This is only for the MCQ/MRQs for now. We are still in the process of scoring the SAQs and will update at the end of this post when that’s done. There are 460 of you so this will take a while…
I will be brief for most of the questions. You will be able to see your submitted quiz in Luminus, but not a gradebook entry. Question 20 updated. The 75th, 50th, and 25th percentile scores, mean and standard deviation are provided, with the most recent AY Semester 1s also listed for comparison:
- AY2020-2021, Sem 1: quartiles 20, 17, 13; mean 16.76; SD 4.750
- AY2019-2020, Sem 1: quartiles 17, 15, 12; mean 14.89; SD 4.158
- AY2018-2019, Sem 1: quartiles 21, 18, 15; mean 17.65; SD 4.638
Update: Note that Question 25 has been voided and everyone will get a mark for it. The summary statistics reflects the new scoring.
Click through to see…
- Question 1 (11%)
Dave’s final reflection = “I would have been better off if my enjoyment of the meal did not involve a false belief and luck.” This is compatible with all the theories of well-being we considered. For DST, imagine that he desires to not have to depend upon false belief and luck (42%). For PST: imagine that he has the above desire, and his desire is itself not due to false beliefs (43%). For PPT: imagine that the meal would have been more pleasurable if it did not involve false belief and luck (27%). And finally, for OLT: any suitably gerrymandered objective list (41%). Do keep in mind that the options are about compatibility–in order for one of the theories to be compatible with the information give, all that needs to happen is that the information given does not rule out the theory, that’s all.
- Question 2 (26%)
Lena is right since on her account, “desire satisfaction” has just gotten redefined in terms of one having a certain mental state (54% can see that she’s right). She is very clear that this is what she is doing–“But this may not be what we normally mean by someone getting what he wanted.” (The “someone” also indicates that this is meant to be general, and “Dave” is just the stand in for “someone”, “anyone”.) Tess is wrong because even if the satisfaction of any desire always involves the experience of pleasure, there is still a difference between saying that well-being consists in the satisfaction of the desire, vs., saying that it consists in one having that pleasure (50% distracted by this).
- Question 3 (55%)
Not Lena because those non-real activities can go together with real mental states. Tess, as a matter of definition. Not Gene as those high-schoolers can always come to want to stay plugged in, and have that desire not because of any false beliefs (37% distracted by this one).
- Question 4 (84%)
Not Gene as there isn’t enough information for that conclusion. Lena and Dave as the information provided does not rule out those possibilities.
- Question 5 (72%)
Will, definitional. Not Gene as fulfilling duty isn’t praiseworthy, just not blameworthy. Not Lena as what she said only implies something about people’s belief, not moral truth
- Question 6 (23%)
Not Will as he made the wrong comparison—he should be comparing the expected outcome of firing vs. not firing the rifle (i.e., to hit the detonator) (60% distracted by this one). Gene made the correct comparison (95% got this). Not Lena, not Dave, definitional.
- Question 7 (74%)
Not Will since even if Utilitarianism is a false moral theory, that at best implies that the Utilitarian Argument for Ziwei’s stance is unsound. Not Tess since from Ziwei’s idea, we can’t draw conclusion about whether factory-farming creates more happiness than misery.
- Question 8 (78%)
Not Gene since the Puppy Argument doesn’t depend upon the reality of Fred or cocoamone. Dave is right since Lena was talking about her having a certain visceral reaction; the Puppy Argument needs her to agree that it’s morally wrong to eat at Fred’s, and not just have a certain visceral reaction. Not Tess since Gene can always disagree with the other conditional premise instead.
- Question 9 (38%)
Lena, definitional (98%). Dave, because Norcross sees moral patientcy as founded upon capacity for pain and suffering (66%). Gene, definitional (85%). Will—basically Lomasky’s position as presented, and needed for his version of the ‘Utilitarian Argument’ (74%).
- Question 10 (65%)
Dave, basically just reporting (a part of) Singer’s position (96%). Not Lena as the argument can be unsound without that premise being false. Not Will as the argument as stated does not rule out deontology. Tess, because logic… (and nothing else provided rules out the conclusion being true anyway) (78%).
- Question 11 (29%)
Both Gene and Dave, reading comprehension (of the principles stated). Most (86%) can see that Dave is right, but many (57%) failed to see that Dave is right.
Dave: “…and what the Moderate Principle implies is that if I don’t have a duty to donate the money, then my not having $2,000 to spend is a morally significant sacrifice.” Moderate Principle implies that Dave has a moral duty to donate the $2,000 if by doing so, he doesn’t sacrifice anything morally significant”. So, flipping it around, if he doesn’t have such a duty, then he would be making a morally significant sacrifice by donating.
- Question 12 (65%)
Not Will as he made the wrong comparison—the issue is whether the benefits outweighs the costs, not whether one life is more valuable than another. Lena, as explained in lecture/Quiz 04 debrief, etc.
- Question 13 (31%)
Gene, definitional (96%). Will, definitional (expected vs actual outcome) (53%). Not Lena as the Statist need not rule out some coercion as justified for both government and private individuals (12%). Not Tess as it will depend on the value of the expected outcome (46%).
- Question 14 (91%)
Not Dave as there is insufficient information. Not Will since the soldier can believe this and also believe in Anarchism.
- Question 15 (93%)
Not Dave and not Will, definitional. The leader of Pacifica actually, rather than hypothetically, consented, and he explicitly, rather than implicitly consented. Gene, definitional.
