Ethical Analysis of Issues Part 2

Question 1

Epicurus theorized that upon death we no longer exist and so should not fear the ______.

Answer 1

Gods. Epicurus believed that there is nothingness upon death; we cannot feel anything and hence should not fear the gods.

Question 2

The greatest pleasures according to Epicurus could be attained through a life of simplicity and moderation in order to achieve ______________, whereas excessive desire soon escalates, leading to dissatisfaction and pain.

Answer 2

Tranquility. Epicurus felt that a simple and moderate life would bring tranquility and hence maximum pleasure.

Question 3

According to Epicurus, by committing _____________, tranquility will be sacrificed and hence happiness.

Answer 3

Injustices. Where injustices are carried out, there will always be the fear of reprisals or being discovered as the perpetrator.

Question 4

The basic moral principle for _________________ is that if the good consequences of an action outweigh the bad consequences, then the act is morally right.

Answer 4

Consequentialists. This is the thinking of consequentialists and it partly stems from commonsense morality – which means that you use your commonsense to determine if an act is morally right or wrong.

Question 5

In war, if the killing of civilians resulted in a positive outcome, a consequentialist would conclude that killing civilians is not inherently wrong, but a ______________ would disagree.

Answer 5

Deontologist. Deontologists believe that if something is inherently wrong, it’s always wrong regardless of the outcome. Immanuel Kant was the first philosopher to define deontological principles.

Question 6

Deontological moral thinking is _______-based and also emphasizes the motivations behind our actions.

Answer 6

Duty. To make the right moral choices, we must understand the rules that govern our moral duties. So, we behave morally when we follow our duties and behave immorally when we do not. However, this is inadequate as our motivations must also be correct and pure.

Question 7

__________________ is a philosophical theory that states that the moral course of action is the one which maximizes the total well-being of all humans, each of whom have an equal right to be included.

Answer 7

Utilitarianism. To a Utilitarian, it would be morally correct to break an oath of confidentiality when it would protect his life or the life of others, and when breaking the oath were an action that would be supported by the general public.

Question 8

Utilitarianism is a _________________ (consequentialist or deontologist?)morality because it considers how much pleasure and pain results from an action.

Answer 8

Consequentialist. A consequentialist defines the rightness of an act based on its outcome.

Question 9

John Stuart Mill defines the ___________ _____________ principle as holding actions right in proportion where they promote happiness and wrong where they promote the reverse.

Answer 9

Greatest Happiness. This is Mill’s definition of utilitarianism.

Question 10

________ distinguished between the higher and lower pleasures and believed that most people would prefer the former.

Answer 10

Mill. Mill believed that humans are different from animals and therefore would prefer the “higher” pleasures which involve our mental faculties.

Question 11

In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill claims that governments have the moral right to limit people’s liberty only when it is necessary to prevent them from harming _________.

Answer 11

Others. This is called Mill’s Harm Principle, where competent individuals (not insane or children) are free to decide about activities which may be harmful to themselves (i.e. smoking, drinking, mountain climbing, etc) without government intervention.

Question 12

Mill propounded the view that competent individuals should have the freedom to take part in ______________ activities and the government should not prohibit these activities.

Answer 12

Dangerous. Mill believed that individuals could decide for themselves, as they are aware of the risks of injury.

Question 13

____________ theorized that an act is only morally wrong if it reduced overall happiness.

Answer 13

Jeremy Bentham. This is the principle of utility as defined by Bentham.

Question 14

Based on Bentham’s theory, it would be possible to have several alternative actions available to an agent that could be morally right and this position can be described as ___________ _____ utilitarianism.

Answer 14

Negative act. This is the definition of negative act utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism is defined as the morally right act and the one that will bring the greatest increase in overall well-being.

Question 15

Act utilitarianism does not assess the moral rightness or wrongness of the ________ of acts.

Answer 15

Types. This is because act utilitarians will say it depends on the circumstances. For example, if you ask an act utilitarian if capital punishment is morally right or wrong, they will answer that it depends on the individual circumstances of each case.

Question 16

Rule utilitarianism states that individuals should follow the correct moral rules based on the test of total well-being and where these rules conflict, we should revert to _____ utilitarianism.

Answer 16

Act utilitarianism.

Question 17

Bentham is a negative act utilitarianist whereas Mill is a ______ utilitarianist.

Answer 17

Rule. Mill’s utilitarianism is rule based and the rule being that the correct moral action is the one that produces the most desirable results.

