Ethics Final Exam Questions (from previous tests)

According to Kant's principle of respect, lying in order to get someone else to do something you want them to do is permissible only if you know doing so will redound to their benefit.

False

According to Thomson, if it could never be permissible for a third party (e.g., a doctor) to kill an innocent person via abortion, then we can automatically infer that the mother has no right to detach the unborn from herself.

False

According to Virtue Ethics, practical wisdom is the ability to accurately calculate the amount of happiness any individual action will promote.

False

All actions that are prescribed by the categorical imperative promote the self-interest of the agent.

False

Any treatment that alters someone's genetic makeup in order to better ensure that they will live a normal, healthy life is a form of genetic enhancement.

False

Cullen & Klein acknowledge Lipkin's point that many patients are unlikely to understand the technical details of their diagnosis, but they argue that doctors should share all such details anyway. Doctors are only respecting a patient's autonomy to make her own decisions if they (the doctors) do their part to make sure it is a fully informed decision. It is up to the patient to do the best she can to understand the information the doctors give.

False

Deontological theories of morality prescribe moral rules or principles by determining which sets of rules promote the greatest happiness.

False

Egoism is a deontological theory.

False

Even if it ultimately fails, Kass believes that an appeal to the good of a particular family is better suited to justify genetic abortion than an appeal to the good of society because the former, unlike the latter, is an objective standard

False

For Kass, if a family agrees on reasonable grounds that having a child of one sex is better for them than having a child of the other, one should respect their wishes and permit abortion of the unwanted sex.

False

For Rachels, since contemporary American culture is clearly the most morally praiseworthy culture in history, we should feel no reluctance to criticize the cultures of others

False

For Singer, no infant has a right to life;accordingly, parents should always be allowed to kill them if they prefer.

False

Given that doctors should always respect the autonomy of their patients, they should always avoid attempting to persuade their patients to pursue one treatment plan rather than any other. The decision should be left to the patient, and seeking to influence their decision is just paternalism dressed up in a veneer of politeness.

False

Given that we seek to prevent the suicide of the non-disabled, Johnson thinks that the appeal to autonomy to justify assisted suicide for the disabled serves only to hide a prejudice under a false pretense to a moral motivation.

False

Given the purpose and role of morality in human life, Rachels thinks that one reasonable proposal for a cross-cultural standard is that any moral principle a culture adopts should be of benefit to those in power.

False

If a doctor acts paternalistically, he thereby violates the principle of beneficence.

False

If an action is obligatory, it is praiseworthy if I do it, but it is okay if do not.

False

If cloning technology advances to the point where there is no worry of any additional risk of birth defect or other extraordinary health problems, there would no longer be any grounds for moral objection to reproductive cloning

False

In "Why Abortion is Immoral," Don Marquis argues that it is crucially important to establish precisely when the unborn becomes a person (as opposed to being human in a merely biological sense), because it is only when we are speaking of a person that we can reasonably say the entity in question has a future like ours.

False

In a case where a patient visits a walk-in clinic with symptoms characteristic of a common cold, the Emanuels think it might be preferable for the doctor to adopt the interpretive approach. All information about the patient's condition should of course be shared, but it would be irresponsible to assume the patient is entirely clear on what they truly want in such a case.

False

In a case where a patient explicitly requests not to know if something is found to be severely wrong with her, Cullen and Klein argue it is no violation of her autonomy for the doctor to tell her everything looked good when it in fact did not.

False

In order for a philosophical thought-experiment to help us explore some aspect of an ethical issue, it must avoid being unrealistic in any of its details.

False

Informed consent can be properly obtained even if the physician does not disclose significant risks in cases where he is confident that it is the most reasonable course of treatment but fears disclosure would scare the patient away from agreeing to it.

False

Lipkin advocates use of the placebo effect in the practice of medicine but also contends that suggestion should be eliminated from the doctor-patient relationship to the greatest extent possible. Suggestion, for Lipkin, is a manipulative psychological mechanism rather than a legitimate form of treatment.

False

Marquis argues that it is a virtue of his account that it would also apply to an intelligent species from another planet in the following manner: if we were to discover such a species and could establish that they are also rational beings with a set of properties sufficient for personhood, then we would not need an additional account to demonstrate the wrongfulness of killing them.

False

McMahan thinks that it is simply silly to say that the practice of genetic abortion could suggest to persons with disabilities that their lives are worth less than the lives of the healthy.

False

One can become a virtuous person through focused theoretical study of what the virtues and vices for human life are and why they are so.

False

Rachels believes that while there is objective moral truth, there is no reason to expect that any particular moral principles could be found in all societies.

False

Since cloning for research purposes has no intention of allowing the clone to live— thereby not having to worry about risking birth defect—there is no reasonable basis for moral opposition to it.

False

Since we can safely assume that a patient who has made the effort to go see a doctor is seeking help to improve his health, Cullen and Klein argue that a doctor has implicit consent to mislead her patient regarding his health in any case where doing so is highly likely to benefit him.

