post philo exam

just had my philo exam. although writing an essay for the module is a pain in the ass, i really enjoyed doing the exam. 20 mcqs. all based on logic. the trick about logic is that no amount of mugging or reading will get you past the obstacle if you do not possess any modicum of logic. this point is best illustrated by hermoinie in the second harry potter book when she demonstrated the use of logic getting past the obstacles set by snape.

2 passages (not related to logic at all) i particularly liked from the paper:

From Plato's Republic, (371; 347c-e):
This, (Socrates) said, is why good men are not willing to rule for the sake of money or honor. They dont wish to be seen openly demanding payment or service in government, as that would earn them the name of hired hand; nor do they wish to earn the name of thief, by dipping their hand in the public till. Not being ambitious, they do not care about honor. As a result of all this, a yoke of compulsion and penalty must be laid upon their necks, if they are to consent to rule. And this, I imagine, is the reason why willingly seeking office, when one might have waited to be compelled, has been deemed dishonorable. But the essence of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to end up being ruled by one worse than himself. The way I look at it, fear of this bad result makes the good take office, whenever they do, and then they approach it, not as something good or in the expectation of enjoying themselves, but as a necessary evil since they are unable to foist off the chore of ruling on anyone as good or better than themselves. Indeed, if there were a city entirely peopled by good men, we might well find men would content as eagerly to avoid public office as they do here to obtain it. In that place it would become quite clear that the nature of the true ruler is not to look after his own interests, but rather those of his subjects; and everyone who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another, instead of being put to the trouble of conferring them all around.

From Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis (p. 21-22)
The point of these studies is that moral judgment is like aesthetic judgment. When you see a painting, you usually know instantly and automatically whether you like it. If someone asks you to explain your judgment, you confabulate. You dont really know why you think something is beautiful, but your interpreter module (the rider) is skilled at making up reasons.. You search for a plausible reason for liking the painting, and you latch on to the first reason that makes sense (maybe something vague about color, or light, or the reflection of the painter in the clown's shiny nose). Moral arguments are much the same: Two people feel strongly about an issue, their feelings come first, and their reasons are invented on the fly, to throw at each other. When you refute a person's argument, does she generally change her mind and agree with you? Of course not, because the argument you defeated was not the cause of her position; it was made up after the judgment was already made.

When i read these 2 passages i was like wow. I was reading them for the sake of gleaning insights from the words instead of reading them to attempt to answer the exam question =X