Deck 5: Deontological Ethics

Question 1

Frankena suggests that Kant's universalization test may not be enough to establish

A) war as a duty.
B) deceitful promising as immoral.
C) benevolence as a duty.
D) work as a duty.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Kant says that through reason and reflection we can derive our duties from

A) hypothetical imperatives.
B) experience.
C) the categorical imperative.
D) utilitarian calculations.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Ross says duties that can be overridden by other duties are _______ duties.

A) absolutist
B) not really
C) weak
D) prima facie

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Ross believes that we can discover true moral principles by consulting our

A) cultural norms.
B) religious codes.
C) utilitarian calculations.
D) intuitions.

Question 5

In "A Horseman in the Sky," Private Druse followed his father's dictum to do his duty at all costs. The result was that Druse

A) was happy.
B) deserted.
C) killed his father.
D) saved his father.

Question 6

According to Fried, lying is bad because it

A) violates the Ten Commandments.
B) fails to respect utility.
C) is unintentional.
D) fails to respect truth.

Question 7

The doctrine that morality depends on religion is called

A) natural law theory.
B) intuitionism.
C) the divine command theory.
D) the categorical imperative.

Question 8

Nagel argues that the Kantian way of viewing morality is

A) superior.
B) simplistic.
C) logical.
D) complete.

Question 9

Nagel thinks that our notion of moral responsibility is

A) plausible.
B) workable.
C) useful.
D) incoherent.

Question 10

According to Rachels, the divine command theory says that "morally right" means

A) producing the greatest happiness.
B) self-evidently permissible.
C) commanded by God.
D) perceived by God.

Question 11

According to Rachels, if right conduct is right because God commands it, then

A) morality is independent of God.
B) God's commands are arbitrary.
C) morality existed before God existed.
D) God is not all-powerful.

Question 12

According to Rachels, if good and bad are defined by God's will, then the notion of God's goodness

A) is coherent.
B) is deprived of any meaning.
C) transcends human knowledge.
D) is a necessary truth.

Question 13

According to Rachels, if God commands us to do certain things because they are right (independent of God's will), then

A) God's commands are not arbitrary, and the idea of the goodness of God is preserved.
B) God's commands are immoral.
C) the divine command theory is true.
D) God's commands are not arbitrary, but the idea of the goodness of God is rendered meaningless.

Question 14

Nagel writes, "[w]here a significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control, yet we continue to treat him in that respect as an object of moral judgment, it can be called _______."

A) God's will
B) moral luck
C) absurdity
D) strange

Question 15

Nagel says that our "prior to reflection" intuition is that people cannot be

A) the victim of luck.
B) morally assessed for what is not their fault.
C) guilty.
D) lucky.

Question 16

According to Nagel, the problem of moral luck is based on the conflict between (i) our intuition that someone's moral status cannot be altered by luck and (ii) the possibility that luck

A) can indeed affect someone's moral status.
B) is destructive of moral decision-making.
C) plays no role at all.
D) makes morality obsolete.

Question 17

Kant calls rational beings persons.

Question 18

Kant's categorical imperatives are absolutist.

Question 19

Like Kant, Ross is an absolutist.

Question 20

Ross argues that moral principles have prima facie, or conditional, bindingness.

Question 21

Frankena thinks that Kant's categorical imperative is entirely plausible.

Question 22

According to Frankena, Kant's theory has difficulty dealing with conflicts of duties.

Question 23

Deontological ethics is equivalent to the Golden Rule.

Question 24

Kant accepts Hume's theory of moral sentiments.

Question 25

Kant believes that morality consists of hypothetical imperatives.

Question 26

Kant believes that morality is contingent.

Question 27

Kant endorses the divine right of kings in a kingdom of ends.

Question 28

Kant's theory puts strict limits on what can be universalized.

Question 29

Frankena says there is more to the moral point of view than the universalization of rules.

Question 30

Ross's principles are not absolutes.

Question 31

Ross endorses some types of utilitarianism.

Question 32

In "A Horseman in the Sky," Bierce examines the implications of absolutist values.

