The Human Sciences
Introduction
plan a plan b
make up: 63% hydrogen, 25.5% oxygen, 9.5% carbon, 1.5% nitrogen, 0.5% other stuff
mirror-test we see ourselves, dogs bark at themselves
unique features – language, reason, free-will, and creativity
? 1. List as many features as you can that distinguish human beings from other animals.
? 2. To what extent do these features make it difficult to study human beings in a
scientific way?
Observation
? 1. Complete the following short questionnaire as honestly as possible. Then collate
the results for the class as a whole. How would you interpret the results and what
conclusions would you draw from them?
Below Average
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Average
Above Average
How much do you worry about
what other people think of you?
To what extent do you see yourself a considerate person?
Do you have a good sense of
humor?
How open are you to new ideas?
How worried are you about
environmental problems?
? 2. In some countries it is forbidden to publish opinion polls in the week running up to a
general election. Do you think that this is a good policy, or a denial of free speech?
Loaded questions
1.
2.
Do you think there should be an amendment to the
Constitution prohibiting abortions, or should not there be
such an amendment?
Do you believe there should be an amendment to the
Constitution protecting the life of the unborn child, or
should not there be such an amendment?
In favor
29%
Opposed
67%
50%
34%
? 1. Which of the above questions do you think is loaded? Give reasons.
? 2. Take a controversial topic – such as abortion, or capital punishment – and try to
design an unbiased questionnaire to discover people’s opinions about it.
Line One
“Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?
“Yes”
“Do you think there is a lack of discipline and vigorous training in our Comprehensive
schools?”
“Yes”
“Do you think young people welcome some structure and leadership in their lives?”
“Yes”
“Do they respond to a challenge?”
“Yes”
Might you be in favor of reintroducing National Service?”
“Yes”
Line Two
“Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?”
“Yes”
“Are you unhappy about the growth in armaments?”
“Yes”
“Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to
kill?”
“Yes”
“Do you think it’s wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?”
“Yes”
Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?”
“Yes”
The observer effect
? 1. What ways, if any, are there of getting round the “observer effect”?
? 2. Reality TV has become popular in many countries, with series like Big Brother,
Survivor and Star Academy. What, if anything, do we learn about human nature
from such programs?
go native
1. Psychology
? 1. To what extent do you think your teacher’s expectation about your abilities affect
how well you do at school?
? 2. Would it be better if teachers had no expectations about you? To what extent is that
possible?
? 3. Do you think that primary-school teachers should divide up children into good
readers and not-so-good readers? What would be the pros and cons of doing this?
? 4. To what extent can your own expectations about yourself affect your academic
performance?
2. Economics
bull market
bear market
? 1. Do you think the behavior of stock markets is governed more by reason or more by
emotion?
? 2. Do you think it is possible to predict with accuracy where the stock market will be
in twelve months’ time? Give reasons.
3. Anthropology
? 1. Have you ever been caught breaking a taboo and something like ‘I feel so ashamed I
could die’?
? 2. Do you think that mental states, such as happiness or depression can affect our
physical well-being?
? 3. Try to find information about alleged cases of ‘voodoo death’. Do you believe they
really happen? If so, how would you account for them?
According to a phenomenon known as psychological reactance, if a person is inclined to
do X, and you tell him to do X, he becomes more likely not to do X. This may explain
why some teenager anti-smoking campaigns have to preserve
Measurement
Who really won the Centennial Olympics?
Country
USA
Germany
Russia
China
Canada
Rank
1
2
3
4
11
Country
USA
Germany
Russia
China
Canada
Rank
1
2
3
4
11
Medals total
101
65
63
50
22
Gold
44
20
26
16
3
Silver
32
18
21
22
11
Country
USA
Russia
Germany
China
Canada
Gold
44
20
26
16
3
Bronze
25
27
16
12
8
Silver
32
18
21
22
11
Medals total
101
65
63
50
22
Bronze
25
27
16
12
8
Medals total
221
136
123
104
39
The only change at the top is that Russia and Germany change places. Canada stays in
eleventh.
Country
Tonga
Bahamas
Cuba
Canada
USA
Rank
1
2
3
25
37
Points per million
20
6.6
4.6
1.3
0.9
Experiments
Human scientists are often trying to make sense of complex real – world
situations in which it is simply impossible to run controlled experiments.