False

Singer thinks we should treat infants as 'replaceable'. One reason is that human being in general are replaceable insofar as all that matters from a moral perspective is the overall amount of happiness, no matter whose happiness it is.

False

Stem cells are of unique interest to medical researchers insofar as they provide a way to create an exact genetic copy of their donor.

False

The Emanuels argue that the paternalistic approach to medicine is best; those with little knowledge of how the human body works are unlikely to make wise decisions regarding the best way to regain their health. The choice is best left to the expert, i.e., the doctor.

False

The concept of privacy is wholly dependent upon the concept of confidentiality.

False

The defining difference between Utilitarianism and Egoism is that Utilitarianism seeks to maximize happiness for the greatest number while Egoism seeks to maximize pleasure for the greatest number.

False

The placebo effect only occurs when a patient believes that a treatments he is receiving is pharmacologically active when it in fact is not.

False

The reasoning of the minority opinion in the Tarasoff case, which supports maintaining confidentiality even in cases where a psychotherapist believes her client poses an imminent threat to a specific other, holds that the obligation the therapist incurs to her client by taking payment for a particular service overrides any general social obligation she has outside any such transaction.

False

The utilitarian case for a right to privacy argues that privacy must ultimately be grounded in autonomy. No one has any access to another which wasn't granted by that other and it is disrespectful not to comply with her wishes

False

Thomson concedes the personhood of the unborn, but argues that this is insufficient for it to have a right to life.

False

Virtue Ethics is a form of consequentialism.

False

According to Brown, a positive placebo effect can often be obtained from even just the symbolic use of some of the physical objects associated with the practice of medicine, e.g., the white coat, the stethoscope, the prescription pad, &c.

True

According to Lipkin, rather than demanding slavish devotion to the truth, we should assess the permissibly of a doctor's deception according to whom the deception is intended to benefit.

True

According to McMahan, it is logically inconsistent to reject genetic abortion on the grounds that it communicates to the disabled that their lives are worth less than the lives of the non-disabled while also condemning any activity— for example ,the use of a drug— on the grounds that it increases the likelihood of having disabled children.

True

According to Virtue Ethics, a vicious person cannot achieve true happiness no matter how pleasant her external circumstances are because her good circumstances are happenstance rather than products of her own excellences.

True

According to the Emanuels, respecting another's dignity as an autonomous being does not just involve informing them and then leaving the decision up to them. It also involves engaging in good- faith discussion regarding whether one's decisions are best, sometimes seeking to persuade one otherwise. Reason, after all, is in part a capacity for critical self- scrutiny. Values that survive such scrutiny or that alter in light of it are values that are more securely one's own.

True

Actions forbidden by the categorical imperative are those characterized by a maxim that cannot be coherently willed in a world where that maxim is adhered to universally.

True

Brown thinks that focusing too narrowly on the fact that placebos are not real drugs and are not pharmacologically potent can distract us from recognizing other contributing factors to the placebo effect.

True

Consequentialist theories of morality determine what is right and wrong by looking to the outcomes produced by an action or policy.

True

Critics of Act Utilitarianism argue that it is too demanding both because of the complex thought process it would require us to go through in order to determine the moral value of any given act and because we would never be able to relax if there were anything else we could be doing to generate more good. Rule Utilitarianism alleviates both concerns by simplifying how we think about the rightness or wrongness of individual acts and by allowing us to adopt a rule allowing leisure so long as it maximizes the good to do so.

True

Cullen and Klein argue that doctors have a responsibility to tell their patients the truth about their condition and treatment options. Human beings are rational agents. Given our capacity to deliberate and choose our actions for ourselves according to our own values, others owe us the truth so that our decisions are fully and accurately informed .

True

Feminist ethics shares the theoretical framework of virtue ethics but critiques it for its distorting emphasis on the stereotypically masculine virtues.

True

For Kass, we cannot say that the practice of genetic abortion would secure the overall good for society given the risk it would run of stoking racial tension, generating conflict between the community and those who refuse to comply, and producing other kinds of social stratification.

True

For Singer, parents should be allowed to kill their infant if it has a severe disability in order to eliminate its suffering and better satisfy their preferences in pursuit of a happy life.

True

For Singer, though the parents of a moderately disabled child may wish to euthanize it in order to better satisfy their preferences in pursuit of a happy life, it might still be impermissible for them to do so if there are potential adoptive parents who would welcome the opportunity to take and raise him or her as their own child.

True

Hypothetical imperatives apply to someone only on the condition that she is pursuing some other end, i.e., it tells her to do something only if she wants to achieve something else

True

If a doctor acts paternalistically, he thereby violates the principle of respect for autonomy.

True

If an action is prohibited, there is overriding reason against doing it, i.e., the reason or reasons against doing it are so strong that no reason there might be in favor of doing it could be adequate to justify its performance

True

If an action potential is permissible, there is neither overriding reason in favor of doing it nor overriding reason against doing it.

