NEUROETHICS / MIDTERM REVIEW
Sample questions
Four short prompts: answer three. One long answer: about three blue-book pages.
SHORT RESPONSE
Habit and goal-directed action
Explain the distinction between habitual and goal-directed drug use. How could a change in the drug’s value help distinguish them? Explain why goal-directed use can still be harmful.
LONG ANSWER
Naturalistic spirituality
“If psychedelic experiences arise entirely from natural processes in the brain, they cannot provide genuine spiritual insight.”
Evaluate this claim using Letheby’s account of self-models, unselfing, and naturalistic spirituality. Explain how an experience might change someone’s understanding without revealing a supernatural reality. Then consider whether a meaningful or therapeutically helpful change is sufficient to establish that the resulting understanding is justified.
WRITING TIPS / BEFORE AND DURING THE RESPONSE
Planning and explanation
- 1
Identify the jobs in the question
Notice the verbs. Jot down a few words for each part before writing.
- 2
Give your answer early
Begin with the distinction or your position. For a long answer, state your main reason too.
- 3
Explain the terms you need
Define technical terms in context and use them consistently.
- 4
Show why your claims follow
Give reasons. Explain what an example or finding supports.
WRITING TIPS / ARGUMENT AND FINAL CHECK
Objections, conclusions, and clarity
- 5
Develop an objection and reply
In the long answer, challenge a premise or inference. Explain how a defender could respond.
- 6
Keep the conclusion within the argument’s limits
State what you have established and what remains open.
- 7
Write plainly and check for gaps
Check for missed parts, unexplained terms, and overstated conclusions.
Short responses follow the question’s parts.
Long answers develop an argument and test it against an objection.
SHORT RESPONSE / TIP 1
The question gives us a plan
THE PROMPT
Explain the distinction between habitual and goal-directed drug use. How could a change in the drug’s value help distinguish them? Explain why goal-directed use can still be harmful.
A FEW WORDS BEFORE WRITING
The distinction
What guides the behavior?
The test
What follows from devaluation?
The harm
Why can a valued outcome still cost someone?
SHORT RESPONSE / BUILDING THE ANSWER
A focused response
Habitual drug use follows learned cue–response associations and is relatively insensitive to the drug’s current value. Goal-directed use depends on an expected outcome and its current value; it need not involve conscious deliberation.
Outcome devaluation tests this distinction. After an animal learns that pressing a lever produces food, feeding it to satiety reduces that food’s value. Researchers then test pressing without delivering food. Reduced pressing supports goal-directed control; unchanged pressing can suggest habit but requires further checks.
Goal-directed use can still be harmful. Someone might use a drug for immediate relief despite serious health costs. Acting for a valued outcome does not establish that the action serves their overall well-being or is easy to resist.
LONG ANSWER / TIP 1
The question and the argument
THE CLAIM
“If psychedelic experiences arise entirely from natural processes in the brain, they cannot provide genuine spiritual insight.”
Evaluate this claim using Letheby’s account of self-models, unselfing, and naturalistic spirituality. Explain how an experience might change someone’s understanding without revealing a supernatural reality. Then consider whether a meaningful or therapeutically helpful change is sufficient to establish that the resulting understanding is justified.
A FEW WORDS BEFORE WRITING
A qualified thesis
State a position and its limit.
The proposal
Explain it through a case.
An objection and reply
Test the account of spirituality.
Justification and verdict
What does helpfulness establish?
LONG ANSWER / PARAGRAPHS 1–3
Opening and proposal
The claim assumes that genuine spirituality requires contact with a supernatural reality. Letheby challenges that assumption. I agree that psychedelic experiences can have spiritual significance under naturalism, but this does not establish that the beliefs arising from them are justified.
Letheby’s account begins with the self-model. The brain organizes bodily experiences, memories, and intentions into a representation of a subject to whom they belong. Our narrative self-model represents who we are over time. These models organize experience and direct attention, but they can become rigid. Someone who understands themselves as unworthy might dismiss a compliment while treating a minor mistake as confirmation of their worthlessness.
On Letheby’s proposal, psychedelics can loosen the dominance of this self-model. Someone might experience “I am unworthy” as a thought they have rather than an unquestionable fact. They may then notice evidence they previously dismissed and experience other ways of relating to themselves. This change need not involve discovering a supernatural soul. It can reveal that a familiar self-conception is revisable.
LONG ANSWER / PARAGRAPHS 4–6
Support, objection, and reply
This helps explain unselfing: attention becomes less constrained by narrow concern with oneself. Letheby identifies connection, aspiration, and reflection on fundamental questions as important features of naturalistic spirituality. Someone might become more attentive to other people, reconsider neglected ideals, or reflect on mortality. Murdoch’s example of attention shifting from wounded vanity to a hovering kestrel illustrates how an ordinary encounter with nature can loosen self-preoccupation. These experiences can change someone’s orientation toward life without requiring supernatural beliefs.
One objection is that Letheby has stretched the meaning of “spiritual.” Perhaps he has described awe or emotional relief while leaving genuine spirituality unexplained. If spirituality requires contact with a supernatural realm, calling these experiences spiritual seems to settle the dispute through a convenient definition.
Letheby can reply that he is defending a legitimate sense of spirituality grounded in recognizable experiences and practices. Connection, aspiration, and reflection can form a broader orientation toward one’s life and place in the world. That gives his account more substance than identifying spirituality with any intense or pleasant feeling. Still, the objection limits his conclusion: he has not shown that every legitimate sense of “spiritual” is compatible with naturalism.
LONG ANSWER / PARAGRAPHS 7–9
Justification and conclusion
There is also a separate question about justification. Feeling connected to others does not establish that all minds belong to a cosmic consciousness. Feeling certain about the source of a psychological difficulty does not establish that the explanation is correct. An experience can be meaningful or reduce distress while encouraging an unsupported belief. Therapeutic benefit alone therefore cannot establish that a belief is justified.
Candidate insights need sober reflection and relevant evidence. Someone’s belief that others care about them might be supported by their relationships and subsequent experiences. The belief that they can never become addicted again requires much more than confidence. Letheby’s proposal makes improved understanding possible, but each interpretation still needs evaluation.
A natural explanation therefore does not exclude spiritual significance. Unselfing can support connection, aspiration, and reflection without supernatural disclosure. Whether a particular insight constitutes knowledge remains a further question, requiring evidence beyond its intensity or helpfulness.
BEFORE YOU FINISH / TIPS 1, 4, AND 6
A final check
Every part of the question?
Compare the response with the prompt’s instructions.
The reasons are visible?
Explain why the example or finding supports the claim.
The conclusion fits the argument?
Keep distinctions and qualifications through to the verdict.
For the long answer: an objection with a target, and a reply that addresses it.