#3 Practice Test Essay Questions

Try to answer the following review questions with a short essay answer.  You can then compare your answer to an example answer by clicking on the key link below.

1.) What is the difference between deontological ethical theories and consequentialist ethical theories?  How would a deontological theorist differ from a consequentialist theorists when considering the moral status of abortion?  What would be relevant to each?

Ethical theories can be usefully separated into two general classes: On the one hand, some theories locate the source of ethical properties (rightness or wrongness) in intentions to conform to duty or abstract formal laws.  Ethicists classify these theories as deontological ethical theories.  On the other hand, some theories locate the source of ethical properties in actions and their outcomes.  Philosophers call this last class of theories consequentialist ethical theories or consequentialism.  For example, Mill's theory, with its emphasis on judging the ethical worth of an action in relation to its resulting (or failing to result in) in the greatest happiness for the greatest number, represents a classic example of a consequentialist ethical theory.  In contrast, Kant's ethical theory, with its emphasis on acting from duty as determined by universal, necessary laws of reason, represents a classic example of a deontological ethical theory.  In contemplating abortion, the consequentialist would consider the net happiness resulting from permitting vs prohibiting abortion.  For instance, if prohibiting abortion results in lower levels of related social ills, such as a lower percentage of child abuse and neglect, child poverty, and abortion related maternal deaths, the consequentialist might favor allowing abortion.  If permitting abortion resulted in decreased respect for life generally, promoted irresponsible and reckless sexual practices, and measurable suffering, such consequences would weigh against abortion for the consequentialist.  In contrast, the the deontologist would consider the intent of the person seeking an abortion in evaluating its ethical standing.  For instance, if one's intentions in seeking an abortion represent a desire to avoid duty to one's own offspring or a failure to respect human life, the deontologist would likely disapprove of abortion.  On the other hand, if one's motives were to considerations of the potential welfare of the child or oneself, the deontologist might well approve of abortion. 

2.) What is the veil of ignorance, and what element of contractarian theory does the veil of ignorance represent in Rawls’ theory?

Contractarians hold that all legitimate political principles as well as moral norms (regulative rules) come about through the consent of the governed in the form of an explicit (unusual) or an implicit contract or mutual agreement between those subject to the authority. Thus, contractarians hold that a given moral rule or governmental principle is correct only if rational individuals would accept it as a binding rule or principle in the initial condition. The initial condition is the metaphorical circumstance in which people could best rationally formulate and agree to binding moral and political principles. For Rawls the initial condition is the veil of ignorance. The goal of the veil of ignorance is twofold:  First, it prevents subjective biases from tainting the search for general principles of justice.  Second, it insures that agents are also well-informed on issues relevant to the generation and evaluation of principles of justice.  Thus, in the veil of ignorance, people know none of the details of their individual circumstance such as their social role, class, the economic or political situation of their society, their generation, the level of cultural or technical achievement in their society, their individual tolerance for risk, their personal attributes, or their specific conception of what is the goal or the good in life.  Likewise, agents behind the veil must know many relevant facts about the humans beings and society.  They must also know how to assign values to various outcomes or goods.  Rawls supposes that agents know the general facts that would help them both craft principles and evaluate principles of justice such as general facts about human society, political affairs, principles of economic theory, the bases of social organization, and the laws of human psychology. Since they lack knowledge of their own risk aversion and optimism as well as their conception of the good life, agents have no subjective basis for valuing one outcome or good over another.  Therefore, Rawls supposes that agents assume that they prefer more rather than less of any given good.

3.) What is reflective equilibrium, and what role does it play in Rawls’ theory?

Contractarians hold that all legitimate political principles as well as moral norms (regulative rules) come about through the consent of the governed in the form of an explicit (unusual) or an implicit contract or mutual agreement between those subject to the authority. Thus, contractarians hold that a given moral rule or governmental principle is correct only if rational individuals would accept it as a binding rule or principle in the initial condition. The initial condition is the metaphorical circumstance in which people could best rationally formulate and agree to binding moral and political principles. In addition to specifying the initial condition, contractarians also must specify the nature of the agents who would agree to the principles. The principle of reflective equilibrium is the reasoning method that Rawls supposes agents should employ in the initial condition. The method of reflective equilibrium consists of alternately considering general principles and intuitions (thoughtful evaluations) regarding individual cases to which the principles ought to apply. According to the method of reflective equilibrium agents deduce predicted judgments regarding particular cases from their general principles, they then compare the predicted outcomes to their intuitions about the cases.  If they discover a difference between the predicted judgment and the intuitive judgment, then they modify one or both. Agents continue to engage in this process of revising intuitions or principles, deducing consequences of those principles for specific cases, and comparing their deductions to their intuitions about those cases until they have a stable and coherent set of principles and intuitive judgments. At that point they reach reflective equilibrium and have generated a set of principles.