Question 33

Kant's ethics is called deontological (from the Greek word for "duty") because he believes that the value of an act is in the act itself rather than in its consequences (as teleologists hold). Deontological ethics has been criticized as being too rigid. Do you think that this is true? Should the notion of consequences be taken into consideration?

Question 34

Kant's categorical imperative has also been criticized for being more wide open than he realized, for it doesn't limit what could be universalized. How would Kant respond to these counterexamples: (1) Everyone should tie his right shoe before his left shoe; (2) All retarded or senile people should be executed by the government (adding, if I should become retarded or senile, I should also undergo this fate).

Question 35

According to Frankena, what difficulty exists in Kant's theory "due to conflicts between duties"?

Question 36

Why does Frankena suggest that Kant's universalization test may not be enough to establish benevolence as a duty?

Question 37

What does Frankena mean by "There is more to the moral point of view than being willing to universalize one's rules"?

Question 38

Do you agree with Frankena's criticisms of Kant's theory? Explain.

Question 39

What is W. D. Ross's argument against all types of utilitarianism?

Question 40

Ross is both an intuitionist and a pluralist. He thinks we can acquire knowledge of the correct moral principles by consulting our deepest intuitions, and he thinks that by so doing we will discover a plurality of principles, not reducible to a single principle, as utilitarians claim. First of all, do you agree with Ross that we can discover the true principles by consulting our intuitions? And second, do you agree that the principles are, in the last analysis, irreducible to one overarching principle? What are the objections to these positions? Suppose you and I consult our intuitions and come to different conclusions. How can we adjudicate the conflict?

Question 41

What does Ross mean by prima facie duty? How does this notion separate his theory from Kant's?

Question 42

In "A Horseman in the Sky," what was Carter Druse's duty in this situation? Was it different from what he thought it to be? What should he have done? What would you have done?

Question 43

How does this story bear upon deontological ethics? How would a Kantian evaluate Carter Druse's action?

Question 44

What would a utilitarian have done in these circumstances?

Question 45

Evaluate Charles Fried's argument against lying. Why is it always wrong-even if only a little wrong? Is his argument sound? Explain.

Question 46

Fried makes several comparisons of lying with other acts: stealing, injuring, counterfeiting, promise-breaking, and violating the social fact of language. Are these good analogies?

Question 47

Fried says lying is exploitative. Is this always the case? Can you think of cases where one lies not to exploit but to help another?

Question 48

Does morality depend on religion for its validity or does it have independent validity? In other words, Is the Divine Command Theory true? What does Socrates seem to believe? What do you believe? Why?

Question 49

What are the implications of holding that ethics depends on religion? Could God make rape and murder morally right actions today? How do you know that He hasn't (and kept it a secret)? If it turns out that no God exists, does that mean that morality is an illusion?

Question 50

If Goodness means simply "what God commands," what do we mean when we say that "God is good?"

Question 51

If the divine command theory is true, how is God different from the devil? Is He simply more powerful?

Question 52

What is Thomas Nagel's criticism of Kant? Why does he think that Kant's notion of the good will as the sole determinant of moral goodness is simplistic?

Question 53

Go over the types of moral luck that Nagel discusses. Are his arguments cogent and persuasive? It might help to examine the main examples. Take the German who becomes a Nazi officer who does great evil, but who in different, more peaceful circumstances would have been an average citizen with no great moral culpability. Is Nagel correct to say that the officer just had bad moral luck? Or can more be said about this assessment that would make sense of the Kantian idea of moral goodness?

Question 54

Why does Nagel think that our notion of moral responsibility is deeply problematic, even incoherent?

Question 55

Nagel believes that the free-will determinist debate is paradoxical. If we are determined by antecedent circumstances, then we are not responsible for what we do; but if we are not determined by these conditions, then everything seems arbitrary-free will seems to presuppose the very causal structure that it attacks. Does this make sense? Do you believe that you have free will? Explain your answer.

Question 56

Do you believe there is moral luck, or can we, in principle, make genuine moral judgments about people and their actions?

Question 57

According to Dennis, should good fortune be viewed as a reward for having good character? Explain.

Question 58

What is Dennis saying about moral luck?