I need my exam answer. This is ethics class. No writing is involved.

Doesn't need to give me all the answers.

Question 1

1 point possible (graded)

Bentham and Kant agree on which of the following?

a) Pleasure is the only thing that is good without qualification.

b) Individual rights limit what can be done in the name of maximizing aggregate happiness.

c) The good will is the only thing that is good without qualification.

d) Maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is all that matters, morally speaking.

e) Morality constrains individual self-interest.

Question 2

1 point possible (graded)

Aristotle and Rawls have opposing views about the relation between justice and moral desert. What best characterizes the difference?

a) Aristotle argues that justice is giving people what they deserve, while Rawls believes that moral desert is irrelevant when it comes to a just distribution of goods.

b) Rawls argues that a distribution is just only if everyone gets what he or she deserves while Aristotle believes that a distribution is just if fair equality of opportunity is realized.

c) Aristotle believes that a distribution is just if everyone gets what he deserves, while Rawls believes that a distribution is just if and only if everyone gets an equal share.

d) Rawls argues that a distribution is just if the position of the worst off is maximized, while Aristotle believes that a distribution is just if the position of the worst off is minimized.

e) Aristotle believes that a distribution is just if everyone gets an equal share, while Rawls believes that a distribution is just if everyone gets what he or she deserves.

Question 3

1 point possible (graded)

Who argues that individuals have natural rights to life, liberty, and property that constrain what government is allowed to do?

a) Aristotle.

b) Locke.

c) Bentham.

d) All of the above.

e) None of the above.

Question 4

1 point possible (graded)

Which of the following do both Kant and Rawls support?

a) Individual rights should be protected insofar and as long as doing so maximizes overall happiness.

b) Human beings do not have the capacity for reason/rationality.

c) What is just or right is prior to and independent of any particular conception of the good life.

d) The good is prior to and independent of what is just or right.

e) a) and d).

Question 5

1 point possible (graded)

Who wrote: "Men therefore in society having property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the law of the community are theirs, that nobody hath a right to take their substance or any part of it from them, without their own consent; without this they have no property at all; ..."

a) Aristotle

b) Nozick

c) Mill

d) Locke

e) Kant

Question 6

1 point possible (graded)

Who argued that there is but one Categorical Imperative, namely this: Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law?

a) Aristotle.

b) Mill.

c) Rawls.

d) Kant.

e) Locke.

Question 7

1 point possible (graded)

Rawls and Nozick agree about which of the following claims:

a) Sometimes it can be wrong to perform the act that maximizes utility overall.

b) It is unjust for the state to tax people's earnings in order to provide education for all citizens.

c) Departures from an equal distribution of shares are only permissible if it raises the expectation of the least advantaged member of society.

d) Distributive shares should not be influenced by such chance contingencies as accident of birth and good fortune.

e) All of the above are correct.

Question 8

1 point possible (graded)

Which best reflects what Nozick and Aristotle would say about how we should distribute high-quality violins?

a) Nozick would say that the best violins should go to the highest bidder, whereas Aristotle would say that they should go to those who will play them in a way most pleasing to the listeners.

b) Nozick would say that the best violins should go to the hardest worker, whereas Aristotle would say that they should go to the most virtuous citizens as a way of honoring them.

c) Nozick would say that the best violins should go to the people who will make the best use of them, whereas Aristotle would say that all citizensbut not slavesdeserve a chance to use the violins.

d) Nozick would say that society should be set up so that at birth everyone has an equal chance of acquiring one of the violins, whereas Aristotle would say that the best violins should go to the best violinists.

e) Nozick would say that that the best violins should be owned either by the people who made them, or the people who acquired them through free exchange, whereas Aristotle would say that the best violins should go to the best violin players.

Question 9

1 point possible (graded)

Which of the following is something that both Bentham and Mill would endorse?

a) Individuals have natural rights.

b) The good is best understood in terms of pleasure.

c) The good is best understood in terms of virtue.

d) The right is prior to the good.

e) Pleasures differ with respect to their quality.