True

If cultural relativism is true, Rachels argues that we would not be able to make senses of the idea that America could become a better nation

True

If cultural relativism is true, Rachels argues that we would then be required to condemn Martin Luther King Jr. as an immoral man insofar as his activism opposed his own culture's views of right and wrong.

True

If human life deserves full protection from the moment of conception, any in vitro fertilization procedure that does not avoid discarding or unnecessarily endangering any embryo created in the process is for that reason immoral.

True

If it were to become possible to alter the genetic makeup of an embryo in a way that corrects the genetic defect that would have otherwise caused her to be born with Down syndrome, that would be a case of genetic treatment.

True

In a case where a patient tells his doctor that he would rather risk the need for amputation of a limb than to take one shot of antibiotics because of his fear of needles, the patient reveals himself to be incapable of giving informed consent insofar as he seems incapable of appreciating the nature of the choice before him.

True

In order for the killing of a person to be wrong, that killing must also commit an injustice toward that person.

True

In the case of a pregnancy resulting from voluntary sex, Thomson argues that the responsible use of reliable contraceptives would make abortion permissible insofar as every reasonable precaution had been taken to prevent the pregnancy.

True

In year 2000, an obstetrician carved his initials into a woman's abdomen after delivering her baby. This doctor violated the principle of nonmaleficence.

True

Informed consent can be properly obtained even if very low risk side effects or complications were not disclosed by the physician.

True

Judith Jarvis Thomson uses her violinist thought experiment for a pro-choice argument from analogy. If we think it is permissible for the kidnapped person to refuse the violinist use of her body, and if the morally salient features of pregnancy are sufficiently similar to the violinist example, then the permissibility of abortion follows.

True

Kass believes that appeals to the natural standard in order to justify genetic abortion has the advantage of providing a standard that is objective.

True

Kass opposes genetic abortion in spite of being sympathetic to the practice in the case of severe disabilities because he worries that, ultimately, the harm done to the disabled and to society at large would be worse than the harm done by the disability itself.

True

Kass rejects the natural standard because it would be unclear how to apply it given the gradations of severity any incapacity can exhibit and because it can all too easily be used to support dividing people into 'normals' and 'abnormals', first-class and second-class human beings.

True

Lipkin contends that it is a mistake to think doctors have an absolute duty to always tell their patients the truth. In fact, doing so is even sometimes impossible given the wide range of different assumptions through which various patients interpret their doctor's words, especially the medical terms.

True

Marquis argues that it is a virtue of his account that it also applies to some higher animals in the following manner: if we can say that they have futures of value, then we would not need an additional account to demonstrate the wrongfulness of killing them.

True

One effective method for developing virtue in oneself is to imitate a virtuous role model.

True

Properly obtaining informed consent requires that the patient is capable of considering the medical consequences of their chosen course of treatment in the light of other life demands such as family life and what a long versus a short recovery time might cost them economically.

True

Rachels contends that it is logically fallacious to infer that there is no objective truth regarding moral claims from the lone premise that there is widespread disagreement about what those truths might be. This fallacy is exposed by recognizing the possibility of an alternative explanation, namely, that some cultures could simply be wrong in their moral judgments.

True

Research conducted on stem cells harvested from human embryos promises great potential for discovery in medical research. What makes it morally objectionable according to some moral perspectives is that it involves the destruction of the embryo from which the cells are taken.

True

Rule Utilitarianism requires that we act according to a certain set of rules. Those rules are picked out by determining which rules promote the greatest good for the greatest number.

True

Since the commonsense moral intuition that America (or any other culture) has room for moral improvement is so strong, Rachels contends that cultural relativism must be false.

True

Singer thinks we should treat infants as 'replaceable'. One reason is that any being capable of pleasure and pain, but not capable of recognizing itself as a distinct entity that exists over time, is just as good as any other such being.

True

Singer thinks we should treat infants as 'replaceable'. One reason is that we regularly act as though the unborn is replaceable and the event of birth does nothing to change the nature of the being in question

True

The concept of confidentiality is wholly dependent upon the concept of privacy.

True

The principle of justice prohibits discriminatory biases in the dispensation of care.

True

The reasoning of the majority opinion in the Tarasoff case, which supports the violation of confidentiality in cases where a psychotherapist believes her client poses an imminent threat to a specific other, holds that the general social obligation to protect life overrides the professional obligation to maintain confidentiality

True

The reasoning of the minority opinion in the Tarasoff case, which supports maintaining confidentiality even in cases where a psychotherapist believes her client poses an imminent threat to a specific other, holds that confidentiality is so essential to the effectiveness of the therapeutic process that even if maintaining it in the relevant case costs one life, it ultimately saves more lives than are lost through successful treatment of other violent others who otherwise would have acted on their violent impulses.

True

Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory.

True

Virtue ethics focuses more on questions concerning what it is to be a good person than it does questions concerning what features of an action make it right or wrong.

True

While she believes that suicide should generally be considered forbidden, Johnson contends that suicide is permissible for the severely ill and disabled so long as we make sure that their decision to commit suicide is informed and autonomous.

True