Deck 43: Not Just Study Drugs for the Rich: Stimulants As Moral Tools for Creating Opportunities for Socially Disadvantaged Students

Question 1

Describe what Keisha Ray means by the term "opportunity maintenance." Then, consider whether this concept would encourage your college to do anything differently (whether it's in the classroom, in the services it offers, in its residence halls, etc.). What would it look like if your school wanted to engage in opportunity maintenance as it relates to its student population?

Answer 1

-Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of opportunity maintenance.
-Include a thesis that's focused and appropriate given the assignment.
-Clearly and succinctly state the main argument for the thesis.
-Correctly identify and defend the argument's controversial premises using sound reasoning, well-chosen examples, insightful analogies, etc.

Question 2

Keisha Ray's solution is clearly one designed for a non-ideal world, a world where we are failing underprivileged students in so many different ways. You might worry that these kinds of solutions for a non-ideal world distract from the bigger, underlying issues. Should you? Or do you think that solutions like Ray's are the way to go?

Answer 2

-Include a thesis that's focused and appropriate given the assignment.
-Clearly and succinctly state the main argument for the thesis.
-Correctly identify and defend the argument's controversial premises using sound reasoning, well-chosen examples, insightful analogies, etc.

Question 3

Keisha Ray insists that we should think of enhancement in social terms, not just in medical terms. Consider what it would look like to apply Ray's line of reasoning to another social issue.

Answer 3

-Demonstrate an understanding of how enhancement operates in social, not just medical, terms.
-Include a thesis that's focused and appropriate given the assignment.
-Clearly and succinctly state the main argument for the thesis.
-Correctly identify and defend the argument's controversial premises using sound reasoning, well-chosen examples, insightful analogies, etc.

Question 4

Which of the following best captures the question that guides Ray's whole essay?

A) Do we have the moral obligation to use stimulants to help students in inadequate schools?
B) How can we understand what it means to be privileged and disadvantaged?
C) Are there any good reasons to encourage students to take stimulants?
D) What can we do to show how important opportunity maintenance is in society at large?
E) Do we have the moral obligation to prevent students in affluent schools from taking stimulants?

Question 5

Who are the most frequent users of study drugs?

A) Students in poor families who attend underserved schools
B) Students in honors or gifted programs within their school system
C) Students with ADD or ADHD
D) Students in affluent families who attend prestigious schools
E) Students who do poorly at academic endeavors routinely

Question 6

Ray argues that when we allow disadvantaged students' circumstances at birth to dictate their futures, ________:

A) We fail to see the moral reasons that we have to improve disadvantaged students' home communities and family units
B) We prop up a problematic system of social Darwinism
C) We fail our social responsibility to provide these students with good paying jobs
D) We feed into a system that views education as a moral obligation rather than a social service
E) We fail our moral obligation of remedying their academic environments in the ways available to us

Question 7

What does Ray say matters when we are disadvantaged through luck?

A) If we can set up the system to make sure that everyone is equally as unlucky
B) Whether the parents were responsible for this unluckiness
C) That we make sure that even unlucky and low-paying jobs provide a living wage
D) How we address the way that disadvantages affect access to resources
E) That we be careful to think of disadvantage clearly and not get distracted by sad stories

Question 8

How is "enhancement" characterized in the realm of health care?

A) Medically unnecessary interventions meant to change our understanding of normal functioning
B) Medical interventions necessary to fend off or cure diseases
C) Medically necessary interventions meant to improve otherwise healthy patients' well-being
D) Medical interventions that neither improve nor worsen normal functioning
E) Medically unnecessary interventions meant to improve upon normal functioning

Question 9

Why does Ray take issue with the "treatment/enhancement distinction?"

A) It makes a distinction out of an issue that is essentially one thing
B) It does not account for the idea that individuals can be functioning properly but still be entitled to medical resources for well-being purposes
C) It fails to recognize further, pertinent distinctions, and fails to take opportunity maintenance seriously
D) It does not account for the idea that treatment is always more important than enhancement
E) It doesn't account for the idea that it is only when individuals are functioning improperly that they are entitled to medical reseources

Question 10

What does the term "opportunity maintenance" focus on?

A) The difficulty we have in maintaining those opportunities that we are born into
B) The difference between being given an opportunity and being born into privilege
C) The ways that opportunities can impact our ability to live the kind of lives that we want to live
D) The difficulty we have in creating opportunities for people who want to live comfortable lives
E) The ways that opportunities can impact our ability to have adequate educational systems

Question 11

Which of the following is NOT true of opportunity maintenance?

A) It recognizes the potentially limiting nature of social deficiencies and medical resources' potential
B) Its goal is to make undesirable environments have less control over the futures open to disadvantaged children
C) It acknowledges that abnormalities other than biological abnormalities can impact opportunities
D) It is not aimed at equalizing opportunities
E) All of the above are true of opportunity maintenance

Question 12

Ray affirms that life is not a race and the value of education isn't determined in relation to other people.

Question 13

How does Ray respond to the objection that her proposal simply changes who is privileged?

A) She denies that stimulants are at all related to bestowing some group with a privilege
B) She asserts that her proposal does not aim to take away stimulants from the privileged class
C) She states that her proposal will also aim to give additional stimulants to members of the privileged class
D) She affirms that this is in fact the purpose of her proposal
E) She calls the idea of privilege into question, asking whether this is still a term that does any work for us