Question 10

1 point possible (graded)

In explaining how a person can enter a social contract and be obliged to the laws of civil society, Locke invokes the notion of "tacit consent." Rawls, who is also a "social contract theorist," of sorts, argues that a social contract can arise only from "hypothetical consent." What is the difference between Locke's notion of tacit consent and Rawls's notion of hypothetical consent?

a) Tacit consent requires actually expressing one's consent to the terms of the contract, whereas hypothetical consent simply requires that a citizen would have given consent under certain ideal conditions.

b) One who gives tacit consent implies consent to the terms of the contract through her actions, whereas someone who gives hypothetical consent offers her explicit word on the basis of her particular desires.

c) One who gives tacit consent implicitly suggests, through her actions, that she accepts the terms of the contract, whereas to say that someone hypothetically consents means that she would have consented to the terms of the contract were she asked to do so under certain ideal conditions.

d) Tacit consent is consent given in the state of nature, whereas hypothetical consent occurs within an ideal society.

e) Tacit consent is consent given by any rational agent, irrespective of her particular desires or ends, whereas someone who gives hypothetical consent agrees to the terms of the contract based on some particular desire that she has.

Question 11

1 point possible (graded)

Against utilitarianism, which of the following authors would object, "To maximize utility by imposing burdens on some individuals is to treat all of society like a single person. But society is not like a single person, and so utilitarianism is mistaken."

a) Rawls, because he thinks it matters not just how much utility is produced in aggregate, but also how the utility is distributed.

b) Nozick, because separate persons have rights that make it impermissible to take from one person in order to give to another.

c) Bentham, because he thinks that all pleasures are of equal quality.

d) a and b

e) a, b, and c

Question 12

1 point possible (graded)

Which of the following philosophers take the good to be prior to the right?

a) Rawls.

b) Kant.

c) Aristotle.

d) a and b are correct.

e) a and c are correct.

Question 13

1 point possible (graded)

On the basis of the class readings, what might Bentham and Aristotle say of a person who takes pleasure in dog fighting?

a) Bentham: "To enjoy torturing animals is wrong; and we should only take pleasure in the right things. Aristotle: "A person should refrain from all vices, such as dog fighting, regardless of whether he would enjoy it."

b) Bentham: "To inflict pain upon animals might be justified if the audience takes great pleasure in it." Aristotle: "To engage in vice is wrong; for whatever pleasure it brings, the pleasure is less fulfilling than the pleasure connected to virtue.

c) Bentham: "It is bad for the animal if it is tortured. But the act of torture is made less bad by the fact that this person took pleasure in it." Aristotle: "If people take pleasure in dogfighting, then the practice is actually virtuous."

d) Bentham: "It is bad for the animal if it is tortured. The pleasure experienced by the person torturing the animal is irrelevant to whether the act of torturing the animal is good or bad." Aristotle: "It is not virtuous to torture animals, and the act is made worse by the fact that the person enjoyed doing it."

e) Bentham: "Torturing an animal is neither right nor wrong because animals do not have rights." Aristotle: "It is not virtuous to torture animals, but the act of torture is made less lamentable by the fact that this person took pleasure in it."

Question 14

1 point possible (graded)

The philosophies of John Locke and Robert Nozick can be said to diverge in which of the following respects:

a) Nozick defends strict constraints on what the majority can do whereas Locke defends no constraints.

b) Locke derives individual rights from the good of society as a whole, whereas Nozick derives rights from individual self-ownership.

c) For Locke, the right to life is inalienable, whereas for Nozick, the right may be surrendered by its possessor.

d) Nozick defends a pre-political (natural) right to property whereas Locke does not.

e) Locke claims that the purpose of government is to secure rights, whereas Nozick claims that its purpose is to secure wealth.

Question 15

1 point possible (graded)

Rawls might criticize Locke's social contract on which of the following grounds?

a) The parties to the contract know too much about their particular interests and as a result, the terms of the contract are not necessarily fair.

b) The contract fails to protect people's property rights.

c) The contract assumes that human beings in the state of nature remain unchanged by civil society.

d) The contract fails to guarantee the greatest good for the greatest number.

e) All of the above.

Question 16

1 point possible (graded)

Rawls and Nozick both agree that ...

a) ... the law should embody no conception of the good life.

b) ... in the name of liberty, the government must provide basic necessities to those unable to procure them.

c) ... private institutions are not subject to principles of justice.

d) ... redistributive taxation is unjust unless it remedies some past injustice.

e) ... if the majority enacts it after sustained public debate, publicly funded healthcare is just.

Question 17

1 point possible (graded)

Communitarians and Rawls disagree about which of the following?

a) Individuals have duties beyond their religious and ethnic communities.

b) Individuals can incur voluntary obligations through an act of consent.

c) Individuals have obligations of solidarity or membership that are neither natural duties owed to all people nor obligations traceable to an act of consent.

d) a) and c).

e) a) and b).

