Typical Paper 2 questions KnD and MP

The Higher Course Specification contains a list of 'typical questions'. There are no marking instructions associated with these questions so, to assist with revision and exam preparation, I have prepared some marking instructions of my own. You should remember these have no official standing. Most were straightforward but two of the questions did raise some interesting issues.

Descartes

Based on the course specification the method of doubt is a way of:

• freeing us from pre-conceived opinions,
• leading the mind away from the senses, and
• providing a foundation for knowledge that is immune to further doubts.

Four marks would suggest four substantive points are required. This means saying more than we cannot rely on sense experience because it could all be a dream. It is difficult to be precise about what delineates the 'dream argument'. I would assume it includes relevant scene setting and, perhaps, also a comment on its limitations.

• Although our senses may mislead us with regard to some things (those that are small or far away) there are other things (such as I'm sitting by the fire) that I cannot doubt in this way.
• Unless, I'm mad, of course, but likening myself to madmen would be a dead-end.
• Not so! for when I'm asleep I often have the same experiences as madmen do when they are awake.
• In my dreams I have often experienced falsely what I appear to be experiencing now.
• There are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep.
• Familiar things such as my hands and body may not exist.
• But the basic constituents, such as colours, shapes and number, must still exist.

Four marks would suggest four substantive points are required. This means saying more than 'because it is impossible to doubt your own existence'.

• Cogito is Latin for 'I think' and is a reference to the phrase 'I think therefore I am'.
• Descartes used this phrase elsewhere but in the Meditations says, 'I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind'.
• Descartes has previously had the meditator say that it is conceivable that there is a malicious demon deceiving him about all things,
• however, even if there is absolutely nothing else in the world he must still exist for if he convinced himself of something, then he certainly existed.
• The cogito is an example of a self-verifying statement.

• Descartes says it is manifest by the natural light that there must be at least as much <reality> in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause.
• We can take ‘manifest by the natural light’ to mean plainly obvious to the thinking person.
• By ‘efficient and total cause’ he means everything that is necessary to bring about the effect.
• Descartes believes there are degrees of reality such that
• an infinite substance has the most reality and more reality than a finite substance, which in turn has more reality than a mode.
• If it were the case that something with less reality could bring about the existence of something with more reality we would be getting something from nothing.

• Descartes is using these examples to support his claim that there must be at least as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in the effect.
• A stone cannot begin to exist unless it is caused by something which contains, either formally or eminently everything to be found in the stone. Likewise with something becoming hot.
• By 'formally' he means possessing that quality literally so this might be something being heated by something else that is already hot.
• By 'eminently' he means possessing that quality in some non-literal and higher order way, i.e. having the potential to produce the quality. An example (not Descartes') might be heating something through friction.

E.g.

• The argument depends on accepting a lot of notions that are made 'evident by the natural light'. For our purposes we can take this as saying that this proof can be seen clearly and distinctly.
• If this is so then the vast majority of scholars disagree and Descartes’ response that this is the fault of the reader not freeing themselves from their preconceived opinions is inadequate.

• The concept of degrees of reality is no longer accepted.
• We do recognise that things can exist in different ways. Thoughts exist and the brain exists but they don't exist in the same way, one is physical and the other is not. It is also widely accepted that the existence of thoughts depends on the existence of the brain but it doesn't follow from this that the brain has a greater degree of reality.

Hume

• Hume claims that if we consider any idea it will be possible to analyse it to discover the simple ideas of which it is composed and the impressions on which those simple ideas have been based.
• His example to support this claim is the idea of God, which Hume says comes from extending without limit our existing ideas of goodness and wisdom.

It is difficult to know exactly how many marks might be allocated to defining the terms, how many marks reserved for explaining the importance, and how many might be allocated for appropriate examples. I have assumed one mark for each.

• In the Treatise Hume explains that simple impressions and simple ideas are such that they cannot be broken down into something smaller whereas complex impressions and complex ideas can be distinguished into parts.
• Although some complex ideas can come from the simple act of seeing something (Hume gives the example of an apple) the distinction enables Hume to explain why we are able to have ideas of things we have never seen.
• By compounding, transposing, augmenting and diminishing we can create ideas of such things as a golden mountain or a virtuous horse.