The artificiality of some of the experiments that can be conducted may distort the
behavior of the participants.
There are ethical reasons for not conducting experiments that have a negative effect
on the people who participate in them.
? 1. How accurate do you think ‘stare time’ is as a way of measuring a baby’s
expectations? What if a baby looks at somebody for two seconds, looks away for
three, and then looks back again for another two?
? 2. Do you think there is any danger in psychologists seeing what they want to see in
these kinds of experiments?
The Milgram experiment
? 1. Given your knowledge of human nature, what percentage of 100 volunteers do you
think would continue administering electric shocks up to 450 volts?
? 2. If you had been a volunteer in this experiment, what do you think you would have
done?
? 1. What difference do you think it would have made if the original advertisement
asking for volunteers had mentioned electric shocks? What conclusion would you
draw from this?
? 2. Design your own ethical code of conduct for the running of experiments in the
human sciences. What three or four key points would you include and why?
Laws
Belief in free-will appears to conflict with the idea that there are laws about the way
people behave
“I can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of crowds.”
? 1. To what extent do you find the behavior of your friends and family predictable? Do
you ever find that when your parents are giving you advise you are able to finish
many of their sentences for them?
? 2. What makes a person an interesting person? Would you prefer to have predictable
friends, or unpredictable friends, or some combination of the two?
? 3. State three generalizations about human behavior that you think are true of all
human beings?
The law of large numbers – we can predict with relative accurate short – term basis # of
births, marriages and deaths in a country law of large numbers random variations tend to
cancel out
Short term predictions accurate – bachelors all over again not marry but couples do
but bachelors do fall in love and get married as do couples breakup
? Briefly explain how the law of large numbers enables insurance companies to offer
cover against risks such as car accidents, house fires, and death.
Group rather individual behavior is what can be predicted
Trends and laws
Demographers predictions about the size of populations over 50 year periods get it
wrong
Economic forecasters
get it wrong
Collapse of Communism
got it wrong
1973 economist Paul Ehrlich predicted 65 million Americans would starve to death by
1990, which happens to be the number of overweight people in 1990.
Basically social sciences tend to find trends rather than laws, things that are true for short
periods of time rather than long periods of time
Phillips curve A. W.
Stated simply, the lower the unemployment in an economy, the higher the rate of
inflation. While it has been observed that there is a stable short run tradeoff between
unemployment and inflation, this has not been observed in the long run.
Lower unemployment is tied to higher inflation causes
Fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc
? How might you explain each of the following correlations?
a. Children with low self-esteem tend to do badly at school.
b. People who watch violent movies tend to be violent in real life.
The complexity of real-world situations, often difficult to untangle a complicated web of
causal relationships – you find someone on a country road crashed into a wall, what
happened?
The accident happened on a sharp bend on an unlit road.
There was ice on the road
The man was speeding
He had drunk two pints of beer earlier in the evening
He was know to enjoy driving fast
He had broken up with his girlfriend
Things tend to happen in combinations, not as singular events
Summary: the role of laws in human sciences is a mixed bag, it holds true in some ways
but not in others, ie. the law of supply and demand; or the law of diminishing returns
The relationship between natural and human sciences
Social sciences as “soft” sciences & natural sciences as “hard” sciences
? Do you think there is a hierarchy of sciences? If so, try to order the various sciences
according to any criteria of your choice. If not, explain why not?
?
Imagine that we did not have Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which are what? Is it
a law or a trend?
Two neuroscientists view of recent progress in biology v. psychology
Anyone interested in the history of ideas would be puzzled by the following striking differences
between advances in biology and advances in psychology. The progress of biology has been characterized by landmark discoveries, each of which resulted in a breakthrough in understanding–the
discoveries of cells, Mendel’s law of heredity, chromosomes, mutations, DNA, and the genetic
code. Psychology, on the other had has been characterized by an embarrassingly long sequence of
“theories,” each really nothing more than a passing fad that rarely outlived the person who
proposed it.
Reductionism
Some suggest the natural sciences will provide the insight for the human sciences
Economi
cs
Psychology
Biology
Physics
One day we will be able to describe economic behavior based on psychological
perspective that is caused neuroscience examination of the biological drive created by
atoms moving around based on the laws of physics.
