Philosophy & Ethics

Questions in this quiz

1. 1. Aesthetics deals with objects that are_____.
   1. essential to our existence
   2. unimportant to most people
   3. not essential to our existence
   4. rarely viewed
2. 2. For Socrates, an unexamined life is a tragedy because it results in grievous harm to _____.
   1. the state
   2. the justice system
   3. the body
   4. the soul
3. 3. According to Kant, nothing can be called “good” without qualification except _____.
   1. right action
   2. good consequences
   3. happiness
   4. a good will
4. 4. Plato's view is that true beauty is _____.
   1. found in everyday objects
   2. nonexistent
   3. everywhere in the natural world
   4. not of this world
5. 5. In Aristotle’s terminology, incontinence is when:
   1. one does not know that one’s actions are wrong.
   2. one knows that one’s actions are wrong, but does them anyway.
   3. one knows that one’s feelings are inappropriate, and does not act on them.
   4. one does the right action, but for the wrong reason.
6. 6. Nagel claims that most skeptical arguments:
   1. are the result of applying arbitrarily stringent standards.
   2. are based on linguistic confusions.
   3. are logically self-refuting.
   4. grow from the consistent application of ordinary standards.
7. 7. Rawls conceives of the original contract as one to:
   1. enter a particular society.
   2. set up a particular form of government.
   3. establish the principles of justice for the basic structure of society.
   4. establish the content of morality.
8. 8. According to Singer, compliance with his principle requires:
   1. modest changes to our personal habits, but not to our society as a whole.
   2. modest changes to our personal habits, as well as to society.
   3. drastic changes to our personal habits, but not to our society.
   4. drastic changes to both our personal habits and to our society.
9. 9. For Socrates, the soul is harmed by lack of _____.
   1. knowledge
   2. wealth
   3. community
   4. courage
10. 10. According to Kant, morality requires us to:
    1. perform the action that leads to the greatest total happiness.
    2. act only on maxims that we can will to become universal laws.
    3. behave only in such a way as a perfectly virtuous person would behave.
    4. place the interests of others above the interests of ourselves.
11. 11. According to Gauthier, the basis of morality is:
    1. maximizing the utility of all sentient beings.
    2. God’s commands.
    3. the agreement of rational persons choosing the terms of their interaction.
    4. the purposive order of nature.
12. 12. Anscombe claims that it is not profitable to do moral philosophy until we have an adequate philosophy of:
    1. religion.
    2. physics.
    3. psychology.
    4. art.
13. 13. Mill claims that one of the strongest objections to utilitarianism is drawn from the idea of:
    1. duty.
    2. justice.
    3. virtue.
    4. supererogation.
14. 14. Berkeley asserts that existing and perceiving are _____.
    1. one and the same thing
    2. both nonexistent
    3. two distinct things
    4. imaginary
15. 15. According to Rawls, the term “justice as fairness” conveys the idea that the principles of justice are agreed to in an initial position that is _____.
    1. rational
    2. artificial
    3. constitutional
    4. fair
16. 16. Berkeley believes that sensible things cannot exist except in _____.
    1. a mind
    2. absolute existence
    3. material substance
    4. a material universe
17. 17. Singer claims that his argument upsets the traditional distinction between:
    1. duty and charity.
    2. egoism and altruism.
    3. rights and privileges.
    4. positive and negative rights.
18. 18. Just war theory's principle of military necessity belongs to
    1. jus in bello.
    2. jus ad bellum.
    3. moral nihilism.
    4. all of the above
19. 19. According to Mill, censoring speech that is possibly true
    1. violates human dignity.
    2. fails a prima facie duty of honesty.
    3. is tantamount to asserting that you are infallible.
    4. is a risk worth taking of the speech is dangerous enough.
20. 20. West argues that feminist rhetoric has
    1. obscures the harms of noncoerced, consensual sex by implying that because what is coerced is bad what is noncoerced is good.
    2. obscures the harms of rape by equating all sex with nonconsensual sex.
    3. by not acknowledging a distinction between what is good and what noncoerced, has led to the acknowledgement of the harms of consensual sex.
    4. All of the above
21. 21. According to Mill, the value of a particular pleasure depends on
    1. its quantity alone.
    2. its quality alone.
    3. both its quantity and its quality.
    4. neither its quantity nor its quality.
22. 22. According to Carruthers, whenever someone is required to act in a certain way toward an animal for the sake of the animal, what explains that fact are facts about
    1. the animal.
    2. the wider effects on human beings.
    3. both A and B
    4. neither A nor B
23. 23. What does SCNT stand for, as used in the discussion on cloning?
    1. skin cell nuclear transfer
    2. stem cell nuclear transmission
    3. somatic cell nuclear transfer
    4. none of the above
24. 24. Velleman worries that, by offering a patient the option of euthanasia,
    1. we allow the patient to harm him- or herself.
    2. we force doctors to harm the patient.
    3. we harm the patient's family.
    4. we harm the patient.
25. 25. Nathanson supports which of the following kinds of retributivism?
    1. preventive
    2. proportional
    3. equality
    4. retaliatory
26. 26. Carruthers approaches questions about the moral standing of nonhuman animals from the perspective of which of the following moral theories?
    1. consequentialism
    2. Kantianism
    3. virtue ethics
    4. contractualism
27. 27. In Gardiner's analysis, which of the following is a characteristic of the climate change problem?
    1. institutional adequacy
    2. dispersion of causes and effects
    3. fragmentation of agency
    4. all of the above
28. 28. What is the "intergenerational storm" of climate change?
    1. the problem of massive world overpopulation over generations.
    2. the problem that the bad effects of current carbon dioxide emissions will fall largely on future generations.
    3. the problem that the compounding effects of greenhouse gas emissions require the current generation to, in effect, cooperate with future generations.
    4. the problem that countries are possibly biased toward the interests of the current generation, which largely benefits from carbon dioxide emissions.
29. 29. Hourdequin argues that one flaw of consequentialist calculation is that
    1. it fails to reconcile prima facie duties.
    2. it can run counter to a person's being able to integrate her commitments at various levels.
    3. it can run counter to the idea that persons are atomistic and individually rational actors.
    4. it fails to recognize that possibility that the persons are best understood in relation to one another.
30. 30. Dershowitz discusses the hypothetical case where the hijacked planes of 9/11 must be shot down to argue that important decisions like these
    1. often have to be made quickly and without immediate authorization.
    2. should be made with visibility and accountability by the highest-level officials.
    3. have no objective answer.
    4. none of the above