HS 2610: Final Exam Review
Questions and Answers (All Verified)
2025-2026 Updated.
Fallacies - Answer Not relevant information presented to serve as a distraction, or offering
relevant evidence but it is a flawed interpretation.
Confirmation bias - Answer a tendency to search for information that supports our
preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence
Genetic Fallacy - Answer Condemning an argument because of where it began, how it began,
or who began it.
Ad Hominem - Answer a fallacy that attacks the person rather than dealing with the real
issue in dispute
Bifurcation - Answer suggesting that complex situations must be dissected into binary
positions on an issue
Appeal to Authority - Answer A fallacy in which a speaker or writer seeks to persuade not by
giving evidence but by appealing to the respect people have for a famous person or institution.
Questionable Cause - Answer a fallacy that occurs when a speaker alleges something that
does not relate to or produce the outcome claimed in the argument
post hoc ergo propter hoc - Answer This fallacy is Latin for "after which therefore because of
which," meaning that it is incorrect to always claim that something is a cause just because it
happened earlier. One may loosely summarize this fallacy by saying that correlation does not
imply causation.
mere correlation fallacy - Answer An arguer assumes, without sufficient evidence, that
because A and B regularly occur together, A must be the cause of B or vice versa.
How is ethics different from law - Answer some things are wrong ethically and wrong
lawfully, they do not necessarily cover the same things. Laws can be unethical, ethics can be
applied to laws.
Ethical Objectivism - Answer the view that some moral standards are objectively correct and
that some moral claims are objectively true.
,Right and wrong are objective phenomena, even if we haven't discovered them yet.
Moral Statements are true or false depending on: - Answer whether they correspond with
those moral facts, exists independently of our subjective personal and cultural opinions.
There are objective moral facts, therefore: - Answer We can know them, speak meaningfully
about them, reason about them, resolve disagreements by appealing to them.
Tenets of Objectivism - Answer 1.) Cognitivist: There is an ethical reality we can know and
speak about meaningfully
2.) Rationalist: Ethical disputes can be rationally resolved by logic and reasoning
3.) Absolutist: There is an objective right or wrong answer for every ethical question
Facts can be of two varieties: - Answer Ethical naturalism, non-naturalism
Ethical Naturalism - Answer A meta-ethical theory which holds that 'good' is a synonym for a
purely natural quality, such as pleasure, moral facts are natural facts and are measurable and
observable
Non-naturalism - Answer the idea that all things to do with meaning are knowable using
intuition rather than empirical evidence. (Gods plan)
Ethical Relativism - Answer actions must be judged by what individuals subjectively feel is
right or wrong for themselves, ethics vary place to place.
Ethical statements are therefore not objectively true or false in virtue of their correspondence
with objective moral facts, they are relative to a subjective point of view.
Scope of relativism - Answer The idea in ethical relativism that ethical statements are true or
false relative to a particular: person, culture, society, historical or situational context.
Ethical non-cognitivism - Answer The view that morality is non-cognitive, has nothing to do
with facts, but reduces instead to 'emotional ejaculations' (Ayer) or to universalisable
prescriptions about moral behaviour (Hare)
You cannot study ethical facts, they are creations in the human consciousness.
Requirements for ethical theory - Answer 1. epistemological requirements: based on
evident, accountable to this evidence
, 2. logical requirements: must be consistent, follow same thinking, procedures unless stated
3. practical requirement: must be livable (ought implies can
Descriptive ethics - Answer the study of people's beliefs about morality, analyzing a situation
that involves morality but not making a judgement. Describe the state of affairs, simply
describing the detail of a moral action to understand the context.
Prescriptive Ethics - Answer What people should do to make things right, how people ought
to act. Takes positions on moral actions
Method to ethics - Answer Foundational concepts (meta-ethics) + (facts, evidence, context) +
a theory = an ethical prescription
Ethical Realism - Answer Universal ethical truth exists outside of the mind, ethical truths are
like cells, waiting to be studied no matter what we feel about them. They are real and they
operate the same way in every context
Ethical anti-realism - Answer denies that the universal ethical truth exists, ethics are
products of humans and socially constructed, not objectively real or universal.
Facts (Description) - Answer What is or is not factually the case, objectively true
Value (normativity) - Answer - What should or should not be done
- What ought or ought not be done
statements of value - Answer Claim that something does or does not have worth, don't come
with statements of truth of falsity. Can't be disproven
Aesthetic statements of value - Answer To do with the senses, preferences
Moral statements of value - Answer the value you put on actions and questions in terms of
right or wrond.
John Stuart Mill - Answer We should never interfere with a persons freedom except in three
situations
Three exceptions to Autonomy J.S. Mill - Answer 1. The person does not know or understand
what is happening
Questions and Answers (All Verified)
2025-2026 Updated.
