Deck 3: Reasoning With Obligations

Question 1

A role-based obligation is:

A) An obligation that someone adopts voluntarily.
B) An obligation that someone has in virtue of occupying a particular social role.
C) An obligation that you have to people who occupy a particular social role.
D) An obligation that someone only pretends to have.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Your role-based obligations are:

A) Obligations that you can choose whether or not to fulfill on any particular occasion.
B) Obligations that you acquire by signing a contract to take on a particular role.
C) Obligations that you have because of the social, civic, or professional roles that you occupy.
D) Obligations that everybody has, since everybody has a role in society.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

A soldier's obligation to obey his or her commanding officer is an example of:

A) A role-based obligation.
B) A universal obligation.
C) A generic obligation.
D) None of the above.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

A universal obligation is:

A) An obligation that people have objectively rather than subjectively.
B) An obligation that you owe to the universe as a whole.
C) An obligation that everybody has.
D) An obligation that you owe to everybody.

Question 5

The obligation not to harm other people is an example of:

A) A role-based obligation.
B) A universal obligation.
C) A generic obligation.
D) None of the above.

Question 6

The obligation to keep your promises appears on whose list of universal obligations?

A) W.D. Ross's list.
B) Robert Audi's list.
C) Bernard Gert's list.
D) All of the above.

Question 7

According to Chapter 3, which of the following is often suggested as the only universal obligation?

A) Keep your promises.
B) Do no harm.
C) Respect persons.
D) Know thyself.

Question 8

Which of the following best summarizes Immanuel Kant's interpretation of the obligation to respect persons?

A) Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
B) Treat people always as ends in themselves and never as a means.
C) Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.
D) Act so as to maximize the happiness of all people, counting each person's happiness equally.

Question 9

Which of the following best summarizes Immanuel Kant's understanding of what it means to respect persons?

A) Look for the humanity in other people by trying to understand their true goals and interests before acting.
B) Do not let anyone try to belittle, degrade, or harm anyone, whether it is yourself or another person.
C) Count everyone's interests equally when deciding what to do, since all people are equally valuable.
D) Treat people as having value in themselves and never manipulate or coerce people.

Question 10

Which of the following best explains how Immanuel Kant understands treating people with respect?

A) Take other people's interests seriously and never exploit people to promote your own interests.
B) Act only in ways that promote both your ends and other people's ends.
C) Always look for the ways in which a person, whether yourself or other people, can be useful to society.
D) Always keep your promises, do good to others, and avoid harming others.

Question 11

Which of the following would violate the obligation not to treat others "merely as a means"?

A) Promising to give someone a ride somewhere but failing to do it because your car broke down on the way to pick him or her up.
B) Promising to pay a large reward to anyone who returns your lost dog-no questions asked.
C) Getting someone to promise that they'll help you move later before agreeing to help them move now.
D) Getting someone to help you move by promising to help them move later, even when you know you won't.

Question 12

Which of the following would be prohibited by the obligation not to treat others "merely as a means"?

A) Your regular plumber doesn't want to work on weekends, but you convince him to do it by offering to pay him double.
B) A teenager lies to her close friend about being busy on his birthday because she needs to go set up for his surprise party.
C) To get a better rate on her student loan, a student forges her mother's signature as a cosigner on her loan application.
D) Two police officers break up a bar fight by dragging one drunk bar patron away from another.

Question 13

In Ann Garry's argument against pornography, watching pornography is wrong because:

A) It violates a person's role-specific obligations to one's sisters, daughters, wives, girlfriends, and so on.
B) It violates a person's universal obligation to treat persons with respect.
C) It violates a person's universal obligation not to harm others.
D) It violates a person's role-specific obligation not to treat others as mere objects.

Question 14

Which of the following best describes the difference between perfect and imperfect obligations?

A) A perfect obligation is about what you owe to specific people, whereas an imperfect obligation is about what you owe to everyone.
B) A perfect obligation applies to everyone, whereas an imperfect obligation applies only to people who have made a mistake.
C) A perfect obligation is one that must be fulfilled in every relevant case, whereas an imperfect obligation only needs to be fulfilled sometimes.
D) A perfect obligation is an obligation not to harm someone, whereas an imperfect obligation is an obligation to help others.

Question 15

Which of the following is an example of someone fulfilling an imperfect obligation?