Reductive fallacy
This is when we are searching for a first cause, looking for the underlying one, the cause
of A is composed of B, so now what is B composed of?
A Cathedral is nothing but a heap of stones.
A violin sonata is nothing but a sequence of vibrating strings.
A human being is nothing but a bunch of chemicals.
The fact that cats, dogs, and humans are made of much of the same basic stuff does not
account for the differences. So it does not make sense to think is quite this simple. The
idea is to break it up until you find some crucial point of understanding.
Holism
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which is not the chop shops see things.
The whole contains properties that cannot in principle be discovered through an analysis
of the parts.
Meaning you cannot understand a group only in terms of the individuals that make up the
groups ie. economics distinguishes between macro–economics and micro–economics,
you cannot study economics from simply one of the two and claim to have an understanding
?
1. Do you think that a group can have a ‘character’ that is distinct from the individuals
that make it up?
2. A football team may consist of eleven great players and yet do badly in the league.
How would you explain this?
3. What do you understand by ‘team spirit’? Is ‘team spirit’ the sum of the ‘spirit’ of
each individual on the team? If not, where does it come from?
As in the case of science: inductive and deductive; in human sciences one must examine
the group as well as the members of groups to get a better understanding of people. Although society is influenced by individuals that make it up, so too that individuals are
affected by society.
The Verstehen position (German to understand)
At various intersection there are traffic lights, no doubt as I have taken my dog in the car,
we have encounter these signals, whether the light was red or green made no impression
on him, but they do have a contextual meaning for me.
The main aim of the human sciences is to understand the meaning of various social
practices from inside as they are understood by the agents themselves.
Understanding of the culture is key to understanding what is occurring, one must know in
order to not jump to wrong conclusions.
? Imagine that you are a Martian anthropologist with no understanding of human
practices. Try to think up bizarre explanations for some of the following rituals.
a. eating at McDonalds
b. taking an IB exam
c. attending a birthday party
d. checking in at the airport
e. shopping at a supper market
f. working out in a gym
g. going to the hair dressers
Context is very important here, how does one understand the idea of a funeral pyre?
Think of the possibilities of the purpose of someone writing their name on paper?
? Think of as many different explanations as you can for each of the following actions:
a. A woman picks up a glass of wine.
b. A man goes out with an umbrella.
c. A woman walks into a room, walks round, and walks out again.
d. A man gets a gun out
e. A waves her hand.
We should not conclude that are no universal traits
Anthropologists say certain traits cut across cultures – gossiping, joking & taking an
interest in sex
Adam Smith “invisible hand” markets are directed by people following the “self-interest”
to promote the general will, however they need to take into account below:
Rule of unintended consequences, give some examples, also known in econ as
externalities
I had to distribute materials to all students, I was going to do it by homeroom, an
individual who was going to help me, took the material and divided alphabetically
without tell me, they were so proud they helped me. Problem was they made it
available 15 minutes before it was due and yet the faculty was informed it would be
by homeroom. Two hours later we had it distributed!!!!
The problem of bias
It is argued that the social sciences are far more prone to internal bias, that pre –
existing prejudices are more likely to happen, ie., over – identifying with subjects,
anthropologists “going native” living as a tribe member may influence the outcome
Confirmation bias – the tendency to look for, accept, evidence which is favorable
with your predisposition, or agrees with your conclusion.
A good antidote to bias is to make it a matter of principle to actively seek evidence that
would count against your hypothesis. A practice of good social science research in
surveys is to ask the same basic idea two or three times as differently as possible, referred
to as back questions, to affirm how much it is the opinion of the individual.
? 1. Who d you think is the best judge of a child’s character?
a. their parents
b. their teachers
c. a professional psychologist
Give some reasons.
? 2. Give some specific examples of bias that you have come across in the natural
sciences and human sciences that you have studied.
? 3. Explain what is meant by ‘falsificationism’, and how it can help to reduce the
danger of bias in scientific research.