Fallacies - Answer Not relevant information presented to serve as a distraction, or offering
relevant evidence but it is a flawed interpretation.
Confirmation bias - Answer a tendency to search for information that supports our
preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence
Genetic Fallacy - Answer Condemning an argument because of where it began, how it began,
or who began it.
Ad Hominem - Answer a fallacy that attacks the person rather than dealing with the real
issue in dispute
Bifurcation - Answer suggesting that complex situations must be dissected into binary
positions on an issue
Appeal to Authority - Answer A fallacy in which a speaker or writer seeks to persuade not by
giving evidence but by appealing to the respect people have for a famous person or institution.
Questionable Cause - Answer a fallacy that occurs when a speaker alleges something that
does not relate to or produce the outcome claimed in the argument
post hoc ergo propter hoc - Answer This fallacy is Latin for "after which therefore because of
which," meaning that it is incorrect to always claim that something is a cause just because it
happened earlier. One may loosely summarize this fallacy by saying that correlation does not
imply causation.
mere correlation fallacy - Answer An arguer assumes, without sufficient evidence, that
because A and B regularly occur together, A must be the cause of B or vice versa.
How is ethics different from law - Answer some things are wrong ethically and wrong
lawfully, they do not necessarily cover the same things. Laws can be unethical, ethics can be
applied to laws.
Ethical Objectivism - Answer the view that some moral standards are objectively correct and
that some moral claims are objectively true.
,Right and wrong are objective phenomena, even if we haven't discovered them yet.
Moral Statements are true or false depending on: - Answer whether they correspond with
those moral facts, exists independently of our subjective personal and cultural opinions.
There are objective moral facts, therefore: - Answer We can know them, speak meaningfully
about them, reason about them, resolve disagreements by appealing to them.
Tenets of Objectivism - Answer 1.) Cognitivist: There is an ethical reality we can know and
speak about meaningfully
2.) Rationalist: Ethical disputes can be rationally resolved by logic and reasoning
3.) Absolutist: There is an objective right or wrong answer for every ethical question
Facts can be of two varieties: - Answer Ethical naturalism, non-naturalism
Ethical Naturalism - Answer A meta-ethical theory which holds that 'good' is a synonym for a
purely natural quality, such as pleasure, moral facts are natural facts and are measurable and
observable
Non-naturalism - Answer the idea that all things to do with meaning are knowable using
intuition rather than empirical evidence. (Gods plan)
Ethical Relativism - Answer actions must be judged by what individuals subjectively feel is
right or wrong for themselves, ethics vary place to place.
Ethical statements are therefore not objectively true or false in virtue of their correspondence
with objective moral facts, they are relative to a subjective point of view.
Scope of relativism - Answer The idea in ethical relativism that ethical statements are true or
false relative to a particular: person, culture, society, historical or situational context.
Ethical non-cognitivism - Answer The view that morality is non-cognitive, has nothing to do
with facts, but reduces instead to 'emotional ejaculations' (Ayer) or to universalisable
prescriptions about moral behaviour (Hare)
You cannot study ethical facts, they are creations in the human consciousness.
Requirements for ethical theory - Answer 1. epistemological requirements: based on
evident, accountable to this evidence
, 2. logical requirements: must be consistent, follow same thinking, procedures unless stated
3. practical requirement: must be livable (ought implies can
Descriptive ethics - Answer the study of people's beliefs about morality, analyzing a situation
that involves morality but not making a judgement. Describe the state of affairs, simply
describing the detail of a moral action to understand the context.
Prescriptive Ethics - Answer What people should do to make things right, how people ought
to act. Takes positions on moral actions
Method to ethics - Answer Foundational concepts (meta-ethics) + (facts, evidence, context) +
a theory = an ethical prescription
Ethical Realism - Answer Universal ethical truth exists outside of the mind, ethical truths are
like cells, waiting to be studied no matter what we feel about them. They are real and they
operate the same way in every context
Ethical anti-realism - Answer denies that the universal ethical truth exists, ethics are
products of humans and socially constructed, not objectively real or universal.
Facts (Description) - Answer What is or is not factually the case, objectively true
Value (normativity) - Answer - What should or should not be done
- What ought or ought not be done
statements of value - Answer Claim that something does or does not have worth, don't come
with statements of truth of falsity. Can't be disproven
Aesthetic statements of value - Answer To do with the senses, preferences
Moral statements of value - Answer the value you put on actions and questions in terms of
right or wrond.
John Stuart Mill - Answer We should never interfere with a persons freedom except in three
situations
Three exceptions to Autonomy J.S. Mill - Answer 1. The person does not know or understand
what is happening