4.) What is utilitarianism?  What is its central principle or principles?  What is consequentialism?  Explain why utilitarians are consequentialists.   Utilitarianism is an ethical theory which equates the rightness or praiseworthiness of actions with their resultant pleasure or happiness.  Similarly, utilitarianism equates wrongness or blameworthiness of an action with its resultant pain or unhappiness.  The central principle of utilitarianism expresses that relationship: "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure."  Ethical theories can be usefully classified into two general classes: Theories that locate the source of ethical properties in intentions to conform to duty or abstract formal laws (deontological ethics), and theories that locate the source of ethical properties in actions and their outcomes.  Philosophers call this last class of theories consequentialist ethics or consequentialism.   Since utilitarianism differentiates ethical and unethical actions on the basis of the outcomes of those actions, it falls into the consequentialist class.

5.) What is the distinction between Act and Rule Utilitarianism, and how might it help with free-riders?

In general, Act Utilitarians hold that an act is morally good or bad to the extent that it tends to promote the greatest good for the greatest number, where good is thought of as happiness or pleasure.  Mill, for instance, holds that happiness is pleasure, but construes pleasure in such a way that sensual pleasure is considered of lesser value that the pleasures one finds through exercises of intellect, creativity, and social interaction.  Likewise, Mill bases assessments of the goodness of an action on the actual and immediate consequences of the action for all those effected.  So, for Act Utilitarianism the goodness of an act is determined for each individual action based upon its consequences. This conception of Utilitarianism seems to allow free-riding, i.e., instances in which one to violates conventions and/or laws of society for personal benefit.  Act Utilitarianism allows such cases of free-riding in that most people will not violate such conventions and/or laws, and hence the impact on the overall good due to occasional violations proves negligible.  For instance, so long as most people calculate and pay their federal taxes in a timely and fair manner, the net impact of some isolated individual cheating on his or her taxes is negligible.  For instance, the Federal government spent 2,268 billion dollars in 2006. In the context of a 2.27 trillion dollar budget evading a thousand dollars in taxes is hardly noticeable so long as most people pay their fair share.  Yet, even though Act Utilitarianism seems to allow isolated acts of free-riding, such acts nevertheless seem morally wrong to people.  Since Act Utilitarianism allows free-riding in that one evaluates each act in isolation, one way to avoid the problem with free-riders is to switch from Act to Rule Utilitarianism. According to Rule Utilitarianism an act is morally good or bad in so far as it conforms to a set of general rules that promote the greatest good for the greatest number. Adopting Rule Utilitarianism requires one to switch from evaluation of individual act using actual outcomes to evaluation of set of rules based upon the pattern of outcomes one can reasonably expect if people follow the rules in question.  In Rule Utilitarianism free-riding is immoral since such acts would decrease the overall good if adopted as a rule.

6.) Present a well-formulated statement of the objection to Utilitarianism based upon the notion that Utilitarianism places excessive moral demands on individuals.  Make sure you illustrate the objection with at least one example.

In general, Utilitarians hold that an act or class of actions are morally good or bad to the extent that they tend to create the greatest good for the greatest number. Utilitarians tend to conceive of good as happiness, pleasure, or overall well-being.  This conception of what makes actions or classes of actions good is intimately tied to the notion of maximizing human well-being, happiness, or pleasure.  But, requiring people to act to maximize human well-being seems to require too much of people.  Specifically, it seems to require people to act in a manner normally thought to be morally optional (or superlative) in order to to satisfy the moral demands placed upon them by Utilitarianism.  For instance, spending an hour watching television one evening does not contribute as much to the overall good of humanity as much as spending that hour working for a charity like Goodwill.  Thus, Utilitarianism seems to require that people devote much larger portions of their life to charitable work in order simply to be moral people.  While it is true that the world would likely be a better place if people spent the 1456 hours a year that the average US citizen watches television working for charity, it does not seem immoral to watch television.  Individuals who devote 1,456 hours a year to charity instead of watching television are deserving of praise, but it seems incorrect to hold people who watch television morally blameworthy.  As a result, Utilitarianism appears to place excessive moral demands on individuals which are inconsistent with our ordinary understanding of morality.

7.)  What is Aristotle's general theory of why virtues are virtuous? 