Predictions
Trends v. laws – the idea that in the human sciences there are no laws only trends
1. extremely complex human behavior and controlled experiments are difficult, the
human laboratory is much different than a physics laboratory
If I were going to predict where single molecule of water was going to fall over
Niagara Falls after coloring it red and putting it in a mile ahead of the falls, so it could
be observed, there are too many variables to account for exactly where it would go
over the falls
2. prediction valuable incentive to change the circumstances
If a very famous economist were to predict a 20% increase in unemployment was
going to occur, it is highly unlikely that a government would do nothing to keep this
from occurring.
3. job is to describe & understand human behavior
The aforementioned may demonstrate why the social sciences have some problems in
their predictions.
? Do you think that weather forecasting is generally more or less reliable than economic
forecasting?
Human sciences:
summary of problems
Observation
Measurement
Hypothesis
Experiments
Law
1. We cannot directly observe other people’s minds.
2. Questionnaires may be misleading or biased.
3. Observing people may affect the way they behave.
4. Social phenomena are difficult to measure.
5. The act of prediction may affect the behavior predicted.
6. Human sciences study complex social situations in which it is difficult to
run controlled experiments.
7. Various moral considerations limit our willingness to experiment.
8. Human sciences are not very good at predicting things.
9. Human sciences usually uncover trends rather than laws.
10. Science laws are probabilistic in nature.
Conclusion
Social sciences are not as flawed as the critics say, but neither are they as successful as
their defenders would have us to believe.
Key points
1. Since human beings seem to be different from other natural phenomena, we may
wonder to what extent they can be studied in a purely scientific way.
2. Among the problems that arise in trying to get information about other people are that
it is difficult to frame questions in a neutral way and that observing people may affect
the way they behave.
3. Some important phenomena in the human sciences are difficult to measure, and this
can make it difficult to study them scientifically.
4. Social scientists have devised many ingenious experiments, but ethical considerations
limit our ability to conduct experiments on human beings.
5. Although a great deal of human behavior is predictable, it is unclear how far it can be
reduced to law-like religions.
6. Since we typically explain human behavior in terms of its meaning and purpose, we
may never be able to reduce the human sciences to natural sciences.
7. Since they deal with controversial topics, the human sciences are more prone to bias
than the natural sciences, but the extent of the problem should not be exaggerated.
8. A question that continues to perplex both sciences and philosophers is how the mental
is related to the physical.
Terms to remember
bear market – a market in which more traders on a stock exchange want to sell than want
to buy, with the result that prices of stocks fall.
behaviorism – the doctrine that the objective acts of persons and animals are the chief or
only subject matter of scientific psychology. The view that psychology (1)
should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to
mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not
with (2).
bias – a slanting or oblique line; Cloth is cut on the bias when it is cut diagonally across
the weave. Figurative, an opinion before there is a reason for it; leaning of the
mind; prejudice: An umpire should have no bias in favor of either side.
Statistics, the tendency of a sample to be unrepresentative of all cases involved
in a particular study.
bull market – a generally rising market. Symptoms of the rise of speculative activity
have been apparent in the recent bull market.
free-will --The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents
exercise control over their actions and decisions. Addressing this question
requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and
determining whether or not the laws of nature are causally deterministic. The
various philosophical positions taken differ on whether all events are
determined or not—determinism versus indeterminism—and also on whether
freedom can coexist with determinism or not—compatibilism versus
incompatibilism. So, for instance, hard determinists argue that the universe is
deterministic, and that this makes free will impossible.
The principle of free will has religious, ethical, and scientific implications. For
example, in the religious realm, free will may imply that an omnipotent divinity
does not assert its power over individual will and choices. In ethics, it may
imply that individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions. In the
scientific realm, it may imply that the actions of the body, including the brain
and the mind, are not wholly determined by physical causality. The question of
free will has been a central issue since the beginning of philosophical thought.
going native – an assimilation process of abandoning former social norms.
holism -- (from λος holos, a Greek word meaning all, entire, total) is the idea that all the
properties of a given system (biological, chemical, social, economic, mental,
linguistic, etc.) cannot be determined or explained by the sum of its component
parts alone. Instead, the system as a whole determines in an important way how
the parts behave.
