Section 1.4 Self Quiz

. Identify the conclusion of the following argument. Remember to remove any conclusion indicators. Any area of study that contributes to the field of medicine should be well supported. Therefore, since it contributes to the field of medicine, biology should be well supported.

. Identify the conclusion of the following argument. Remember to remove any conclusion indicators. It is wrong for society to kill a murderer. This follows for the reason that if a murderer is wrong in killing his victim, then society is also wrong in killing the murderer. And a murderer is wrong in killing his victim.

. Identify the conclusion of the following argument. We shouldn't abolish capital punishment. If we do, prisons will become more crowded. If prisons become more crowded, then we will have to build more prisons. And we don't want to build more prisons.

. Identify the conclusion of the following argument. From a historical point of view, genetics is a young science. The principles that govern inheritance traits were described less than 150 years ago. Furthermore, around the turn of the twentieth century, the laws of inheritance were rediscovered. But even then, the importance of DNA was not really understood until the 1950s.

. Identify the conclusion of the following argument. The sense of a term is supposed to determine its reference. But reference can vary without any difference in thought. So, the senses of terms must be able to vary without variation in thought. So, our thoughts do not determine the meanings of our terms; meanings are not in the head. (Hilary Putnam)

. Identify the conclusion of the following argument. Utilitarian theory is embarrassed by the possibility of utility monsters. A utility monster gets enormous gains in utility, greater than the utility lost by the sacrifices of others. The sacrifices of even large numbers of other people are outweighed by the gains of the utility monster. The theory seems to require that we all be sacrificed in the monste's maw in order to increase total utility. (Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia)

. Identify the conclusion of the following argument. All of psychology has gotten stuck in moral prejudices and fears. No one has come close to understanding it as the development of the will to power. However, if a person even begins to regard the effects of hatred, envy, covetousness, and the lust to rule as conditions of life and furthermore, as factors essential to the general economy of life, he will begin to get seasick. At this point, he begins to lose himself, and sail over morality. Thus, psychology becomes again the path to fundamental problems. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil)

. Identify the conclusion of the following argument. It is hard not to verify in our peers the same weakened intelligence due to emotions that we observe in our everyday patients. The arrogance of our consciousness, which in general, belongs to the strongest defense mechanisms, blocks the unconscious complexes. Because of this, it is difficult to convince people of the unconscious, and in turn to teach them what their conscious knowledge contradicts. (Sigmund Freud, The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis)

. Identify the conclusion of the following argument. That the world is my idea is a truth valid for every living creature, though only man can contemplate it. In doing so, he attains philosophical wisdom. No truth is more absolutely certain than that all that exists for knowledge and therefore this world is only object in relation to subject, perception of a perceiver. The world is an idea. (Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea)

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Identify the conclusion of the following argument. There are those who use predicate variables; the values of these variables are attributes. Predicates are wanted in all sentences regardless of whether there are attributes to refer to. The dummy predicate 'F' is wanted generally for expository purposes. If we are going to quantify over attributes and refer to them, then clarity is served by using recognizable variables and distinctive names for the purposes, and not mixing these up with the predicates. (Quine, Philosophy of Logic)

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