Deck 14: The Ethical Treatment of Animals

Question 1

Mary's laptop deserves moral consideration only because she owns it and cares about it. Thus, Mary's laptop has

A) direct moral standing.
B) indirect moral standing.
C) relative moral standing.
D) inherent or intrinsic worth.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Mary is a person, and as such she plausibly deserves moral consideration because of features inherent to her (e.g., being self-aware). This suggests that she has

A) direct moral standing.
B) indirect moral standing.
C) relative moral standing.
D) none of the above

Answer 2

A

Question 3

If animals have no direct or indirect moral standing, then using them for human purposes is

A) always wrong.
B) always obligatory.
C) never wrong.
D) never optional

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Utilitarian arguments depend heavily on factual claims about

A) what a virtuous person ought to do in a particular situation.
B) what God has commanded or would prefer.
C) what duties one has inherited through implicit social contracts.
D) the overall comparative effects of contemplated courses of action

Question 5

According to Singer, which of the following is the single relevant factor in determining whether something has moral status?

A) dignity
B) belonging to a moral community
C) sentience
D) none of the above

Question 6

According to Singer, the principle of equality requires

A) identical treatment.
B) differential treatment.
C) equal consideration
D) differential consideration.

Question 7

In Singer's understanding, the principle of the equality of human beings is

A) a description of an alleged actual equality among humans.
B) a description of an alleged actual inequality among humans.
C) a prescription of how we should treat nonhuman animals.
D) a prescription of how we should treat humans.

Question 8

According to Singer, which of the following historical defenders of the principle of equal consideration of interests was one of the few to recognize that the principle applies to members of other species as well as to our own?

A) Immanuel Kant
B) Aristotle
C) Jeremy Bentham
D) John Stuart Mill

Question 9

What, according to Singer, is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others?

A) intelligence
B) rationality
C) sentience
D) none of the above

Question 10

In Singer's view, the question of when it's wrong to painlessly kill an animal is one

A) to which we need to give a precise answer.
B) to which we need give no precise answer.
C) that cannot be answered, vaguely or precisely.
D) that is ethically unimportant

Question 11

According to Singer, the conclusions argued for in "all animals are equal" flow from which of the following principles alone?

A) the principle of maximizing happiness
B) the principal principle
C) the principle of double effect
D) the principle of minimizing suffering

Question 12

Which of the following best characterizes Cohen's view about animal rights?

A) Animals do not have rights, and as such we do not have any obligations toward them.
B) Animals do have rights; nonetheless, we do not have any obligations toward them.
C) Animals do not have rights, but they still deserve some moral consideration
D) Animals do have rights, and we have an obligation not to cause them suffering.

Question 13

Which of the following is a possible source of obligations, according to Cohen?

A) rights
B) freely made commitments
C) special relations
D) all of the above

Question 14

Why can't animals be bearers of rights according to Cohen?

A) because rights are essentially human
B) because animals lack any kind of rationality
C) because animals are not as powerful as humans
D) none of the above; Cohen holds that animals can have rights

Question 15

According to Cohen, animals are

A) moral agents.
B) amoral.
C) abstract reasoners
D) all of the above

Question 16

According to Cohen, if I promise to give you a dollar, then

A) you have a right to my dollar.
B) I am obligated to give you my dollar.
C) both A and B
D) neither A nor B

Question 17

Carruthers approaches questions about the moral standing of nonhuman animals from the perspective of which of the following moral theories?

A) consequentialism
B) Kantianism
C) virtue ethics
D) contractualism

Question 18

Carruthers argues that, on contractualist grounds, nonhuman animals may be accorded which of the following kinds of moral standing?

A) direct
B) indirect
C) Quasi-
D) none of the above

Question 19

Which of the following capacities does Carruther's assume that animals lack?

A) the capacity for suffering
B) the capacity for practical reasoning
C) the capacity for rational agency
D) the capacity for conscious experience

Question 20

According to Carruthers, which of the following groups should not be accorded direct moral standing?

A) human infants
B) the senile
C) the mentally disabled
D) none of the above

Question 21

According to Carruthers, our duties to animals are

A) direct and basic.
B) indirect and derivative.
C) nonexistent
D) nonexistent

Question 22

In Carruther's view, the justification for moral criticism for things that we do (or don't to do) to an animal derives from

A) the animal's direct moral standing.
B) the animals capacity for suffering.
C) the bad qualities of character that our actions evince.
D) none of the above

Question 23

According to Carruthers, whenever someone is required to act in a certain way toward an animal for the sake of the animal, what explains that fact are facts about

A) the animal.
B) the wider effects on human beings
C) both A and B
D) neither A nor B

Question 24

Which of the following potentially morally relevant differences between Fred's behavior and the behavior of the consumers of factory-raised meat does Norcross not discuss?

A) Fred's behavior involves the suffering of puppies, whereas the behavior of meat-eaters "merely" involves the suffering of chickens, pigs, cows, calves, sheep, and the like.
B) The suffering of the puppies is necessary for gustatory pleasure, whereas the suffering of animals on factory farms is simply a by-product of the conditions dictated by economic considerations
C) Fred could prevent the suffering of the puppies, whereas meat-eaters can't prevent the suffering of the animals they consume
D) none of the above

Question 25

For the purposes of Norcross's discussion, to claim that humans have a superior ethical status to animals is to claim that

A) it is morally wrong to give the interests of humans greater weight than those of animals in deciding how to behave
B) it is morally right to give the interests of humans greater weight than those of animals in deciding how to behave.
C) both A and B
D) neither A nor B

Question 26

According to Norcross, which of the following arguments poses a formidable challenge to any proposed criterion of full moral standing that excludes animals?

