one that leaves them worse off. Why: an inequality may stand only when it does the most good it can for the least advantaged.
  12. How many years separate Leviathan and A Theory of Justice? Check: 1971 − 1651 = 320 years. Why: Hobbes wrote in 1651 and Rawls in 1971.
  13. What is the dissenter objection to Rousseau, and the reply? Check: an outvoted citizen seems ruled by the majority; the general will is directed at the common good, so its laws are rules the citizen shares in making. Why: the general will is not whatever most people want.
  14. What is the unity objection to the chariot comparison, and the Buddhist reply? Check: a person has one point of view and a chariot has none; consciousness is one of the five parts, so that sense belongs to the collection. Why: no-self denies a permanent self, not the person.
  15. A potter whose walls rise easily is still working hard. What does that show about wu wei? Check: wu wei is effortless, non-forcing action, not doing nothing. Why: the passivity objection misreads non-forcing as inaction.
  16. A kettle's maker knows its purpose before it is made. On Sartre's view, how is a person different? Check: a person exists first and makes themselves through choices. Why: for human beings, existence precedes essence.
  17. What is the brave-face objection to Camus, and his side's reply? Check: imagining Sisyphus happy changes nothing about his task; the claim is that a life lived with full awareness can be embraced as it is. Why: Camus' answer does not give the task a purpose.
  18. In the 6 steps of a reasoned position, what comes right after judging validity? Check: stating the strongest objection as its best defender would. Why: the steps run question, position, standard form, validity, strongest objection, answer.
  19. An illustrative argument: "If a bridge is safe, the inspectors approve it. The inspectors approved this bridge. So this bridge is safe." Valid or invalid? Check: invalid. Why: it runs the conditional backward, from the consequent to the antecedent.
  20. How many arguments does Dataset G sort, and how do they divide by direction? Check: 3 + 1 + 2 = 6: three for God's existence, one for belief, two against. Why: the direction column sorts each argument by which way it argues.

Check yourself — choose one. Write two or three sentences to a friend.

  • (a) Pick one of the three ethical theories and give the strongest objection to it and the best reply from its side, without saying which theory is right.
  • (b) Pick one tradition from Week 14 and one European view from earlier in the course, and say in one plain sentence where they part on a shared question, ranking neither.

Either one rehearses an explain-why skill the final checks.

Watch before the exam

These eleven videos come from the course's vetted Week 16 pool, and every one has captions. Use them to review and to connect weeks, not to learn anything new.

Study plan

A short countdown. Count back from the day you plan to sit the final.

  • Two weeks out: as you finish Week 14, start a one-page list of the second half's swapped pairs. Begin with a priori and a posteriori, the logical and evidential problems of evil, and descriptive and normative. Add psychological and ethical egoism, act and rule utilitarianism, hypothetical and categorical imperatives, and the mean and a halfway point. Add the general will and majority rule, no-self and no person, and wu wei and doing nothing. Add the absurd and despair when Week 15 arrives.
  • One week out: as you finish Week 15, reread the Week 12 topic review and redo its two worked examples. Week 12 holds 8 of the final's 40 questions, and the practice exam has only 2 from it.
  • At the start of Week 16: take the practice exam once, cold and closed-note. Note which objectives cost you the most, and remember that it reaches back to Weeks 1–7 far more than the final does.
  • Three or four days before you sit it: reread the topic reviews for your two weakest objectives and redo the matching worked examples from scratch without looking. Give Weeks 9, 10, and 14 a second pass, since they hold 7, 6, and 6 questions.
  • Two days before: run the paired exam-prep tutorial, the copy-and-paste chatbot tutor or its no-AI route, for active recall. Tell it which areas the practice exam exposed.
  • The day before: retake the practice exam, explain every miss out loud, and work the self-check questions above. Then skim the Weeks 1–8 callback section once, so the early tools are fresh when they appear inside a later week.
  • Right before: skim the "predictable mistakes → cures" lines for Weeks 9 to 15. Then stop studying, and take a few slow breaths.

This guide is for review. The exam-prep tutorial and the practice exam are where you rehearse. Pulling ideas back out of memory, not rereading, is what makes them stick.

Exam format

Every one of the 40 questions counts the same, and the final checks your own understanding without AI. The questions come one at a time, and there is no going back, so settle each one before you move on.

Test-taking strategies for this material:

  • Name the pair before you choose. Most questions turn on two neighboring ideas, such as descriptive and normative, or a hypothetical and a categorical imperative. Say which pair is in play first.
  • Write the argument out. For an argument, put it in standard form on scratch paper, label its form, and key it valid or invalid by the form alone. Never call it sound when its premises are open.
  • State the position at its strongest. Before you pick, say the view the way its best defender would. An option that weakens a view, or that gives a verdict on an open question, has slipped away from the course.
  • Check the attribution. For a quotation or a case, say the author, the work, and the translator, if there is one. A translated line's English words are the translator's.
  • Treat "illustrative" as a cue. The scene was invented for the question and attributed to no one, so judge it by the course's definitions.
  • Read a true-or-false statement whole. One wrong part, such as a reworded claim, a wrong source, or a verdict on an open question, makes the whole statement false.
  • Place it in time if you must. For a span of years, write the subtraction on scratch paper and say the result in words.

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