Question 18

1 point possible (graded)

At a particular moment in time, a particular society's wealth is distributed very unevenly, with some individuals controlling ten times the amount of wealth as the least wealthy individuals. How would Nozick and Rawls assess the society in terms of justice?

a) Nozick would say that the society is just, because the more talented deserve greater rewards. Rawls would say that the society is unjust, because the difference principle condemns all economic inequality.

b) Nozick would say that the society is just, because the market demands a certain amount of economic inequality. Rawls would say that the society is just because inequalities give citizens incentive to work hard and to try to become one of the wealthy members of society.

c) Nozick would say that it is impossible to tell whether the society is just without knowing how the inequalities came about. Rawls would say that it is possible to tell whether the society is just, and that it is unjust, because the difference principle condemns all economic inequality.

d) Nozick would say that it is impossible to tell whether the society is just without knowing whether the economic goods were acquired in accordance with the principles of justice in acquisition (initial holdings) and justice in transfer (free market). Rawls would say that whether the society is just depends upon whether the inequalities are working to the advantage of the least advantaged as constrained by principles guaranteeing fair equal opportunity and equal liberties.

e) Nozick would say that the society is not just, because extreme economic inequality interferes with fair equality of opportunity. Rawls would say that whether society is just depends upon whether members of the least advantaged group are able to live a decent life.

Question 19

1 point possible (graded)

Which of the following best captures how Aristotle might respond to Locke's claim that the purpose of politics is to secure life, liberty, and property?

a) Politics has nothing to do with securing life, liberty, and property.

b) In defending the natural rights to life, liberty, and property, Locke overlooks the sense in which rights come from convention.

c) Although a political community should not neglect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens, securing such things is not the primary purpose of politics. More important is the goal of cultivating virtue.

d) Locke is correct, but he misinterprets the right to property as a right to use and abuse whatever possessions one has justly acquired.

e) Although the primary purpose of politics is to secure life, liberty, and property, politics also involves other purposes, such as teaching people how to be productive members of society.

Question 20

1 point possible (graded)

How might Aristotle reply to the claim that individuals should be free to pursue their own conceptions of the good life and that participating in politics is only one life option among many?

a) Participating in politics, broadly conceived as the practice of deliberation, is actually the condition for the ability to pursue one's own conception of the good life.

b) One can only achieve the good by receiving the highest honors in the city.

c) Although the state should guide people's life choices, it should not enforce any conception of the good through law.

d) One should avoid participating in politics only if it detracts from one's happiness.

e) All of the above.

Question 21

Who wrote: "Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account."

a) Aristotle.

b) Locke.

c) Bentham.

d) Mill.

e) Kant.

Question 22

1 point possible (graded)

In which of the following ways do utilitarians and Aristotle stand united against Rawls's liberalism?

a) Utilitarians and Aristotle believe in natural rights, whereas Rawlsian liberals are concerned mostly with liberty.

b) Utilitarians and Aristotle both believe that the government should attempt to maximize the aggregate of pleasure minus pain, whereas Rawlsian believe that the government should simply protect rights.

c) Utilitarians and Aristotle start by asking what things are good and then argue that the government should advance the good, whereas Rawlsian liberals believe that the government should not advance any particular conception of the good.

d) a and c

e) b and c

Question 23

To which of the following would Kant and Nozick agree?

a) If one is able to do what one wants, one is free.

b) To be free is to pursue one's desires so long as such pursuit does not harm others.

c) Individual rights constrain what can be done in the name of maximizing overall utility.

d) Individual rights should be protected insofar as they maximize overall utility.

e) All of the above.

Question 24

Which of the following philosophers can be said to prioritize the right over the good?

a) Kant.

b) Mill.

c) Bentham.

d) Aristotle

e) None of the above.

Question 25

According to Professor Sandel, if judgments about the good are unavoidable in debates about justice and rights, is it possible to reason about the good?

a) If reasoning about the good means that contending parties must share a single rule or maxim or criterion for the good life, to which one can appeal in every disagreement about morality, then the answer is "Yes."

b) If reasoning about the good means that contending parties must share a single rule or maxim or criterion for the good life, to which one can appeal in every disagreement about morality, then the answer is "No."

c) If reasoning about the good life (or, for that matter, justice) means moving back and forth between our considered judgments about particular cases and the general principles we would articulate to make sense of these judgments, then the answer is "Yes."

d) If reasoning about the good life (or, for that matter, justice) means moving back and forth between our considered judgments about particular cases and the general principles we would articulate to make sense of these judgments, then the answer is "No."

e) b) and c)