• Relations of ideas — things like geometry where the answer can be discovered just by thinking, where the answer is necessarily true and the contrary isn't possible.
• Matters of fact — things about the world where the answer cannot be discovered just by thinking, where the answer isn't necessarily true and the contrary is possible, i.e. it could be different to the way it is.

• Knowledge about causes always comes from our experience of finding that particular objects are constantly associated with one other.

• Every effect is a distinct event from its cause. So it can't be discovered in the cause, and
• if we try to imagine the effect prior to experience what we imagine must be wholly arbitrary.
• Without contradiction we can imagine billiard balls behaving in all sorts of ways, e.g bouncing back or stopping still and
• we can imagine dropped stones falling upwards or in some other direction.
• Without experience there is no way to chose between the alternatives.

There are many things that might be said here, e.g.

• Hume says we develop our notion of causation from observing “constant conjunctions”. If this is meant to imply that more than one instance is required before we can conclude that we have observed or experienced an instance of cause and effect then Hume is surely wrong,
• e.g. a child who burns themself on an iron does not need to do this a second time before they work out what has caused the pain.
• Hume fails to account for why some constant conjunctions lead us to believe we are witnessing cause and effect whereas others do not, e.g.
• the flashing amber traffic light is always followed by the green light but it is unlikely that anyone assumes that the former causes the latter.

Option 4.

Kant

Any three substantive points

• It is the claim that reason should be used to criticize all our beliefs.
• Can be contrasted with the earlier belief that there were 'truths above reason' especially religious beliefs.
• Kant believed it was possible to use reason and logic to work out the right thing to do — a method known as the categorical imperative.
• It is exemplified in Kant's rejection of contradictions in conception and willing as a rational system would be free of contradictions.

Kant says that the good will

• Is the only thing that is good without qualification.
• Is good in all circumstances and does not depend on anything else for its goodness.
• Other things may be good in all sorts of ways but they are not always good and without a good will they can become extremely bad,
• e.g. bravery might lead a criminal to be more audacious.

• For an action to have genuine moral worth it must be done from duty not from self-interest or inclination.
• Kant distinguishes acting according to duty and acting out of duty,
• e.g. the example of a tradesman who treats all his customers fairly but does so out of self-interest so, according to Kant, is not morally praiseworthy.
• e.g. the person who is in such a bad way that they don't want to go on living but carries on, not from fear or inclination but from duty, then their actions do have moral content.

It is difficult to know how much weight to put on the plural 'examples' as one example with two possible options will often do the job.

• 'So act as to treat humanity, both in your own person, and in the person of every other, always at the same time as an end, never simply as a means.'
• Treating someone 'simply as a means' is failing to contribute to the goal or purpose of that person.
• Kant gives the example of suicide as a way of treating yourself as a means only.
• Kant gives the example of false promising as a way of treating others as a means only.

• A maxim is the subjective principle of your action. It can be thought of as the supposed rule that you are acting on and may be good or bad.
• To determine whether a maxim is good or bad you have to see if it is logically possible to imagine everyone following that rule. This thought experiment is the process of universalising the maxim.
• It may be impossible to universalise a maxim as attempting to do so will result in a 'contradiction in conception',
• This is a situation where attempting to universalise the maxim removes the conditions necessary for the maxim to exist,
• e.g. 'make a false promise' cannot be universalised as if everyone made false promises it would undermine the whole notion of what a promise meant.
• It may be impossible to universalise a maxim as attempting to do so will result in a 'contradiction in the will',
• This is where you can imagine a world where everyone followed the maxim but it would not be a world you could rationally will because it would be a world where you would no longer be able to will things that you would rationally need to will.
• e.g. 'don't help the needy' when universalised would result in you willing a world where you couldn't receive help when in need.

• A theory that says the right thing to do is determined by your duty rather than by something else such as consequences.

