Ethics final quiz

What is the term used to describe a moral rule that it is always (morally) impermissible to break?

A Pluralistic Moral Rule

A Fundamental Moral Rule

A Supreme Moral Rule

An Absolute Moral Rule

What does it mean to say that a moral rule R is fundamental?

It is always immoral to break R.

All of these.

R cannot be explained by some deeper more basic moral rule.

R is a moral rule accepted by all cultures.

What is the problem of conflict for ethical pluralism?

Any two moral rules are bound to conflict with one another.

Allowing multiple cultures to have their own morality will inevitably lead to conflict between these cultures.

Ethical Pluralism conflicts with the idea that it is permissible to break a moral rule to prevent disaster.

Ethical Pluralism conflicts with our conventional moral wisdom.

What is the term for the idea that we are sometimes permitted to act in ways that foreseeably causes certain types of harm, but we are never permitted to intend those harms?

The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing

The Doctrine of Double Effect

The Doctrine of Intentional Action

Ethical Pluralism

Absolute moral rules are sometimes considered to be irrational because...

Absolute moral rules set unreasonably high expectations that no normal human could live up to.

Obedience to those rules can sometimes lead to disaster.

Obedience to those rules can sometimes frustrate their underlying purpose.

There is no evidence for the existence of objective morality.

What principle would imply that it is morally worse to kill someone than it is to merely let them die?

The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing

The Principle of Utility

The Doctrine of Double Effect

The Killing Doctrine

Imagine we distinguish harms we "do" from harms we "allow" as follows: when the harm is a result of our action we "did" that harm but when the harm is a result of our inaction we merely "allowed" that harm. One worry for this idea is that it implies that when we take someone off of life-support we are killing that person and NOT merely allowing them to die.

True

False

Knobe discussed an experiment that presented subjects with two vignettes about a chairman choosing whether to adopt a policy at the company. In each of the vignettes the policy was going to make the company a lot of money and the chairman said that they didn't care about the environment and only cared about making as much money as possible. The only difference was whether the policy would help or harm the environment. However, in the harm case subjects said the chairman intentionally harmed the environment but in the helping case subjects said the chairman did not intentionally help the environment. What worry for the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) did we raise using this experimental finding?

It isn't clear how to distinguish intention and forsight.

Our beliefs about people's intentions are informed by our judgments of the morality of their actions. Thus, appeals to the DDE seem circular.

Neither of these.

According to Ross' theory, how do we know what our prima facie duties are?

These are self-evident

We cannot know what our prima facie duties are with any kind of certainty. We can simply get clear on the situation at hand and form our best educated judgment as to what our prima facie duty is.

None of the above.

The correctness of prima facie duties is subjective.

According to Ross' theory, which of the following best describes our knowledge of the right thing to do in a particular situation?

Morality is subjective. So whatever you decide is morally right will be correct.

The morally right thing to do in any situation will be self-evident.

None of these.

We cannot know the morally right thing to do with any kind of certainty. We can simply get as clear about the situation as possible and the different prima facie duties that apply, and then make our best educated judgment as to which duty is most important in that situation.

I promise my friend that I will meet her for lunch on Thursday. However, on Thursday I become engrossed in a book I am reading, forget about these plans, and miss my lunch with my friend. Afterwards, I call my friend to apologize and offer to buy her a beer at our next lunch. My apology and offer are an illustration of my following which of Ross' prima facie duties?

Fidelity

Justice

Nonmaleficence

Reparations

What is a prima facie duty?

Something that appears to be a duty but might not actually be morally relevant

An absolute moral duty

A legal obligation to adhere to the contracts to which you consent

A permanent non-absolute (moral) reason to do something

Which of the following best describes Ross' view about the relationship between justice and well-being?

Doing justice is always more important than promoting well-being

Sometimes doing justice is more important than promoting well-being but sometimes not

The demands of justice will never conflict with our promoting well-being.

Promoting well-being is always more important than doing justice

Which of the following are advantages for Ross' pluralism?

It can explain why it is sometimes okay to break the moral rules

All of these

It nicely explains the function of moral regret

It can make sense of moral conflict without falling into contradiction

What does it mean to say that a truth is self-evident?

All of these.

Adequetly understanding and attending to the claim is sufficient to know that it is true.

The truth of the claim is obvious.

Everyone agrees and knows it to be true.

Which of the following is thought to raise worries for Ross' theory?

It fails to offer any kind of fixed or mechanical procedure for weighing the prima facie duties against one another.

It does not allow us to break a promis when doing so is necessary for disaster prevention

It isn't clear how it can account for the moral value of beneficience

It falls into contradiction when the moral rules conflict

Which of the following best captures what it means to have a 'right to life' according to Thompson?

The right not to be killed unjustly.

The right not to be killed.

The right to be given the means necessary for sustaining your life.

The right to live your life in whatever manner you see fit.

Thompson's Violinist case is best seen as a challenge to which of the following premises in what, in class, I referred to as "The Personhood Argument Against Abortion"

A fetus is a person.

The life of an innocent fetus is more important than the life of the mother.

A person's right to life always outweighs a person's right to bodily autonomy.

All person's have a right to life.

Thomson refers to the view that abortion is morally wrong even in cases where the mother's life at risk as 'the extreme view.' However, one might object to this extreme view on the grounds that in cases where the mother's life is at risk both the mother and the fetus have an equal right to life, and so it isn't clear why we should favor the fetus' life. To what principle could a defender of the extreme view appeal in order to respond to this worry?

The Principle of Utility

The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing

Kant's Principle of Humanity

The Principle of Hedonism

Consider a case where a pregnancy puts a mother's life at risk. Some opponents of abortion might argue that while the mother has a right to self-defense, a 3rd-party (such as a doctor) could not intervene and perform an abortion for her because 'who are they to decide?.' The idea being that this 3rd-party would have no grounds for giving preference to either of the two lives and so is jot justified in intervening in the situation. What analogy does Thompson appeal to in an attempt to challenge this reasoning?

The Tiny House Example

The Violinist Example

The Burgular Example

The Jones and the Coat Example

What does Don Marquis think is the primary reason that killing an ordinary adult human is severely prima facie wrong?

It causes pain to the victim's family and friends.

It deprives the victim of a future of valuable experiences.

It violates the commands of God.

It brutalizes the one who does the killing.

Which of the following advantages does Don Marquis claim for his account of the prima facie wrongness of killing an average adult human being?

His account does *not* entail that active euthanasia is wrong.

All of these.

His account is *incompatible* with the idea that it is only wrong to kill beings who are biologically human.

His account allows for the possibility that the killing of severly non-human animals is severly prima facie wrong.

Don Marquis would agree with the following statement: "If Marquis' account of the severe prima facie wrongness of abortion is correct, then the use of contraception is also severely prima facie wrong."

True

False

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