The general principle of holism was concisely summarized by Aristotle in the
Metaphysics: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”
human free-will – minimally, to say that an agent has free will is to say that the agent has
the capacity to choose his or her course of action. But animals seem to satisfy
this criterion, and we typically think that only persons, and not animals, have
free will. Let us then understand free will as the capacity unique to persons that
allows them to control their actions. It is controversial whether this minimal
understanding of what it means to have a free will actually requires an agent to
have a specific faculty of will.
law of large numbers -- The law of large numbers (LLN) is a theorem in probability that
describes the long-term stability of a random variable. Given a sequence of
independent and identically distributed random variables with a finite
population mean and variance, the average of these observations will eventually
approach and stay close to the population mean.
loaded question -- Many questions, also known as complex question, presupposition,
loaded question, "trick question", or plurium interrogationum (Latin, "of
many questions"), is an informal fallacy. It is committed when someone asks a
question that presupposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all
the people involved. This fallacy is often used rhetorically, so that the question
limits direct replies to those that serve the questioner's agenda. An example of
this is the question "Are you still beating your wife?" Whether the respondent
answers yes or no, he will admit to having a wife, and having beaten her at
some time in the past. Thus, these facts are presupposed by the question, and if
it has not been agreed upon by the speakers before, the question is improper,
and the fallacy of many questions has been committed.
mirror test -- The mirror test is a measure of self-awareness developed by Gordon 'The
Gorilla' Gallup Jr. in 1970.
The test gauges self-awareness by determining whether an animal can recognize
its own reflection in a mirror as an image of itself. This is accomplished by
surreptitiously marking the animal with two odorless dye spots. The test spot is
on a part of the animal that would be visible in front of a mirror, while the
control spot is in an accessible but hidden part of the animal's body. Scientists
observe whether the animal reacts in a manner consistent with it being aware
that the test dye is located on its own body while ignoring the control dye. Such
behavior might include turning and adjusting of the body in order to better view
the marking in the mirror, or poking at the marking on its own body with a limb
while viewing the mirror.
nature-nurture debate -- The nature versus nurture debates concern the relative
importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature") versus personal
experiences ("nurture") in determining or causing individual differences in
physical and behavioral traits. The view that humans acquire all or almost all
their behavioral traits from "nurture" is known as tabula rasa ("blank slate").
This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of
developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play
such interacting roles in development, modern psychologists consider the
question naive - representing an outdated state of knowledge. For a discussion
of nature versus nurture in language and other human universals, see also
psychological nativism.
observer effect -- In the social sciences and general usage, the effect refers to how people
change their behavior when aware of being watched (see Hawthorne effect). For
instance, in the armed forces, an announced inspection is used to see how well
soldiers can do when they put their minds to it, while a surprise inspection is
used to see how well prepared they generally are.
Phillips curve -- The Phillips curve is an historical inverse relation and tradeoff between
the rate of unemployment and the rate of inflation in an economy. Stated simply,
the lower the unemployment in an economy, the higher the rate of change in
wages paid to labor in that economy.
post hoc ergo proper hoc fallacy - Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "after this,
therefore because of this", is a logical fallacy (of the questionable cause variety)
which assumes or asserts that if one event happens after another, then the first
must be the cause of the second. It is often shortened to simply post hoc and is
also sometimes referred to as false cause or coincidental correlation. It is subtly
different from the fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc, in which the chronological
ordering of a correlation is insignificant.
reactance – is a motivational reaction to offers, persons, rules, or regulations that threaten
or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms. Reactance occurs when a person feels
that someone or something is taking away his or her choices or limiting the range
of alternatives.
reductionism -- Reductionism is often understood to imply the unity of science. For
example, fundamental chemistry is based on physics, fundamental biology and
geology are based on chemistry, psychology is based on biology, sociology is
based on psychology, and political science, anthropology, and even economics are
based on sociology. The first two of these reductions are commonly accepted but
the last three or four — psychology to biology and so on — are controversial. For
example, aspects of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology are rejected by
those who claim that complex systems are inherently irreducible or holistic. Some
strong reductionists believe that the behavioral sciences should become "genuine"
scientific disciplines by being based on genetic biology, and on the systematic
study of culture (cf. Dawkins's concept of memes).
reduction fallacy -- Latin: "reduction to the absurd") also known as an apagogical
argument, reductio ad impossible, or proof by contradiction, is a type of
logical argument where one assumes a claim for the sake of argument, derives an
absurd or ridiculous outcome, and then concludes that the original assumption
must have been wrong as it led to an absurd result. It makes use of the law of noncontradiction — a statement cannot be both true and false. In some cases it may
also make use of the law of excluded middle — a statement must be either true or
false. The phrase is traceable back to the Greek η εις άτοπον απαγωγή (hê eis
átopon apagogê), meaning "reduction to the impossible", often used by Aristotle.