A) A woman buys a meal for a homeless man.
B) A man repays his neighbor who lent him money.
C) A boy keeps his promise to let his friend play with a toy.
D) A mafia hit man decides not to kill the person he has been sent to kill.

Question 16

Which of the following is an example of someone fulfilling a perfect obligation?

A) Quinn returns a wallet that she found on the ground.
B) Rosa helps her friend with his math homework.
C) Sam donates $500 to the Against Malaria Foundation.
D) Teresa steals a loaf of bread to help feed her family.

Question 17

Your role-based obligations are obligations that you have because of the social, professional, and civic roles that you occupy.

Question 18

Each person occupies multiple social roles, each of which comes with different role-based obligations.

Question 19

A role-based obligation is an obligation that you owe to someone in virtue of some social role that he or she occupies.

Question 20

The obligation to keep your promises is an example of a role-based obligation.

Question 21

A universal obligation is an obligation that everyone has, regardless of the social roles they occupy.

Question 22

The obligation to keep your promises is an example of a universal obligation.

Question 23

The obligation to repay your debts is an example of a universal obligation.

Question 24

The obligation to care for your own children is an example of a universal obligation.

Question 25

Some philosophers believe that the only universal obligation is the obligation to treat persons with respect.

Question 26

The philosopher Immanuel Kant understood respecting persons as treating them as ends in themselves and never merely as means.

Question 27

The philosopher Immanuel Kant understood respecting persons as fulfilling five duties toward them: fidelity, gratitude, reparation, beneficence, and nonmaleficence.

Question 28

The philosopher Immanuel Kant understood respecting persons as counting everyone's happiness equally when making decisions.

Question 29

Treating people "as ends in themselves" requires treating them as you would wish to be treated.

Question 30

Treating people "as ends in themselves" involves acknowledging that they are valuable in themselves.

Question 31

Treating someone "merely as a means" involves using or exploiting them for our own or someone else's benefit.

Question 32

Treating someone as an object that can be used for your own purposes is one way of treating someone "merely as a means."

Question 33

The obligation not to harm others is a perfect obligation.

Question 34

The obligation not to harm others is an imperfect obligation.

Question 35

The obligation to donate to charity, if it is an obligation at all, is an imperfect obligation.

Question 36

A perfect obligation is an obligation that you must fulfill in every relevant circumstance.

Question 37

You can decide for yourself when and where you fulfill your imperfect obligations.

Question 38

The difference between perfect and imperfect obligations is between obligations toward people you know and obligations toward people you don't know.

Question 39

All role-based obligations are perfect obligations.

Question 40

The obligation to respect persons is a perfect obligation rather than an imperfect obligation.

Question 41

When a role-based obligation conflicts with a universal obligation, morality always requires that you fulfill the role-based obligation.

Question 42

What is a role-based obligation? What are some of the social roles that you occupy? What role-based obligations come with those roles?

Question 43

What is a role-based obligation? Are all of your role-based obligations based on roles that you have chosen to occupy? Why or why not?

Question 44

Describe a real or imaginary scenario in which one of your role-based obligations did or would conflict with one of your universal obligations. State which obligation you think is more important in that scenario and explain why.

Question 45

If you had to add one obligation to the lists of universal obligations in Chapter 3 (other than the obligation to respect persons), what would it be? Why do you think that is a universal obligation?

Question 46

If you had to remove one obligation from the lists of universal obligations in Chapter 3, which obligation would you remove? Why?

Question 47

In your own words, explain what it means to treat people with respect. Do you think there is a universal obligation to treat people in that way? Why or why not?

Question 48

Can the obligation to treat persons with respect ever conflict with itself? Why or why not?

Question 49

Do you agree with Ann Garry that someone who watches pornography is failing to treat people with respect? Why or why not? What about someone who acts in pornographic films for money?

Question 50

In your own words, explain Immanuel Kant's interpretation of the obligation to treat persons with respect.

Question 51

Give an example of an action that would treat someone merely as a means. Explain why that action would count as treating someone merely as a means.

Question 52

In your own words, explain the difference between perfect and imperfect obligations. Give an example of each, other than the examples given in Chapter 3.

Question 53

Describe a scenario in which someone violates a perfect obligation to fulfill an imperfect obligation. Explain why the first obligation is a perfect obligation and the second obligation is an imperfect obligation.