Philosophy: Short and Long Answer Questions

This article covers short and long answer questions on philosophy covering topics like Modus Tollens, life's meaning, greatest happiness principle, sentience, privilege, Plato's theory of forms, Descartes' epistemology, category mistake, Iris Marion Young's theory of distributive justice, Marilyn Frye's theory of oppression, Robert Nozick's entitlement theory, Tom Regan's animal rights, and Edmund Gettier's problem of knowledge.

Running head: PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy
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Short answer questions
1. Modus Tollens, in the case of propositional logic, is a kind of argument form where a
rule of inference is applied; it denies the consequent in order to affirm the argument. It states that
if a given statement happens to be true, it would be contra-positive (Demetriou, Spanoudis and
Shayer).
2. A human being’s life lacks an objective meaning; every value or moral that a person
tries to base his or her life on is preconceived or a creation of man himself – thus rendering it
impossible to find objective meaning in one’s life. On the contrary, life’s meaning can be found
within oneself, in his goals and objectives and what he chooses to do with his life (Lambert et
al.).
3. John Stuart Mill’s “Greatest Happiness Principle” presents a unique view of pleasure;
according to him, happiness can be defined as the absence of suffering or intended pleasure and
that to assess if an action is right or wrong, one would have to compare it to the amount of
happiness derived from it (Loizides).
4. In philosophy, sentience may be defined as an individual’s ability to perceive, feel or
even experience sensations in a subjective way. It can also be used to refer to the metaphysical
quality that is evident in all things, requiring them to be treated with care and respect (Caballero
and Vera).
5. In sociology and philosophy, the term privilege refers to the advantages that have been
made available to only a specific person or group of people. This discrimination could be on the
grounds of age, ethnicity, disability, gender, religion or social classes (Lenski).

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6. According to Plato’s Theory of Forms, men perceive forms and concepts based on their
ability to see the actual reality concealed in the world of day to day existence; for him, all
conceivable things, both living and non living, have a definite corresponding form (Cornford).
7. With regards to Descartes’ epistemology, it can be said that he was a foundationalist
because he believed his indubitable knowledge about his existence to be his foundation.
Foundationalism can be defined as the ability to structure knowledge in a rational and logical
manner, like an architectural edifice, which Descartes demonstrates (Lehrer).
8. Category mistake in philosophy may be defined as an ontological or semantic error,
where things which belong to a specific category are mistakenly presented as being part of a
different group altogether. For example, in linguistics, category mistake would mean the use of
superficial grammar in a word which betrays the expected logical form, presenting a radically
different logical form (Magidor).
Medium answer questions
1. Iris Marion Young, one of the leading political theorists in the States, has formulated a
theory of distributive justice associated with race, gender, democracy, equality, globalization
and so on. According to Young, structural inequalities have pervaded groups in the society which
may be defined as social processes reinforcing each other to constrain or enable individual
actions, thus granting a specific segment of society more privileges than others; this
discrimination has its roots in certain attributes like race, gender, class or age (Clifford). Through
her concept of groups and distributive justice, she attempts to assess if such group conscious
practices of examining inequality would be justified. As a matter of fact, she associated the

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concept of distributive justice with feminism and asserts the prevalence of structural injustice
and group differences at macro levels in society amongst women.
2. Marilyn Frye’s theory of oppression has its roots in the feminist assumption that
women, over the years have been oppressed because of their gender, but men have not
(McWhorter). Frye, at the beginning of her essay, clarifies what it means to be oppressed; it is
commonly mistaken that “oppression” refers to limitation or any suffering ensuing from the
limitation. However, Frye emphasizes that “oppression” refers to the way something (or,
someone in this case) that is caught between barriers or forces which combine together to
restrict, prevent or restrain its mobility. According to Frye, women across the world have been
oppressed simply on grounds of their gender. To her, in order to be categorized as oppressed, one
must be compartmentalized into a specific group – in this case female.
3. According to Robert Nozick, the term “distributive justice” itself is misleading because
it implies that there exists a central authority who is in charge of distributing share of wealth to
individuals; a more efficient theory as far as justice is concerned would include the principles of
acquisition, transfer and rectification. Acquisition refers to appropriating natural resources which
were not owned previously. Transfer, on the contrary, would refer to the way someone might
inherit something that was owned previously. Finally, rectification indicates employing righteous
means while dealing with injustices in transfer and acquisition. This is what has come to be
known as entitlement theory in distributive justice (Nozick).
4. According to Tom Regan, author of “The Case for Animal Rights”, non human animals
possess moral rights; his claim is in accordance with that of Immanuel Kant, differing from the
latter only in the aspect that Kant applied this principle to just rational beings (Armstrong and

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Botzler). However, Regan argued that every life has a value of its own, and thus every living
being, animals or humans, should be treated with a degree of respect, irrespective of rationality.
Regan uses a term “subject-of-a-life” to throw light on the fact that all living beings have
inherent value, and thus have innate moral rights as well; thus, going by his theory, all living
beings, non human or human, deserve to be treated with kindness and reverence.
5. Edmund Gettier, American philosopher, introduced a revolutionary concept with
regards to how a man understands knowledge; this can be considered to be a landmark in
philosophy and is referred to as the Gettier Problem in common parlance (Hazlett). The
conventional belief held that processing of knowledge takes place through a JBT (justified true
belief) principle; this meant that if man possessed all three aspects regarding a specific statement
or claim, he or she would have perfect knowledge of it. However, Gettier attempts to challenge
this proposition by means of two examples and says that an individual may have justified or true
belief about something, but still not acquire wholesome knowledge of it. This is because what an
individual perceives to be true or justified may entirely be false or inaccurate.
Long answer questions
According to Marilyn Frye, oppression can be used in the feminist context to indicate
the way in which women have been oppressed over the centuries on grounds of their gender,
while men have not. She says that the term comes from element press, implying that someone
who is oppressed would be caught in between forces or even barriers that collectively restrain
and restrict an individual’s mobility as a whole (Eller). In her definition of oppression, Frye also
lists five characteristics of someone who is oppressed. One, there should be restrictions or
limitations imposed on a person’s freedom. For example, women have always been deemed