A) the ontological argument
B) the argument from cosmology
C) the argument from marginal cases
D) none of the above

Question 27

According to Norcross, any attempt to justify the claim that humans have a higher moral status than other animals by appealing to some version of rationality as the morally relevant difference between humans and animals will

A) fail to give an adequate answer to the argument from marginal cases.
B) fail to make the case that such a difference is morally relevant to the status of animals as moral patients as opposed to their status as moral agents.
C) both A and B
D) neither A nor B

Question 28

According to some defenders of meat-eating, the suffering of animals counts less than the suffering of humans (if at all) because

A) animals are rational and humans are not.
B) humans are rational and animals are not.
C) animals lack the capacity for suffering, and humans do not.
D) animals can tolerate more suffering than humans can.

Question 29

Norcross claims that if morality demands that we not torture puppies merely to enhance our own eating pleasure, morality also demands that

A) we try to reduce our carbon footprint.
B) we donate money to Oxfam.
C) we not support factory farming.
D) we follow the Golden Rule.

Question 30

Norcross agrees that if a being is incapable of moral reasoning, at even the most basic level, then it cannot be

A) a moral patient.
B) a moral agent.
C) an object of moral sympathy
D) a being of value.

Question 31

Necessarily, if it is wrong to be cruel to animals, then animals have direct moral standing

Question 32

Because animals cannot be virtuous, a virtue ethics approach cannot be applied within the context of the ethics of eating animals

Question 33

Singer believes that eating animals is morally defensible, because doing so is necessary to satisfy our nutritional needs.

Question 34

Most philosophers who have proposed the principle of equality have recognized that this principle applies to members of other species as well as to our own.

Question 35

According to the principle of equal consideration of interests, identical interests must be given equal moral weight only insofar as they occur in human beings

Question 36

According to Singer, equal treatment entails identical treatment

Question 37

Singer believes that the case for equality between men and women cannot validly be extended to nonhuman animals

Question 38

According to Singer, we ought not to base our opposition to racism and sexism on actual equality among human beings.

Question 39

Cohen argues that animals have weaker rights than those of humans.

Question 40

Cohen accepts that humans do have some moral obligations to animals

Question 41

Cohen accepts that some of the "higher" nonhuman animals like dolphins and chimpanzees might have rights.

Question 42

According to Cohen, there is a sense in which animals have inherent value

Question 43

Carruthers argues that all human beings have (direct) moral standing, irrespective of their status as rational agents.

Question 44

According to Carruthers, contractualism can't consistently deny moral standing to animals without also withholding it from infants and mentally "defective" humans.

Question 45

Contractualism assumes that contracting parties should come to the contract situation with plenty of moral beliefs, all of which will be relevant to the contract process.

Question 46

Carruthers argues that nonhuman animals have direct moral standing

Question 47

According to Norcross, there is no morally relevant difference between the clearly wrongful behavior of Fred and those who knowingly eat meat produced through factory farming.

Question 48

Norcross thinks that what grounds moral agency is different from what grounds moral standing as a patient.

Question 49

According to Norcross, most, if not all, nonhuman animals are moral agents.

Question 50

Norcross believes that the behavior of those who knowingly support factory farming is morally permissible.

Question 51

Roughly, for something to have _________ moral standing is for it, independent of its relation to other things or creatures, to possess features in virtue of which it deserves to be given moral consideration.

Question 52

The systematic discrimination against members of some species by the members of another species is known as _________.

Question 53

According to Singer, it is an implication of the _________ that our concern for others and our readiness to consider their interests shouldn't depend on what they are like or on what abilities they may possess.

Question 54

Singer claims that most humans are _________.

Question 55

Singer refers to the view that it's always wrong to take an innocent human life as the _________ view.

Question 56

Cohen says that "rights entail _________." For example, if you have a right to the return of money that I borrowed, then I must return the money.

Question 57

Cohen discusses the view of Immanuel _________ that to be a moral agent is to be able to grasp the generality of moral restrictions on our will.

Question 58

Cohen discusses the view of Immanuel _________ that to be a moral agent is to be able to grasp the generality of moral restrictions on our will.

Question 59

A moral theory that identifies moral rules with those that no rational agent could reasonably reject is a version of _________.

Question 60

According to Carruthers, if a set of moral rules is to provide social stability and preserve the peace, that set of moral rules must be _________.

Question 61

Carruthers thinks that torturing a cat is wrong because of what it shows about the _________ of the actor.

Question 62

According to Carruthers, the most basic kind of wrongdoing toward animals is _________.

Question 63

Carruthers argues that animals have _________ moral standing as opposed to direct moral standing.

Question 64

Carruthers tentatively suggests that our Western moral attitudes toward animals form part of the _________ content of our morality.

Question 65

Defenders of meat-eating sometimes argue that there is some property (e.g., rationality) in virtue of which human beings have a higher moral status than do nonhuman animals and that this justifies meat-eating. An important challenge to this kind of argument-discussed at length by Norcross-is the challenge of _________.

Question 66

According to Norcross, those who attempt to justify their meat-eating by appeal to a claim of causal impotence are guilty of _________.

Question 67

The distinction between what is intended, either as a means or as an end in itself, and what is merely foreseen is central to the _________

Question 68

In the course of uncovering what he takes to be the speciesist's central confusion, Norcross questions the moral relevance of _________.

Question 69

According to Norcross, the fact that animals can't be moral agents doesn't seem to be relevant to their status as moral _________.

Question 70

The traditional view is that _________ is what morally separates humans from other animals