- Question 16 (60%)
Not Lena since Compatibilism may still be true (rejecting Premise 2 of the Standard Argument) (31%). Not Gene since those actions may be objectively random (as Premise 3 of the Standard Argument asserts) (3%). Tess, definitional (92%). Will as he properly denied Premise 1 of the Standard Argument, and the argument being unsound does not guarantee that someone is morally responsible for a specific action (86%).
- Question 17 (60%)
Tess, from lecture and reading. Not Gene, since Basic Argument being unsound does not imply that anyone can be morally responsible for their actions. Lena, definitional.
- Question 18 (49%)
Not Dave since “S does not deserve to be criticized” ≠ “no reason at all for anyone to criticize S” (46% got distracted by this). Not Will since “S does not deserve to be criticized” ≠ “no one would criticize S”.
- Question 19 (52%)
Abe, not Bern, not Cain, because logic…
- Question 20 (93% updated)
As intended, the question is not about whether the students accurately reported Mackie’s actual procedure, but whether their proposed idea, if successfully carried out, will allow Mackie to show that the three propositions can’t all be true at once. On this way of reading the question, Tess is wrong as what she said only shows that they can’t all be false; but they can still all be true (cf. Bostrom’s three-way). And Lena is right as what she says, if successfully carried out, will also show that the three can’t all be true at once. But while reviewing, I realized that it would not be unreasonable for someone to read the preamble as asking whether the students made an accurate report of Mackie’s actual procedure. In that case, then only Gene is correct. In light of this potential ambiguity, I will accept both the “Gene only” (67%) and “Gene and Lena” (23%) answers. This update will not be reflected in the quiz itself, but will be captured in the backend.
- Question 21 (23%)
Dave, definitional (68%). Not Lena—that as that person can always be irrational or thinks that belief in God’s existence is a matter of faith against reason (35%). Not Gene as this isn’t a necessary condition (54%). Not Will as Mackie’s argument is epistemological, not metaphysical (22%).
- Question 22 (47%)
Not Dave, not Will since truth isn’t the same as justification. Gene since truth is a necessary condition for knowledge (see lecture). Not Lena since not knowing ≠ false.
- Question 23 (47%)
Not Gene, as while Bern and Cain are in that disputation, Dave isn’t (15%). Lena, definitional (86%). Tess, lecture/reading (84%). Not Will, as argument unsound doesn’t imply that the conclusion is false (32%).
- Question 24 (54%)
Dave, Will, definitional. Most can see that Dave is right (85%), but many (32%) failed to see that Will is right. Keep in mind that even if Epistemic Uniqueness is true, it doesn’t follow that every disputation will be such that one position is justified and the other unjustified—the evidence may be such that neither position in the disputation is justified.
- Question 25 (voided; everyone will get a mark for it)
As intended, Lena’s statement “Your in-game avatar’s movements in the game world supervenes on the movements of your computer’s mouse!” meant to say that the avatar’s moving supervenes on the mouse moving. On this interpretation, the only combination ruled out is “Will’s avatar moved in the game world, but his computer’s mouse didn’t move”. But we later discovered two distinct problems.
First, “movement” can be taken abstractly. This means that, in principle, someone could take it to mean something like, e.g., the avatar’s moving supervenes on the mouse not moving, or the avatar’s not moving supervenes on the mouse moving, or the avatar’s not moving on the mouse not moving. But whatever the case, the correct combination will always be to select three of the options, dropping one. No other combinations will work on a consistent interpretation of what Lena meant. Second, a few students asked during the quiz itself whether each option should be taken independently. I think there was some miscommunication but they ended with the mistaken impression that they don’t need to assume one consistent interpretation of what Lena is saying across the different options. In that case, then, technically, any combination of any of the options will do. For these reasons, in the spirit of fairness, I’ve decided to void this question and give everyone who selected something (that’s everyone) a mark. Preliminary analysis reveals that this affects the overall distributions and rankings only very marginally, though the summary statistics moved a little, of course.
- Question 26 (80%)
Not Tess as intelligence ≠ consciousness; see lecture. Not Gene as even if scenario requires physicalism, Nagel’s conclusion already covers it (“physicalism either false, or if true, we don’t know how it is true”) (16% distracted by this).
- Question 27 (35%)
Lena, Tess, definitional. Not Gene since just because one is conscious, it doesn’t follow that one is capable of every possible kind of conscious experience. There could be conscious beings who cannot feel pain—a specific type of conscious experience. While most (82%) can see that both Lena and Tess are right, many (47%) were distracted by Gene. (You don’t need to know this since you have enough information to make the deduction; but it does turn out that the scenario is an actually possible one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_insensitivity_to_pain)
- Question 28 (65%)
Not Dave as Simulation Argument doesn’t aim to show that (1) is true (17% distracted by this). Not Tess since Will is conscious (he is feeling worried, and his report is sincere and accurate), not just intelligent.
- Question 29 (30%)
Not Tess since our civilization might just one of those exceptionally lousy ones technologically speaking (59%). Will, since we might be in a simulation with those parameters (78%). Not Dave as what Gene said does not affect soundness of the argument (6%). Lena as the possibility is still there given the scenario (72%).
- Question 30 (48%)
Partition problem. Both made correct applications of the POI. While most (86%) can see that Tess is right, many (37%) failed to see that Gene also made a correct application of the POI. From the overall context, the students are assuming that there’s only one culprit and the person is from the group of 6. They could be wrong, of course. But given that background assumption, they made a correct application of the POI.
