Study Questions for Conclusion

Prepared by Dr. Jan Garrett

Last modification date: August 6, 2009

1. How can we look at the various theories of human nature if we try not to see them merely as rivals? (235)

2. How is it possible to reconcile something like Darwinian theory with belief in a creator God? (236-37)

3. What fear do some theists have regarding Darwinism? Is this fear entirely justified or is it based on what some so-called Darwinists say but no essential part of the Darwinist perspective? Explain. (237)

4. Explain the importance of the Tree and Bush metaphors for understanding evolution? Can we have a scientific understanding of evolution without understanding species change as progressive? (238-39)

5. What is characteristic of the Jewish and Christian perspectives on historical change? (239-40)

6. Are certain "secular" philosophies of history similar to those perspectives in some ways? Explain. (240)

7. Of what kinds of progress is there little doubt? What kind of progress seems possible, although not proven? What sobering thoughts does Stevenson share with us in this connection? (240-41)

8. What conceptual definition of the criteria for rationality does Stevenson offer us? (241) How does he want to resolve the long-standing debate between materialists and dualists? (241-42)

9. What point does he make about the emergence of mental capacities such as emotion and imagination and reason and concepts such as marriage, crime, and war? What relevance does this have to the dualism vs. materialism debate? (242)

10. How does the duality-of-aspects approach traced back to Spinoza help neutralize the dualism-materialism controversy? (243)

11. What does Stevenson mean when he speaks of the "irreducible duality" of reasons and causes? (243-44)

12. What is the connection between free will and rationality? (243)

13. Do evolutionary and environmental explanations for the emergence of particular beliefs undermine our giving reasons for those beliefs? (244)

14. What reductionistic argument is Stevenson considering in the first paragraph of the section entitled "Ethical Values and Evolution"? (244)

15. How does Stevenson try to refute this argument? (Part of his argument is stated in rhetorical questions. We should restate these in declarative sentences to clarify his counter-argument, that tries to show the falsity of its premises or the weakness of the support its premises give its conclusion.) (244-245)

16. In what respects do human beings (as a species) seem unique? About what was Skinner right? Freud? How is much social influence exerted these days? (245-46)

17. What can we learn from evolutionary explanations of ethical beliefs and feelings? What is scientific theory unable to do? (246)

18. What set of related ethical insights does Stevenson find in Kant, the Judaeo-Christian ideal, Confucianism, Hinduism, Marx, and Sartre? (246)

19. What negative obligations do these seem to support? What needs seem to imply objective values that "demand" to be fulfilled? (247)

20. What diagnosis "immediately follows" given facts about the world? (247)

21. What three major factors explain these problems? When we get to human agency, is there always a deliberate human agent? Explain. What does Kant call the "radical evil" in human nature? (248)

22. Is this merely a matter of individual culpability? Explain. What does Stevenson mean by structural injustice? (248)

23. What prescriptions does Stevenson offer (without claiming originality)? (249-50)