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inferior to men and restrictions have been forced on them, prohibiting free movement. Two, a
person would have undergone suffering as part of oppression. Women are often subjected to
violence as part of oppression; moreover, women have lesser personal and economic freedom as
compared to men (Whitney and Page). Three, these restrictions have been established by social
structures or institutions; women have been oppressed by pervasive societal norms and
conventions. Four, the oppressed person would have to be discriminated against because of their
belonging to a specific group; for instance, women have been oppressed solely on the basis of
their gender. Five, there will have to another social strata that benefits in some form or other
from the oppression of the aforementioned social group; for example, the establishment of
patriarchy, which oppresses women, has benefitted men because they are guaranteed privileges
simply because of their sex (Ahmed).
Frye argues against a broadly accepted definition of oppression that an oppressed person
has restrictions and constraints imposed on his or her freedom; she specifies the various aspects
associated with oppression as well. However, over the years, there have been a number of
critiques of her concept of oppression. Her definition has hints of narrowness; while the first
four aspects of her definition are valid and highlight the way women have been oppressed in
society, the fifth point is slightly problematic. To simply state that men benefit from oppression
of women is too simplistic; research has shown that patriarchal institutions harm men just as
much as women. This system has rigid gender roles assigned to men and women on grounds of
sex, stating that women are the weaker sex. While women are expected to be meek and
submissive, men are expected to be tough or “manly.” Enforcing such concepts could inhibit an
individual’s personal growth; Frye, however, fails to take into account the effect of oppression
on the oppressors. She fails to acknowledge that oppressing can be a source of oppression for the

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perpetrators. In a way, such a system not only snatches away the personal freedom of women,
but also restricts the liberty of men since they are compelled to adhere to ascribed gender roles.
To elaborate further, Frye fails to take into account other oppressed categories, who have
been excluded from this definition. For example, homosexual men in the United States are
denied their birth right to get married or avail health benefits – privileges offered to their
heterosexual counterparts. However, they do not meet the requirements of oppression as
mentioned by Frye. While they are certainly denied of certain liberties and harmed in due course
due to denial of such rights, they fail to meet the fifth criterion which claims that another social
group would have to benefit from their misery; this is because the heterosexual community
stands to gain nothing through oppression of the homosexual population. Similarly, Frye’s
definition unwittingly includes certain sections of society, like convicts, who cannot claim to be
oppressed. Convicts and criminals have violated laws and regulations on account of which they
have been sentenced; yet, according to Frye, they form a definite social group, since they are
subjected to barriers during the course of their incarceration.
To conclude, it can be said that while Marilyn Frye’s essay attempts to define in detail
oppression and all that it entails, there are certain aspects which need to be critiqued and
clarified. The fifth point of her definition renders her discussion inconclusive and ambiguous,
since it takes into account only one section of society, namely women, and ignores the rest. In
the above essay, the examples demonstrate how Frye’s perspective disregards certain sections of
society, thus being unable to provide an all encompassing view of oppression.

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References:
Ahmed, Sara. "Introduction: Sexism-A problem with a name." new formations: a journal of
culture/theory/politics 86.1 (2015): 5-13.
Armstrong, Susan J., and Richard G. Botzler, eds. The animal ethics reader. Taylor & Francis,
2016.
Caballero, Rosario, and Javier E. Díaz Vera, eds. Sensuous Cognition: Explorations into human
sentience: Imagination,(e) motion and perception. Vol. 22. Walter de Gruyter, 2013.
Clifford, Derek. "Ethics, politics and the social professions: Reading Iris Marion Young." Ethics
and Social Welfare 7.1 (2013): 36-53.
Cornford, Francis Macdonald. Plato's theory of knowledge. Routledge, 2013.
Demetriou, Andreas, George Spanoudis, and Michael Shayer. "Inference, reconceptualization,
insight, and efficiency along intellectual growth: A general theory." Enfance 3 (2014): 365-396.
Eller, G. M. "On fat oppression." Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 24.3 (2014): 219-245.
Hazlett, Allan. "The maturation of the Gettier problem." Philosophical Studies 172.1 (2015): 1-6.
Lambert, Nathaniel M., et al. "To belong is to matter: Sense of belonging enhances meaning in
life." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 39.11 (2013): 1418-1427.
Lehrer, Keith. Theory of knowledge. Routledge, 2018.
Lenski, Gerhard E. Power and privilege: A theory of social stratification. UNC Press Books,
2013.

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Loizides, Antis. John Stuart Mill’s Platonic heritage: happiness through character. Lexington
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Magidor, Ofra. "Category mistakes and figurative language." Philosophical Studies 174.1
(2017): 65-78.
McWhorter, Ladelle. "Post-liberation feminism and practices of freedom." Foucault Studies 16
(2013): 54-73.
Nozick, Robert. "Distributive justice." Distributive Justice. Routledge, 2017. 3-61.
Whitley, Leila, and Tiffany Page. "Sexism at the centre: Locating the problem of sexual
harassment." New Formations86.86 (2015): 34-53.