Utilitarianism

This question raises a number of interesting issues. Probably stemming from support notes issued back in the early 2000s it has been common for pupils to be told that there are three key features of classical utilitarianism — consequentialism, hedonism and equity. My guess, therefore, is that to gain six marks a candidate would have to say something worth two marks on each of these. Presumably something like, ‘hedonism, ie. the belief that pleasure or happiness is the only thing that is intrinsically good.’ An issue might be that this looks remarkably like an N5 question from 2017 — ‘Describe the three components of the Greatest Happiness Principle’ — which was also worth six marks but it is difficult to see how a candidate would know that any more was required.
Another issue is that, although it is probably right to reward candidates who use the term ‘equity’, it would be difficult to insist on its use for, outside of SQA parlance, the preferred term is ‘impartiality’, and ‘equity’ usually means something different, often something like ‘fair distribution’.
In addition, the list of three is not necessarily the best and it is entirely possible to come up with a list of six key features — welfarism (of which hedonism is one example); consequentialism; universalism; impartiality; aggregating; and maximising.
Finally, 'key features' is not a term in the Course Specification and it would not be surprising if candidates regarded the hedonic calculus and Mill's higher and lower pleasures as key features of classical utilitarianism.

This is an interesting question in that it is difficult to know what is required to ‘describe’ intensity, duration or certainty. Perhaps something like, 'Duration, i.e. how long it lasts?' I’m not sure there is enough in the trigger to tell the candidate that any more is required but this is barely more than stating the same thing twice. It would be more natural to ask a candidate to explain ‘propinquity’ although that is also just checking the candidate knows what the word means. Elsewhere Bentham uses ‘proximity’. There is much more mileage in asking a candidate to explain what Bentham means by fecundity, purity and extent. The issue may be that once you go beyond ‘state the seven criteria’ the individual components do need to be treated differently. There is, unfortunately a problem with asking these kinds of questions. The course does require that the candidate will analyse and evaluate 'Jeremy Bentham’s hedonic calculus and all its component parts' but this isn't a text-based part of the course and there is no requirement to be familiar with the particular terms used by Bentham and so it is difficult to see how such questions might be worded.

• Early utilitarianism, which emphasized the quantity of happiness, had been criticized as 'a doctrine worthy only of swine'.
• It explained why there was value in pursuing the nobler aspects of life rather than just giving immediate satisfaction to our animal desires.

As per 2017:

• 1 mark for saying that for act utilitarians, an action is right if it maximises happiness.
• 1 mark for saying that for rule utilitarians, an action is right if it conforms to a rule that is in place because it maximises happiness.

It is not sufficient to say rule utilitarians follow rules and act utilitarians don’t follow rules for act utilitarians advocated the use of rules to assist in selecting the right action.

E.g.

• It is a form of rule worship, i.e.
• Rule utilitarianism allows for the possibility that on any single occasion happiness may not be maximised. It is clear why hedonists would want to maximise happiness but it is not clear why the rule should be followed when it is known that on this occasion it doesn't maximise happiness.
• It collapses into act utilitarianism, i.e.
• Rules can have added exceptions ('Don't lie except when...') with enough exceptions the rules will specify exactly what act utilitarianism would specify.

My guess is that bullet points two and four would both be worth two marks each on their own.

A number of things can be said here depending on how much leeway is given on whether the criticisms have to be focussed tightly on the hedonic calculus or whether its background assumptions and application also count.

• It is too time consuming, i.e.
• if it supposed that the calculation has to be carried for each decision the time taken will sometimes result in the moment passing and the opportunity for maximising happiness being missed.

• It is impossible to implement, i.e
• not only is the calculation difficult but it will depend on information that is usually not available at the time the calculation needs to be performed.

• It fails to solve the problem of measuring happiness, i.e.
• whilst there doesn't seem to be any way of quantifying of happiness Bentham's system now requires us to quantify certainty, fecundity and purity.
• In addition, it isn't clear how to trade off one criterion against another, e.g. an intense pleasure later versus a less intense pleasure sooner.

• It concentrates on measuring the quantity happiness/pleasure, i.e.
• whilst this is why it is called the 'hedonic' calculus hedonism itself can be criticised in that in practice most people regard other things as important such as honesty.
• In addition, Mill would want the quality of the happiness to be considered.