Question 18

The utilitarian principle has external sanctions such as fear of punishment from the ruler, and internal sanctions, which essentially entail the _____________ of the individual.

Answer 18

Conscience. This is the most critical and extreme sanction – the one where we judge our own standards of behavior.

Question 19

Bentham devised an algorithm called the hedonistic or ____________ ___________ to calculate the quantity of happiness that an action would produce that would act as a gauge of the moral rightness of an action.

Answer 19

Felicific calculus.

Question 20

A system in which women are subordinate to men is called a _____________.

Answer 20

Patriarchy. The economic, legal and social status of women throughout history has been subordinate to men. This system where the men hold a disproportionately large share of the power is called a patriarchy.

Question 21

___________ is the political theory that proposes that men and women are equal in the way that they should be treated and in the responsibilities and rights that they should have.

Answer 21

Feminism. The goal of feminism is to change society and liberate women from male oppression.

Question 22

The term feminist ethics can be defined as a revision of elements of entrenched western ethics that ____________ morality from a feminine perspective.

Answer 22

Devalues. Traditionally, women have been viewed as less moral than men as their perspective is seen as emotional and caring as opposed to rule and duty based.

Question 23

_____________ believed that women’s decisions are not based on abstract concepts of morality but on the relationships they build.

Answer 23

Carol Gilligan. Carol Gilligan believed that women lean more towards the love and care mentality when it comes to morality rather than the justice mentality followed by most men.

Question 24

Standard ethics is dominated by moral rules of non-interference with an individual’s life and restrictions on ______________.

Answer 24

Aggression. The male perspective is that society will have many individuals desiring and fighting over limited resources and so it is necessary to contain any violent conflicts. For example, the rules from the Ten Commandments not to kill or steal.

Question 25

The proponents of an ethic of care believe that through mutual interdependence, ___________ empower the individual giving him or her a cognitive ability to understand a situation that may not be apparent to another adopting the justice approach.

Answer 25

Emotions. By tapping into our emotional self, a compassionate and sensitive perspective will be obtained that may enable individuals to understand situations outside the mere scope of rules and duties.

Question 26

Alison Jagger believes that western ethics shortchanges women in 5 ways; namely, that it takes only a small account of women’s interests and rights, excludes moral conundrums that arise in a woman’s world, defines women as morally _______________ as compared to men, overvalues male traits such as independence and undervalues feminine traits such as emotion, and prefers culturally male methods of moral reasoning.

Answer 26

Underdeveloped. Many philosophers have considered women to be morally inferior including Kohlberg and Aristotle.

Question 27

Philosophers such as Rita Manning believe that a caring person will try to resolve conflicts through _______________ in an attempt to create a just and fair solution for all.

Answer 27

Compromise. Manning reveals the difference between the care and justice approaches – instead of deciding which rule to apply (justice approach), the person adopting the care approach would try to seek alternative solutions to satisfy all.

Question 28

The basis of Aristotle’s ethics is ______________, so that in an organized personality, will and reason operate in harmony.

Answer 28

Psychology.

Question 29

According to Aristotle, the goal for all humans is happiness, which he classified as a rational activity, possessed with ________.

Answer 29

Arete. This is the Greek word for excellence within a kind, although it is traditionally translated as meaning virtue. For example, the arête of a lawyer is to have a keen, logical mind and to pursue this excellence continuously.

However, this was only part of an excellent life; in addition to the fulfillment of a man’s potential, Aristotle’s idea of the excellent human life included community participation and ‘mean’ action. Mean action refers to choosing moderate action, not an extreme or deficient course of action.

Question 30

Aristotle believed in the concept of ___________ so that individuals should not be discriminated against for irrelevant reasons.

Answer 30

Justice. Aristotle felt that justice was a virtue and believed in the principle of equality.

Question 31

Aristotle’s system of ethics is based around his empirical theory of the doctrine of the _______.

Answer 31

Mean. Aristotle believed that ethics was a constantly shifting science as human behavior and motivations are variable. Hence, he devised a system whereby the correct course of action would be the mean (average). So, for courage, one extreme would be foolhardiness and the other cowardice. The correct course would be somewhere between the two.

Question 32

Aristotle felt that some moral laws were _____________; for example, the prohibition against murder and theft.

Answer 32

Absolute. Despite not having any hard and fast moral rules, Aristotle believed some rules to be inviolable.

