Deck 3: Moral Status

Question 1

A theory of moral status based on which of the following criteria identifies a sufficient but not necessary condition of moral status?

A) Human properties
B) Cognitive properties
C) Moral agency
D) Sentience
E) All of the above

Answer 1

E

Question 2

Which theory of moral status provides neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for moral status?

A) Human properties
B) Cognitive properties
C) Moral agency
D) Sentience
E) Relationship

Answer 2

E

Question 3

Which theory has the shortcoming that it denies moral status to beings on a mistaken assumption about fixed species boundaries?

A) Human properties
B) Cognitive properties
C) Moral agency
D) Sentience
E) Relationship

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The theory of moral status based on relationships does all of the following, except:

A) Identify as morally relevant the criteria of intimacy, proximity, and social matrix
B) Account for different degrees of moral status
C) Offer a sufficient condition for moral status
D) Identify how role-related rights and obligations are generated
E) Highlight the claims of those with significant interpersonal relationships

Question 5

Which of the following is NOT identified as a problem that a unified and comprehensive account of moral status would have to address?

A) "Human life" carries as least two substantially different meanings: biological or psychological.
B) Whether or not rights are correlative to duties
C) Potentiality may confer moral status or acquired capacity may confer moral status.
D) The criteria can come into conflict with one another.

Question 6

Positions on the moral status of embryos from in vitro fertilization do not include:

A) Mere tissue
B) Nonhuman life
C) Potential human life
D) Full human life

Question 7

Incorporating theories of moral status into practical guidelines should involve:

A) A two-tiered species difference between humans and nonhumans
B) A principle of equal consideration for human persons and nonhuman animals
C) Only presently existing capacities of beings, not potentialities, in determining moral status
D) The concept of "degrees" of moral status in specifying how beings can change in rank as properties are gained and lost

Question 8

The President's Council on Bioethics (2001-09) opposed those who sought "To deny that embryonic human beings deserve full respect." It claimed that in order to hold such a position, "one must suppose that not every whole living human being is deserving of full respect." In this reason for rejecting their opponents' position, this body reflects that it holds which theory of moral status?

A) Human properties
B) Cognitive properties
C) Moral agency
D) Sentience
E) Relationship

Question 9

The moral status theory based in cognitive properties includes all of the following properties except:

A) Self-consciousness
B) A functioning central nervous system
C) Rationality and higher-order volition
D) The capacity to communicate with other persons using language
E) The ability to give and appreciate reasons for acting

Question 10

An individual is a moral agent if he or she:

A) Is capable of making moral judgments about the rightness and wrongness of actions
B) Has the capacity for sentience
C) Has motives that can be judged morally
D) Both a and b
E) Both a and c

Question 11

Today's most influential theory of "moral agency" was originally developed by:

A) Aristotle
B) Jeremy Bentham
C) Charles Darwin
D) David Hume
E) Immanuel Kant

Question 12

Which of the following is not a property of sentience?

A) The capacity to intend harm
B) The capacity to feel pleasure
C) The capacity to feel pain
D) The capacity to suffer

Question 13

A theory of moral status based primarily on "sentience" was developed by:

A) Aristotle
B) Jeremy Bentham
C) Charles Darwin
D) David Hume
E) Immanuel Kant

Question 14

A theory of moral status based on relationships typically highlights all of the following aspects except for:

A) Geographic proximity
B) Affection, care, or intimacys
C) Social matrix
D) Cognition
E) Temporal duration

Question 15

Beauchamp and Childress suggest that the moral status of sentient laboratory animals is most reasonably grounded in obligations related to:

A) Human stewardship over them
B) Nonmaleficence
C) Justice
D) Reciprocity
E) A and B
F) B and D

Question 16

The moral excellence of sympathy does all of the following EXCEPT:

A) Help address problems of vulnerable populations
B) Form a concern for another's welfare
C) Imply generosity and favorable responsiveness to others, in the form of mercy, leniency, or assistance
D) Help to overcome dissimilarity to and distance from others

Question 17

Expansive sympathy helps contribute to:

A) Impartiality
B) Child abuse
C) Neglect of the elderly
D) Relational biases

Question 18

Which of the following is NOT a reason that persons are vulnerable and thus incapable of protecting their own interests?

