PHIL 1F91 Lecture Notes - Thought Experiment, Reductionism, Logical Possibility
9 Dec 2012
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So far we know that philosophers try to solve what rauhut calls open questions . Such questions are open because it is difficult to determine what an irrefutable answer would look like; second, we know that philosophers investigate such questions via conceptual analysis. We now want to know if there is a methodology that philosophers use to answer such questions. Think of a thought experiment: judge- we must judge the test for the hypothesis, clarification. When we speak about clarification in philosophy we are really speaking about conceptual analysis. Example: on the moral and legal status of abortion by mary ann warren (1973) Mary ann warren the fetus is not a person and hence not the sort of entity to which it is proper to ascribe full moral rights . Only a person can have moral rights and a fetus even if it is a human being does not possess those moral rights.
