King’s College London
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
This paper is part of an examination of the College counting towards
the award of a degree. Examinations are governed by the College
Regulations under the authority of the Academic Board.
MA/MSc EXAMINATION
7AAN4028
General Philosophy
SUMMER 2013
TIME ALLOWED: THREE HOURS
Candidates should answer THREE questions. Questions should be
chosen from AT LEAST TWO sections. Please note that Section E
(Logic) is all one question.
Avoid overlap in your answers.
DO NOT REMOVE THIS PAPER FROM THE EXAMINATION
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2013 © King’s College London
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7AAN4028
Section A: Epistemology
1. Can Nozick solve the Gettier problem?
2. Has the contextualist solved the sceptical puzzle? (If you answer this
question, please discuss the core commitments of the contextualist
view.)
3. Are there any properly basic beliefs (i.e., beliefs that are justified
without deriving their justification from other justified beliefs)?
4. Is justification an internalist or an externalist notion?
5. EITHER (a) Discuss the best response to the sceptical argument from
ignorance (i.e., You don't know that you aren’t systematically
deceived. If you do not know that you're not systematically deceived,
you cannot know anything about the external world. Thus, you cannot
know anything about the external world.)
OR (b) Explain whether it is possible to be justified in believing
something on the basis of an inductive inference.
6. Do Quine’s arguments show that it is impossible to have a priori
knowledge?
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Section B: Ethics
7. Why does Mackie believe morality is too ‘queer’ to believe in?
Should we embrace his error theory?
8. Some critics of consequentialism object to the view on the grounds
that it does not respect the normative separateness of persons. Is
there anything to this objection?
9. Should we embrace the hedonist's theory of well-being? (If you think
that we should, critically discuss Nozick's experience machine
example. If you think that we should not, critically discuss Mill’s proof
of the principle of utility.)
10. Is it ever permissible to violate Kant’s categorical imperative?
11. Can we ever be morally responsible for acting in a deterministic
universe?
12. If we assume that the foetus has the right to life, is abortion ever
permissible?
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Section C: Political Philosophy
13. EITHER: Does Rawls provide good grounds for depriving parties in
the original position of knowledge of their particular conceptions
of the good?
OR: Critically assess the role played by the idea that talents are
‘arbitrary from a moral point of view’ in the justification of
Rawls’s Two Principles.
14. Under what conditions may one legitimately enclose previously
unowned land?
15. EITHER: Can the principle of fair play provide a basis for political
obligation?
OR: Can some form of hypothetical consent generate a political
obligation to obey a government?
16. What role does the natural right to judge what is necessary for our
self-preservation play in Hobbes’s argument for the formation of
the commonwealth?
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Section D: Metaphysics
17. Does Frege’s distinction between the sense and reference of a
proper name solve the problems that he saw with the Millian view?
18. Are there any examples of necessary a posteriori truths?
19. Does Quine undermine the distinction between analytic and
synthetic truths?
20. Are persons essentially persons?
21. Is causation anything more than regularity?
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