Question 33

Aristotle propounded that by using the Doctrine of the Mean, actions could be determined according to the circumstances of each situation and therefore would promote ________.

Answer 33

Equity. Aristotle believed that this method promoted a fair and equitable outcome for the parties involved.

Question 34

For Aristotle, the highest good is virtuous activity, but that may be ___________ if other such goods, such as friendship and power are lacking.

Answer 34

Reduced. An individual who is lacking in these goods may encounter difficulty in sourcing virtuous activities.

Question 35

Aristotle felt that where an individual _______________ assesses the merits of an action before executing it, that individual can be reasonably held responsible for their moral actions.

Answer 35

Voluntarily. The individual must not be coerced into making a decision. He or she must have exercised their free will.

Question 36

Aristotle singled out _____________ as the intellectual thinking process that resulted in the individual acting correctly after taking into account their desires and the moral outcome.

Answer 36

Prudence. Another way to say this is practical intelligence.

Question 37

Aristotle believed that moral excellence comes about as the result of _______.

Answer 37

Habit. Aristotle believed that people can change and shape their own character–that we become brave by doing brave acts, just by doing just acts and temperate by doing temperate acts.

Question 38

Aristotle propounded that there were 2 forms of justice, namely universal and ______________ justice.

Answer 38

Particular. Particular justice refers to distributive and rectification justice. The former allows for the correction of individual wrongs by society and the latter amends unfair division between 2 individuals. Universal justice is that which is lawful and right for all.

Question 39

Two elements of Aristotle’s political teaching affected political institutions for many centuries: his justification of __________ and his condemnation of usury.

Answer 39

Slavery. Aristotle believed that some people are so inferior that it is better for them to be under the rule of a kindly master than to be left to their own devices. He also believed that money was meant to be used for exchange, not to increase at interest.

Question 40

Socrates is best known for believing in following through on your beliefs even though everyone else thinks that you are wrong and pursuing _____________ even when opposed.

Answer 40

Knowledge.

Question 41

According to Socrates, virtue is ______________.

Answer 41

Knowledge. He believed that if you knew what was good, then you would always do good acts and if you do wrong, then you do not know what good actually is.

Question 42

Socrates propounded that one should never commit a crime nor should one disobey the ________.

Answer 42

State. In the Crito, written by Plato, Socrates’ friend Crito comes to convince Socrates to escape certain death and instead live in exile. The plan of escape was sound and practically foolproof, but Socrates refused–not because he was concerned that he would be caught, but because he disagreed with the reasons for escape.

Socrates refutes all of Crito’s reasons for escape by explaining that he chose to live in the state of his own free will; he did not leave, though he had seventy years to think about it. He argued that by living in that state of one’s own free will, one has an obligation to live by the rules of that State.

Socrates also believed that there was a parent-child relationship between the State and the citizen which was valid until death and so the citizen should always obey the State.

Question 43

Plato, in his dialogue Crito, introduced the concept of the __________ ___________, whereby a citizen is obligated to obey the laws of the city.

Answer 43

Social Contract. In Plato’s Crito, Socrates is condemned to death and is offered a chance to escape but refuses as doing so would violate his obligation to the city. This is the first appearance of what a later age will call “Social Contract Theory.”

Question 44

The story of the Ring of Gyges from Plato’s ___________, is a tale told by Glaucon to illustrate that justice is merely a preventative tool and injustice is more profitable. However, Plato refutes this argument on the grounds that one will never achieve a happy, virtuous existence without the principle of justice.

Answer 44

Republic. The Ring of Gyges made the shepherd Gyges invisible so that he could do anything he wanted without fear of capture, so he murdered the King. In this dialogue, Glaucon argued that any man in his position would do the same.

Question 45

In “The Republic”, Plato discusses his idea of the ideal ______________.

Answer 45

Government. In “The Republic”, written by Plato, he describes the ideal government, which is neither a democracy nor a communist state, but rather a state ruled by the highly educated, who are forced to live in poverty with no possessions.

Question 46

________ believed that justice was achieved when a society’s various social classes performed their duties and lived in perfect harmony.

Answer 46

Plato. Plato felt that true justice could only be achieved when the 3 social classes of the rulers, soldiers and people performed their individual roles satisfactorily and did not try to usurp the roles of others.

Question 47

The 3 social classes had to be blessed with certain virtues in order for society to run smoothly and justly, and these are __________ for rulers, courage for soldiers, and moderation for the people.

