Deck 7: Personhood, Rights, and Justice

Question 1

Discuss the issue of whether or not a fetus is a person with reference to your criteria for personhood. Explain whether or not the idea of fetal personhood ought to be relevant for the abortion issue.

Answer 1

No Answer

Question 2

According to you, who can be considered a person? Is it inevitably the same as a being? Explain your answer. Is it imaginable that a person might not be human?

Answer 2

No Answer

Question 3

Can science work in a value-free environment, or does science have to work within a system of moral values?

Answer 3

No Answer

Question 4

Why does Jeremy Bentham say that rights are "nonsense upon stilts"? Evaluate his statement.

Question 5

Briefly explain Ronald Dworkin's two models and discuss his viewpoint. Do you agree with his views? Why or why not?

Question 6

Discuss the issue of rights and responsibilities. Is it acceptable to link rights with responsibilities? Why or why not?

Question 7

Discuss the issue of human cloning. What are the pros and cons, if any?

Question 8

Discuss the three negative rights and identify the philosophers who advocated them. Outline some of the social and political consequences of enforcing these rights. Do you agree with such consequences? Why or why not?

Question 9

Define negative rights and positive rights. Identify the three human rights advocated by libertarians and explain them briefly.

Question 10

What is a thought experiment? How is John Rawls's "original position" a thought experiment? What are the social advantages of this position? Can you think of any disadvantages?

Question 11

Differentiate between distributive justice and criminal justice.

Question 12

Evaluate the articles of the United Nation's Declaration of Human Rights from a libertarian point of view and from John Rawls's point of view.

Question 13

Evaluate Article 11 of the United Nation's Declaration of Human Rights from a utilitarian approach and a Kantian approach.

Question 14

What are the "primary goods" identified by John Rawls that citizens need as free and equal persons?

Question 15

Discuss the issues of genetic engineering and cloning depicted in Gattaca. Are both scientific procedures equally problematic? Do they have beneficial aspects? What policies can you envision that would allow the beneficial aspects to flourish?

Question 16

Discuss whether the film Mississippi Burning exemplifies forward-looking or backward-looking justice.

Question 17

Do you think the characters Rachel and Deckard in the film Blade Runner can be identified as persons? Discuss the film in light of humanity and human rights and the violation of such rights.

Question 18

With reference to the film Ex Machina, do you think it is necessary to provide AIs with personhood in order for them to behave more humanlike emotionally? Discuss Immanuel Kant's views on the subject.

Question 19

Which of the following is a problem related to genetic engineering?

A) designer babies
B) transgenic animals
C) killer bees
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 20

A clone would NOT be an exact replica because of the influence of

A) DNA.
B) nature.
C) nurture.
D) God.

Question 21

Identify the person who made the following claim: "Invading a right is far worse than inflating it."

A) Ayn Rand
B) Ronald Dworkin
C) John Rawls
D) Marilyn Friedman

Question 22

There are three classical definitions of equality. Find the one NOT discussed in the text.

A) fundamental equality
B) natural equality
C) social equality
D) equal treatment for equals

Question 23

There are several questions associated with the prospect of human cloning. The one that is NOT present in the textbook is whether

A) clones should have human rights.
B) an individual who is completely identical to someone else can be created.
C) a clone can love his or her "parents."
D) a slave population of clones can be created.

Question 24

Identify the person who said the following: "Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

A) Benjamin Franklin
B) Abraham Lincoln
C) John F. Kennedy
D) Martin Luther King, Jr.

Question 25

Identify the person who said the following: "As citizens in a democratic community, which must legally regulate practices of eugenic intervention, we surely will not be able to disburden ourselves from the task of anticipating the possible agreement or refusal of those affected by eugenic practices. . . ."

A) John Hospers
B) Ayn Rand
C) Jeremy Bentham
D) Jürgen Habermas

Question 26

In libertarian philosophy, three negative rights are emphasized. Which one of the following should NOT be on the list?

A) the right to liberty
B) the right to life
C) the right to work
D) the right to property

Question 27

Three thinkers mentioned in the textbook agree about the three negative rights. Which thinker should NOT be on the list?

A) Ayn Rand
B) John Rawls
C) John Locke
D) John Hospers

Question 28

Identify the person who claimed the following: "There is only one fundamental right: the right to your own life and to act free of coercion."

A) John Rawls
B) Jeremy Bentham
C) Ayn Rand
D) Ronald Dworkin

Question 29

Which of the following best describes the original position?

A) It is a principle based on the basic theory of logic: The conclusion of any argument is usually based on the first premise.
B) It is a principle primarily found within Catholic ethics: An action that is otherwise prohibited can be permitted, provided that the effect of the primary action is proportionately very serious.
C) It is a principle based on John Stuart Mill's idea: One should not interfere with other people's lives unless those people are doing harm to others.
D) It is a principle for fair distribution: Make rules as if you do not know who you will be when they take effect.

Question 30

Identify the person who said the following: "We need to loosen the hold that the atomistic picture has on our thinking, and recognize the importance that theory has on our judgments and our moral condition."

A) John Rawls
B) Ayn Rand
C) Marilyn Friedman
D) Elizabeth Wolgast

Question 31

Identify the person who said the following: "All therapeutic genetic interventions, including prenatal ones, must remain dependent on consent that is at least counterfactually attributed to those possibly affected by them."

A) Jürgen Habermas
B) Jeremy Bentham
C) Immanuel Kant
D) Thomas Hobbes

Question 32

Which of the following approaches to punishment, although popular, is NOT considered legitimate by most legal experts?