In class we understood virtues as a dispositions or tendencies of character that one exhibits in one's habitual actions.  We also understood that the possession of such tendencies of character seem good for a person.  Specifically, Aristotle conceives of virtues as means between vices of excess and deficiency.  For instance, Aristotle might consider honesty to be a virtue because it occupies a mean between the vice of excessive undiscriminating honesty (e.x., telling people hurtful things you believe about them when you could simply say nothing) and the vice of dishonesty or lying.  In Rachels' discussion of virtues, he notes that one must give a general account or justification for why some tendencies of character--and not others-- are virtues.  Since virtues generally are habits of interacting with the world (and the people in it), one can distinguish between tendencies of character which are needed to conduct our lives well, and other tendencies of character that are not conducive to living well; the former are virtues, the latter are not virtues.  For Aristotle to live well was to live in accordance with the human good.  Aristotle understands the good for humans as the function or excellence unique to humans.  Therefore, virtues are virtuous because they allow one to live a rational, self-reflective life.

8.) According to Rachels, what is it to give an account of a virtue's virtuousness?  Give a more specific account for at least one virtue.

For Rachels one needs not only a general theory of why virtues are virtuous, one must  also show for each specific virtue, why that tendency of character should count as virtue.  Thus, one must show that a person with that tendency of character will advance through life in a better way.  For example, a person needs loyalty because at all times in our lives we need some people who have a greater commitment to us and our welfare than is required by beneficence and that differs from justice.  For instance, a loyal friend will point out when you�re being a jerk, but they won�t stop being your friend, allowing you to become a better person without having to suffer the loss of people you care about. 

9.) What are the two classes of virtues that Aristotle distinguishes? Give an example of each. What relationship do they have to one another.

Aristotle distinguishes two classes of virtue: (1) virtues of the intellect, facilitating reasoning and resulting in practical wisdom, and (2) virtues of character, virtues facilitating those aspects of the human psyche incapable of independent reasoning like emotions (but which can be made subservient to reason).  Aristotle held that all the virtues consist in habits of interacting with the world (and the people in it) best thought of as analogous with skills.  Likewise, virtues are habits that humans need to conduct our lives well in the sense of fulfilling our function or excellence of being rational creatures. Thus, to show some specific trait is a virtue consists in showing that the person with that trait will advance through life in a better way. Specifically, Aristotle believes that virtues represent a mean between vices of excess and deficiency.  So, one will live better if one exhibits the virtue of courage rather than either the vice of foolhardiness (excess) or the vice of cowardice (deficiency).  Virtues of the intellect enhance one's reasoning prowess, while virtues of character result in an ethically virtuous person, i.e., a person who can make good friends, earn enough money, and act in ways which produce the other goods that contribute to living well.  For example, theoretical wisdom is one virtue of the intellect mentioned by Aristotle.  Being even tempered is an example of a virtue of character. For Aristotle, virtues of intellect have a greater priority or good in that they directly facilitate our fulfilling our function as humans--the function of being rational creatures. Virtues of character are less good or have a lower priority in that they are subservient to intellectual virtues in that they indirectly facilitate the rational life. Thus, a rational person is helped by having money, though it does not directly fulfill his function.

10.) According to the Doris chapter, what is a mood effect?  Why might one think that mood effects pose a problem for virtue ethics?

A mood effect is when a subtle positive or negative change in the environment resulting in a small increase or decrease in one's mood seems to strongly influence good behavior.  For example, Doris notes that in one experiment finding a dime in a phone booth dramatically increases the likelihood that a person will help someone who drops their papers.  Virtue ethics equates virtues with relatively robust tendencies of character resulting in specific sorts of behavior.  Therefore, virtue ethics predicts that people will react to situations in ways consistent with their tendencies of character.  This prediction is central to virtue ethics because virtue ethics asserts that people are morally good in so far as they have virtues, and that actions are morally good in that virtues cause those actions.  Mood effects seem to pose a problem for virtue ethics because mood effects seem to suggest that seemingly insignificant aspects of situations strongly determine how one acts in a situation.  As a result, mood effects seem to suggest that one's behavior isn't strongly determined by one's tendencies of character.
 

11.)  What are group effects?  Why might one think that group effects pose a problem for virtue ethics?

Group effects are illustrated by experiments in which the presence of people who do not react in an ethical manner to situations dramatically affects an individual's likelihood of behaving ethically.  In general, groups effects seem to show that mild social pressures can result in neglect of apparently serious ethical demands. The fact that mild social pressures seem to dramatically affect compassionate responses seems in many different sorts of situations seems to undermine virtue ethics.  Virtue ethics supposes that virtues are relatively robust tendencies of character resulting in specific sorts of behavior.  Therefore, virtue ethics predicts that behavior is determined primarily by an individual's character and not by the situation.  This prediction is central to virtue ethics because virtue ethics asserts that people are morally good because they have virtues, and that actions are morally good in that virtues cause those actions.  Group effects seem to pose a problem for virtue ethics because group effects seem to suggest that seemingly insignificant aspects of situations strongly determine how one acts in a situation.  As a result, mood effects seem to suggest that one's behavior isn't strongly determined by one's character.