Answer 47

Wisdom. Since the rulers made decisions about the operation of the society, they needed wisdom to make unbiased decisions and to make assessments about their society.

Question 48

In The Republic, Plato stated that individuals have 3 souls; namely, the rational, __________, and appetitive souls, that had to be working in harmony to make the individual just.

Answer 48

Spirited. The spirited soul is our will. It enables us to lead our lives the way our rational soul has dictated. The rational soul is our capability to reason and our appetitive soul is our will power.

Question 49

On the issue of liberty and freedom, Plato felt that the ideal was a happy medium between slavery and ___________.

Answer 49

License. License describes a situation of excess liberty. There would be chaos and a lack of law and order, which means that the people are not really free at all because they would be victims of force and dominated by the strong.

Question 50

For Plato, liberty is achievable even when social controls are in place if the people participate in __________ or enforcing the laws and the laws are not unduly restrictive, unreasonable or irrational.

Answer 50

Making. By having a hand in making the laws, we are exercising a degree of our liberty in determining what social controls we are subject to.

Question 51

According to Thrasymachus, in every case, the laws are made by the __________ party in its own interests.

Answer 51

Ruling. He further said that by making these laws, the ruling class defines justice. This position is often represented by the slogan “Might makes right.”

Question 52

According to ____________, no ruler acts for his own interests but instead acts only for the best interests of his subjects.

Answer 52

Socrates. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates says this in response to Thrasymachus who believes that rulers make laws only to protect their own self interests.

Question 53

_____________ was a Greek historian and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which chronicles the struggle between Athens and Sparta in the 5th century BC.

Answer 53

Thucydides. Thucydides is primarily known for his historical account of the Peloponnesian War in which he examines the nature of Athens and the ethical consequences of conflict.

Thucydides’ work was the first recorded political and moral analysis of a nation’s military policies.

Question 54

Thucydides drew a critical distinction between internal politics and foreign policy relations in that for the latter situation, moral judgments are almost _____-___________.

Answer 54

Non-existent. In a state, the individuals form a social contract with the rulers where some of their freedoms are sacrificed in return for state protection. Hence, both strong and weak citizens are afforded equal legal and ethical protection.

However, in international relations, there is no social contract among citizens of different states. Therefore, there are no laws that protect interstate dealings. So, the strongest states determine the fate of the weaker ones. This is clearly discussed in “The Melian Dialogue”.

Question 55

According to Thucydides, individuals are basically ___________ and not moderated by moral rules.

Answer 55

Selfish. Thucydides had a very cynical viewpoint on the human nature. He felt that humans are too self-interested in achieving glory rather than being bound by moral rules.

Question 56

Ayn Rand is a philosopher who believed that individuals must exist for their own ______-_________ in order to achieve greatest happiness, which is the highest moral purpose in life.

Answer 56

Self-interest. Rand believed that one should never sacrifice neither himself to others nor sacrifice others to himself

Question 57

The main difficulty with Rand’s philosophy is that she seems to propound that one should never ________ another.

Answer 57

Serve. As human beings, we are fairly dependent on our governments and each other. We rely on our parents when we are children and on others to shop for us, pick up our dry cleaning, look after our children at day care, and so on.

Question 58

David ______ was a Scottish philosopher who believed that our moral actions were guided not by reason but by our feelings.

Answer 58

Hume. Hume believed that when we performed a virtuous act, we received a feeling of pleasure and on performing a vicious act, we would receive a feeling of pain. Hence, experience teaches us to avoid vicious acts.

Question 59

Hume believed that the possession of virtues was in the self-interest of the possessor and promoted social harmony, but our understanding of virtues and vices is not driven by self-interest but by _______________ and sympathy.

Answer 59

Benevolence. Hume felt that everyone had some benevolent feelings towards others as no one could completely ignore the pleasure or pain another was experiencing.

Question 60

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in which he stated that all men were equal, had the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that these rights were _____-__________.

Answer 60

Self-evident. By this, he meant that these rights were inalienable and did not have to be proven–it was clear that all men had these rights

Question 61

According to Thomas Jefferson, _____________ are instituted among men to secure the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Answer 61

Governments. This was stated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. This indicates that the people had to clearly affirm their wishes on whom they wanted to be governed by. The legitimacy of government came from the consent of the people.

Question 62

According to the ___________ __________, political freedoms include essential democratic rights such as freedom of speech, expression, information, association, assembly and the media.

Answer 62

United Nations. The right to political participation is included in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.