A) rehabilitation
B) vengeance
C) retribution
D) deterrence

Question 33

Which of the following is NOT a difference between retribution and vengeance?

A) Retribution is based on logic, whereas vengeance is an emotional response.
B) Retribution is forward-looking, whereas vengeance is backward-looking.
C) Retribution wants punishment to be proportionate to the crime, whereas vengeance may exceed the damage done by the criminal.
D) Retribution is a public act, whereas vengeance is a private enterprise.

Question 34

Diane Whiteley argues that the most important natural response for a crime victim is

A) self-pity.
B) rage.
C) resentment.
D) humiliation.

Question 35

Which of the following social issues is explored in the film Gattaca?

A) interracial adoption
B) the rights of clones if human cloning is permitted
C) the future hierarchy of humans, depending on whether they are designed in the lab or naturally conceived
D) the future hierarchy of humans structured along racial lines according to the Nazi program of the 1930s and 1940s

Question 36

The film Green Book is about

A) the philosophical explorations of personhood.
B) racism seen through the eyes of an African American pianist and his Italian American chauffeur.
C) a near future where a robot will be able to not only act like a human but have human emotions.
D) discussions about the rights of androids.

Question 37

The film Mississippi Burning is about

A) the budding friendship between two men from very different backgrounds.
B) a near future where a robot will be able to not only act like a human but have human emotions.
C) genetic engineering creating a human super-race as well as an underclass.
D) the murders of three civil rights activists in 1964.

Question 38

The film Mississippi Burning depicts American problems with

A) segregation.
B) hatred.
C) racism.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 39

The film Ex Machina is about

A) genetic engineering creating a human super-race as well as an underclass.
B) a near future where a robot will be able to not only act like a human but have human emotions.
C) the murders of three civil rights activists in 1964.
D) the philosophical explorations of personhood.

Question 40

A human being is always identified as a person.

Question 41

Immanuel Kant claims that you qualify as a person if you are a rational being.

Question 42

Immanuel Kant claims that any being capable of suffering qualifies for personhood.

Question 43

Patria potestas is the right of the father of the household to treat his family any way he pleases.

Question 44

Immanuel Kant's theory of personhood might include nonhuman beings who are rational.

Question 45

Many social thinkers prefer using the term "person" instead of "human being."

Question 46

Most child psychologists today agree that children below the age of seven or eight do not know enough about the difference between right and wrong to be held morally accountable.

Question 47

Historically, gods and goddesses, totems, and dead ancestors have been granted personhood.

Question 48

The harvesting of stem cells is much less controversial than their potential uses.

Question 49

The main purpose of stem cell research is to fight human diseases.

Question 50

The two main forms of cloning based on what the duplicates will be used for are moral and productive.

Question 51

Jürgen Habermas argues that science is, fundamentally, value-free.

Question 52

In the context of human cloning, one of the concerns is whether clones might be considered an expendable population.

Question 53

John Stuart Mill argued in favor of the universal right to self-determination, provided that the individuals in question have been properly educated.

Question 54

Jeremy Bentham was critical of the concept of rights.

Question 55

Ronald Dworkin argued that we have to find a balance between the rights of an individual and the demands of society.

Question 56

The goal of affirmative action was to level the playing field for disadvantaged citizens.

Question 57

Karl Marx argued in favor of positive rights.

Question 58

Ayn Rand wrote a powerful story of a factory run on communist principles in support of the communist principles she believed in.

Question 59

Education is an example of a positive right.

Question 60

A negative right is a right of noninterference.

Question 61

A negative right is a right that society disapproves of.

Question 62

The proponents of the incapacitation approach to punishment do not specify how a wrongdoer should be incapacitated.

Question 63

Ayn Rand expressed the conviction that the United States was the first moral society in history because it set limits on the power of the state and respected the concept of the rights of the individual.

Question 64

According to John Hospers and Ayn Rand, those individuals who never have been and never will be able to work should rely on private charity and not government interference.

Question 65

A positive right is the same as an entitlement.

Question 66

According to John Rawls, one should imagine making rules for all of society only from the original position.

Question 67

John Rawls was influenced by Immanuel Kant's philosophy of never using another person simply as a means to an end.

Question 68

Elizabeth Wolgast argues that since humans are social atoms, the original position is an ingenious practical aid in determining social fairness.

Question 69

Elizabeth Wolgast is an advocate of communitarianism.

Question 70

Marilyn Friedman argues that community traditions may often be oppressive to women.

Question 71

Forward-looking justice concerns itself with future consequences, while backward-looking justice wants to right past wrongs.

Question 72

Distributive justice is the justice meted out to a person who has broken the law.

Question 73

Walter Berns argues that anger has a deep and appropriate connection to moral indignation.

Question 74

Diane Whiteley argues that the community should feel moral indignation over a crime done to a victim.

Question 75

Restorative justice seeks retribution for past wrongs strictly on the principle of punishing the guilty in proportion to his or her crime.

Question 76

Retribution is a backward-looking theory, looking to the past in order to punish the guilty.

Question 77

Deterrence is a backward-looking theory of punishment.

Question 78

Article 3 of the Declaration of Human Rights states that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights."

Question 79

In the Declaration of Human Rights, there are examples of both positive and negative rights.

Question 80

According to John Rawls, it is acceptable to allow inequality as long as only a small minority of the population suffers because of it.