Short Answer Questions
kkaa
101.docxPH205
1. What is Aristotle’s distinction between “efficient” and “final” causes?
2. Does purpose need to be built-in to things or predetermined?
3. Are built in purposes superior?
4. Does the existence of a creator by itself answer the question of life’s purpose?
5. What is “the genetic fallacy”?
Chapter 1 asks whether efficient causes traced back to life’s origin give life its meaning. Chapter 2 considers whether final cause gives life its meaning.
6. According to Aristotle (and Baggini) why must a final cause be an “end-in-itself”?
7. What is the conceptual problem with specific goals as an answer to the question of the meaning of life?
8. What is the problem with Kierkegaard’s answer to how we may resolve the problem of reconciling the ‘ethical’ and the ‘aesthetic’?
9. What are the problems, according to Baggini with seeking a sustainable state of affairs as a goal (hint: Baggini mentions 4).
10. What does Baggini conclude we have learned?
In Chapter 3 Baggini considers religion again as a possible source for the meaning of life.
11. How does Baggini’s analogy of two car collectors relate to his notion of the risk of faith?
12. How does the story of the apostle Thomas relate to Baggini’s arguments concerning the risk of faith (hint: to what does Baggini think Faith is in proportion?)
13. How does Kierkegaard’s analysis of Abraham’s story underline the risk of faith? What do we have to do to act in accordance with faith?
14. What, according to Baggini, is wrong with the following argument? :
If death is the end life is meaningless; life isn’t meaningless so death isn’t the end.
15. Does Baggini think duration has any direct connection to the depth of meaning in life or a life?
Extra-credit question: “Pascal’s wager” is an attempt to give a rational reason to have faith in God and a belief in the afterlife. Explain Pascal’s wager, and how he thought our reasoning should run.