A) Sickness
B) Debilitation
C) Mental illness
D) Religious beliefs
E) Immaturity

Question 19

A practicable collection of guidelines will assign the greatest degree of moral status to which of the following beings?

A) Infants
B) Mentally handicapped
C) Persons in persistent vegetative states
D) Autonomous persons

Question 20

Which criteria are most likely to warrant ascribing a greater degree of moral status to any given chimpanzee than to any given pig?

A) Human properties
B) Cognitive properties
C) Moral agency
D) Sentience
E) Relationships

Question 21

Moral status deals with questions about which beings deserve protections by moral norms.

Question 22

According to the human properties theory of moral status, fetuses, children, and incompetent individuals have exactly the same moral status as that of surrogate decision makers.

Question 23

The categories of "human dignity," "personhood," and "human life" are determinative for specifying what properties confer moral status.

Question 24

If moral status correlates to a being's richness or quality of life-for example, complexity of consciousness, social relationships, ability to derive pleasure, and so on-there is a danger that the fewer protections will be extended to the most vulnerable populations.

Question 25

It is never justifiable for a human person with moral status to have his or her rights overridden by the rights of others.

Question 26

It is appropriate to identify some beings as possessing full moral status while viewing others as having partial moral status and still others as having no moral status.

Question 27

All persons with less than full moral status require a surrogate decision maker to determine their true interests.

Question 28

It is today generally accepted that experimental animals have no moral status.

Question 29

A brain-dead human being can have no moral status.

Question 30

The work of specifying and balancing norms of moral status generates guidelines for biomedical research and medical practice.

Question 31

The moral character traits of sympathy and impartiality play an important role in promoting and upholding obligations owed to persons who are less proximate relationally and geographically.

Question 32

One difficulty with a theory of moral status based on sentience is that the degree of moral protection can decline with the quality, richness, and complexity of life that most needs protecting.

Question 33

Where vulnerability of nonhuman species is concerned, a model based on stewardship is preferable to a model based on obligations of reciprocity and no malevolence.

Question 34

Due to their increased vulnerability, individuals with compromised competence should not be allowed to participate in medical research that includes risk of harms.

Question 35

A _________ is a dispositional trait of character that is socially valuable and reliably present in a person.

Question 36

Among the great strengths of a theory of moral status based on ____ properties is that it tends to protect weak, vulnerable, and incapacitated human individuals.

Question 37

The first four theories of moral status are best interpreted as identifying _____ conditions for moral status, but none of these four theories provides a _____ condition.

Question 38

The account of moral theory based on _____ properties holds that an individual has moral status if and only if that individual has the genetic code of Homo sapiens.

Question 39

One theory of moral status holds that individuals have moral status because they are able to reflect on their lives through their _____ capacities and are self-determined by their beliefs in ways that incompetent humans and nonhuman animals are not.

Question 40

According to this theory of moral status, just because an individual makes immoral judgments or has immoral motives does not mean that the person lacks _____ _____.

Question 41

The theory of moral status that derives from a presumption against harm is based on _____.

Question 42

A theory that accounts for moral status through ____ establishes rights and obligations based on the particular roles one plays in specific social contexts and interactions.

Question 43

"The argument from marginal cases" maintains that every major _____ criterion of moral status (intelligence, agency, self-consciousness, etc.) excludes some humans, including young children and humans with serious brain damage.

Question 44

Persons in persistent vegetative states might be members of a ____ group, at risk of being exploited due to their inability to consent.

Question 45

Practices of abortion where fetuses are capable of _____ raise issues of moral coherence.

Question 46

The capacity for ____ enables us to enter into, however insufficiently, the thought of another human being and form a concern for his or her welfare.

Question 47

One way to overcome the limited sympathy one might feel for persons different from oneself is the deliberate exercise of _____ through calm and unbiased judgments.

Question 48

One way to make moral status practicable for bioethics is to develop _____ that specify the relationship between the criteria in the various theories of moral status.