In formal logic, reductio ad absurdum is used when a formal contradiction can be
derived from a premise, allowing one to conclude that the premise is false. If a
contradiction is derived from a set of premises, this shows that at least one of the
premises is false, but other means must be used to determine which
stream of consciousness -- Internal monologue, also known as interior monologue,
inner voice, internal speech, or stream of consciousness is thinking in words. It
also refers to the semi-constant internal monologue one has with oneself at a
conscious or semi-conscious level.
Much of what people consciously report "thinking about" may be thought of as an
internal monologue, a conversation with oneself. Some of this can be considered
as speech rehearsal, and it seems to be that the internal monologue is generally in
the native language of the person concerned.
An internal monologue may be consciously used in order to organize thoughts to
solve problems or keep track of a long list. More mysterious is subconscious
internal monologue, which is thought to be used in long term memory and dreams.
trends and laws
Verstehen position
The free-will problem
Introduction
Determinism
? 1. How different do you think your personality would have been if you had been
adopted at birth and brought up in a different culture?
? 2. Some controversial research has been done which suggests that there are striking
similarities between identical twins who were separated at birth and brought up by
different families.
a. Find out something about this research and some of the criticisms that have been
made of it.
b. What would you conclude about the roles played by nature and nurture in
determining our character?
? 3. How far do you think our behavior is determined by unconscious motives? How
might one go about testing such a hypothesis?
? 4. To what extent do you think the behavior of the following individuals is predictable?
a. your parents
b. your friends
c. you
How does determinism threaten free-will
We could:
1. reject the claim that every event has a cause and argue that this leaves room for freewill
2. accept determinism, but insist that free-will and determinism are compatible with
each other
3. accept determinism and conclude that, no matter how unpalatable it might be human
free-will is an illusion.
Does every event have a cause?
Subatomic randomness
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle – it is impossible to know both the position and
velocity of subatomic particles with complete certainty, therefore it would seem to
follow that events are governed by pure chance.
Capturing a free action
? 1. Describe as accurately as you can what happens when you make a free decision,
such as getting out of bed when the alarm goes off rather than snoozing for another
twenty minutes.
? 2. How much of what you do every day would you say is determined by routine and
habit, and how much by your conscious decisions?
? 3. When do you feel most free?
a. When you fulfill you’re your desires
b. When you overcame your desires
c. When, on a whim, you suddenly decide to do something?
d. When you do something creative
e. Some other situation
Is the feeling of freedom an illusion?
? 1. If every morning someone delivered in a sealed envelope some precise predictions
about what you would do during the day, and every evening you opened the envelope
and found that they were all true, would this convince you that you did not have any
free-will.
? 2. If the future is determined for the kinds of reasons that Laplace gave, but we are
never in practice able to predict it, why, if at all, should we be worried?
Is free-will compatible with determinism?
Is freedom simply a matter of doing what you want?
? 1. If a dog does what it likes, can it be called free? How does its freedom differ from
that of a human being?
? 2. To what extent do you think the free-will debate is simply an argument about the
meaning of the word freedom?
Can we control our desires?
? 1. At what point on the road from non-addiction would you say that free-will ends and
compulsion begins?
? 2. To what extent do you think we should hold drug addicts responsible for their
behavior?
? 1. What distinguishes addictive behavior from ordinary behavior?
? 2. Which of the following might be described as addictive?
a. coffee
b. hamburgers
c. marijuana
d. work
e. shopping
f. love
g. crime
h. extreme sports
? 3. To what extent do you think we are able to change our desire? Could you, for
example, decide to
a. like cheese, if you always loathed it
b. find someone else interesting, if you have always found them boring
c. work hard, if you have always been lazy
d. show more concern for others, if you have always been selfish
Can you have done otherwise?
? To what extent do you think you can change your character, and to what extent do you
think you have to live with it?
Is Free-will and Illusion?
Does determinism undermine ethics?
retribution theory
reform theory