Final Exam Review
Aristotle
 Descriptions and distinctions between one's view of happiness being pleasure, honor, or
contemplation/the good, and what Aristotle sees as lacking in the former two
 The definition of and many facets of a virtue
 Friendship
Bernard
 4 degrees of loving God, what makes one move from one degree to the next, and why he sees
each degree as better than the one before it
Kant
 Differences between Kant's and Aristotle's approach to ethics.
 What is wrong with considering happiness, inclination, and desires in considerations of morality
for Kant?
 Difference between inclination and duty, and why Kant prefers the latter
 Categorical imperative vs. hypothetical imperative, and examples of each
 Various formulations of the categorical imperative, and what each one shows, along with
examples
 Constrast between Kant's emphasis on duty and respect in ethics, and Bernard of Clairvaux's
emphasis on love
Kierkegaard
 Describe the qualities of the aesthetic stage and the ethical stage of existence and what would
motivate one move from one to the next?
Mill
 Various misconceptions of and objections to utilitarianism, and Mill's responses
Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamasov
 Observations Father Zossima makes about deception of self and others
 Zossima's insights on the worse and better ways to suffer and respond to tragedies, and
examples that show this
 What Zossima says about love and grace, directly and indirectly, with examples.
Hugo, Les Miserables
 How Jean Valjean deals internally with his crime and punishment, and how the prison system
itself changes him from the person he was when he first entered
 How Jean Valjean, when he is freed from prison, is still not really “free”
 Constrast between the character of Jean Valjean and that of the bishop
 The transformation of Jean Valjean
MacDonald, Phantastes
 The vices and temptations revealed in Cosmo as he encounters the mirror and the lady in it
 The healthy and unhealthy types of love evident in the story, and how Cosmo's heart is molded
to love in a more healthy way
Simone de Beauvoir, Ethics of Authenticity
 Ambiguity of the human being – description of this ambiguity, the problems it poses for ethics,
and how de Beauvoir believes ethics must respond in a way that takes ambiguity seriously
 Potential objections raised against existentialism in chapter 1, and how de Beauvoir responds to
those objections
 Description of various types of people who evade genuine freedom, how they become that way,
and what causes them to be a threat to others
Lewis, Four Loves
 Qualities of each type of love
 The types of perversion in each type of love
 How charity changes each type of love