Deck 25: Utilitarianism

Question 1

According to your text, conscience is primarily a function of our upbringing.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The text claims that different people's consciences can lead in contradictory directions.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The text argues that love alone is sufficient to resolve all moral issues.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

According to the text, conscience, love, and the Golden Rule are worthy rules of thumb for ethics, but they have their limits.

Question 5

The word "teleological"is related to a Greek word meaning "duty."

Question 6

Ethical egoism is a form of teleological ethics.

Question 7

Jeremy Bentham's method of measuring pleasure and pain was called the hedonic calculus.

Question 8

The consequentialist principle states that consequences shouldnot play a role in ethics.

Question 9

Bentham would say that you have a moral obligation to pursue the higher and more refined pleasures, even if you hate them.

Question 10

Utilitarians deny that there is a single absolute principle for deciding what is right or wrong.

Question 11

The "no-rest"objection to utilitarianism claims that every time I act, there is always more that I could have done to maximize people's happiness.

Question 12

According to the "absurd implications"objection, utilitarianism implies that telling a lie and telling the truth in a given situation are morally equal if they have exactly the same consequences.

Question 13

The "justice"objection claims that Mill thinks it is better to seek happiness only for yourself rather than thinking about other's happiness.

Question 14

According to the text, the Golden Rule

A) is the only moral principle we need.
B) should never be followed because it is based on certain religious assumptions.
C) could, in some situations, lead us to do what is wrong.
D) is a completely adequate moral rule for those who are Christians.

Question 15

The text claims that the best strategy for solving ethical dilemmas is

A) to follow our conscience.
B) to follow definite moral rules.
C) to let love be our guide.
D) to follow a combination of conscience, love, and the Golden Rule.

Question 16

The text says that the two major types of ethical systems that have traditionally dominated the field are

A) deontological and teleological ethics.
B) secular and religious ethics.
C) egoistic and altruistic ethics.
D) humanistic ethics and scientific ethics.

Question 17

Which of the following statements would a teleologist agree with and the deontologist reject?

A) There need to be moral rules for solving moral problems.
B) No one can know ever what is right or wrong.
C) Some actions are intrinsically right or wrong.
D) Whether lying is right or wrong depends upon the consequences it produces.

Question 18

According to utilitarianism, the purpose of punishment is to

A) give emotional relief to the victims of crime.
B) make criminals suffer in proportion to the gravity of their crime.
C) serve as a deterrent to future crimes.
D) none of the above

Question 19

The utility principle states that

A) the only thing good in itself is some type of state (e.g. pleasure, happiness, welfare).
B) the rightness or wrongness of an act is determined by its consequences.
C) an action has utility if it is intrinsically right independent of its consequences.
D) the wrong actions are sometimes those that have the best consequences.

Question 20

According to Jeremy Bentham the two "sovereign masters"that tell us what we ought to do are

A) God and the laws of the nation.
B) conscience and love.
C) pain and pleasure.
D) religion and philosophy.

Question 21

Bentham's ethics was a form of

A) religious utilitarianism.
B) deontological utilitarianism.
C) non-consequentialist utilitarianism.
D) hedonistic utilitarianism.

Question 22

A criticism the text made of Bentham's philosophy was that

A) there are other values than pleasure.
B) it is difficult to measure and compare different types of pleasure.
C) it would force us to conclude that a happy pig is in a higher moral state than a slightly dissatisfied Socrates.
D) all of the above

Question 23

Which of the following statements would John Stuart Mill accept and Jeremy Bentham reject?

A) Happiness is not identical to sensuous pleasure.
B) Consequences play no role in determining what is morally right.
C) No one can say which pleasures are better than others.
D) all of the above

Question 24

According to Mill how can we know which pleasures ought to be pursued?

A) There is no universal standard, each person should pursue whatever feels good to him or her.
B) The government should decide this for its citizens.
C) Those persons who have had the widest range of experience know that the higher, refined pleasures are better.
D) Since most people prefer physical pleasure over elitist, intellectual pleasures, the will of the majority cannot be wrong.

Question 25

Which type of consequences do the utilitarians put the most emphasis on in moral decision making?

A) the intrinsic rightness of an act
B) the best actual consequences of an act
C) the consequences the agent could reasonably expect to be the best
D) the consequences that the agent intended

Question 26

The case of framing and executing the innocent tramp to prevent a riot was presented as an example of

A) the problem of knowing the consequences of our actions.
B) the "no-rest" objection.
C) the "absurd implications" objection.
D) the "justice" objection.

Question 27

The two features of the utilitarian's multilevel strategy are

A) rule-utility and act-utility.
B) intended consequences and actual consequences.
C) actions that are good in themselves and actions that are good because of their consequences.
D) the principle of justice and the principle of mercy.

Question 28

What are some of the limitations discussed in the text of each of the following moral guidelines: conscience, love, the Golden Rule?

Question 29

What are some of the differences between teleological ethics and deontological ethics?

Question 30

Why are ethical egoism and utilitarianism considered forms of teleological ethics? How do they differ?

Question 31

In what ways does John Stuart Mill agree with Jeremy Bentham? How would Mill criticize Bentham's utilitarianism?

Question 32

What are some problems with Mill's claim that some pleasures are "better"or "higher"than others?

Question 33

Discuss one of the four problems raised against utilitarianism and show why it is a problem. Now, discuss how a utilitarian would respond to this objection.