Ethics quiz: 25 questions with answers

Questions and answers

By CanQuiz

An AI wrote the questions in this quiz from its creator’s material. It may contain mistakes.

1. 1.Which family of ethical theories holds that the rightness of an action depends only on its outcomes?

   • Deontology
   • Virtue ethics
   • Consequentialism
   • Divine command theory
   Show answer

   Answer: Consequentialism

   Explanation: Consequentialist theories judge an act solely by the results it brings about. Utilitarianism is the best-known example.

2. 2.According to classical utilitarianism, what should a person do?

   • Act only on principles that every rational agent could adopt
   • Act so as to produce the greatest net balance of happiness over unhappiness for everyone affected
   • Act as a person of good character would act in the situation
   • Act so as to maximise their own long-term happiness
   Show answer

   Answer: Act so as to produce the greatest net balance of happiness over unhappiness for everyone affected

   Explanation: Bentham and Mill counted everyone's pleasure and pain equally and told us to maximise the overall sum. Aiming only at one's own happiness is ethical egoism, not utilitarianism.

3. 3.Which of these is NOT one of the dimensions in Bentham's felicific calculus for measuring a pleasure or pain?

   • Intensity
   • Duration
   • Fecundity
   • Nobility
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   Answer: Nobility

   Explanation: Bentham listed intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity and extent. He measured pleasures by quantity, not by how noble or refined they are.

4. 4.Psychological egoism is the normative claim that people ought to act only in their own interest.

   • True
   • False
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   Answer: False

   Explanation: Psychological egoism is a descriptive claim that people in fact always pursue their own interest. The normative claim that they ought to is ethical egoism.

5. 5.How does John Stuart Mill propose to decide which of two pleasures is of higher quality?

   • By the preference of competent judges who have experienced both
   • By measuring which of the two lasts longer
   • By checking which of the two the law protects
   • By asking which of the two most people currently enjoy
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   Answer: By the preference of competent judges who have experienced both

   Explanation: Mill argued that pleasures differ in quality as well as quantity. The higher one is the one decidedly preferred by people acquainted with both, even if it brings more discontent.

6. 6.What distinguishes rule utilitarianism from act utilitarianism?

   • It holds that moral rules are binding whatever their consequences
   • It evaluates only the motives behind an action
   • It counts only the happiness of the people who follow the rules
   • It judges an act by whether it follows a rule whose general acceptance would produce the best consequences
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   Answer: It judges an act by whether it follows a rule whose general acceptance would produce the best consequences

   Explanation: Act utilitarianism assesses each act by its own consequences. Rule utilitarianism assesses rules by the consequences of their general acceptance, and acts by their conformity to the best rules.

7. 7.Robert Nozick's experience machine thought experiment is mainly an objection to which view?

   • Kant's Formula of Humanity
   • Hedonism about well-being
   • Aristotle's doctrine of the mean
   • Divine command theory
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   Answer: Hedonism about well-being

   Explanation: Nozick asks whether you would plug into a machine that gives you any pleasant experiences you like for life. If most people would refuse, something besides pleasant experience matters to us, which challenges hedonistic utilitarianism.

8. 8.Bernard Williams describes Jim, who is told that if he shoots one captive the other captives will be spared. What is the case mainly used to argue about utilitarianism?

   • It cannot count how many lives are at stake
   • It forbids killing in every possible circumstance
   • It ignores the moral weight of an agent's integrity and personal commitments
   • It depends on the existence of God
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   Answer: It ignores the moral weight of an agent's integrity and personal commitments

   Explanation: Williams argued that utilitarianism treats the answer as obvious and treats Jim as a mere channel for producing the best outcome. It leaves no room for the fact that he would be the one doing the killing.

9. 9.In 'Famine, Affluence, and Morality', what conclusion does Peter Singer draw from the case of a child drowning in a shallow pond?

   • Distance does not reduce our obligation to prevent serious suffering we can prevent at little cost
   • Only people who are physically present have any obligation to help
   • Giving to charity is praiseworthy but never morally required
   • Governments, not individuals, carry the whole duty to help
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   Answer: Distance does not reduce our obligation to prevent serious suffering we can prevent at little cost

   Explanation: Singer argues that if we can prevent something very bad without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to do it. Whether the person in need is nearby or far away makes no moral difference.

10. 10.In Kant's ethics, which statement describes a categorical imperative?

    • A command that applies only if you want to reach a certain goal
    • A rule justified by the good consequences of following it
    • A habit of character developed through practice
    • A command that binds every rational agent whatever their desires
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    Answer: A command that binds every rational agent whatever their desires

    Explanation: Hypothetical imperatives say what to do if you want some end. A categorical imperative commands unconditionally, so it holds for any rational agent regardless of their goals.

11. 11.According to Kant's Formula of Universal Law, a maxim is morally permissible only if

    • acting on it produces more happiness than any alternative
    • a virtuous person would choose to act on it
    • you could consistently will that everyone act on it
    • most people in your society already act on it
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    Answer: you could consistently will that everyone act on it

    Explanation: Kant tests a maxim by asking whether it could be willed as a universal law without contradiction. A lying promise fails, because if everyone made them, promising itself would collapse.

12. 12.Kant's Formula of Humanity forbids treating persons, yourself included, in which way?

    • As a means in any respect whatsoever
    • Merely as a means
    • As ends in themselves
    • With partiality toward friends or family
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    Answer: Merely as a means

    Explanation: The formula covers humanity in your own person as well as in others. Kant allows us to use people as means, as when we hire someone for a service, provided we also respect them as ends. What is forbidden is treating anyone merely as a means, for example through deception or coercion.

13. 13.Kant held that an action has moral worth only when it is done from duty, not merely when it happens to conform to duty.

    • True
    • False
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    Answer: True

    Explanation: Kant's example is a shopkeeper who gives honest change only because it is good for business. He acts in accordance with duty, but his action lacks moral worth because he does not act from duty.

14. 14.In Kant's ethics, which of these is an imperfect duty?

    • Helping others in need
    • Refraining from making lying promises
    • Refraining from stealing
    • Refraining from deceiving others for personal gain
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    Answer: Helping others in need

    Explanation: Imperfect duties, such as beneficence and developing one's talents, leave latitude about when and how to fulfil them. Refraining from lying promises is a perfect duty that admits no exceptions.

15. 15.Kant held that the moral worth of an action depends on how good its consequences turn out to be.

    • True
    • False
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    Answer: False

    Explanation: For Kant, a good will is good in itself, whatever it achieves. Moral worth lies in the principle the agent acts on, not in the results.

16. 16.The case of the murderer at the door is often raised against Kant because his view seems to imply that

    • it is permissible to kill one person to save five
    • promises may be broken whenever breaking them produces more happiness
    • the murderer's interests count as much as the victim's
    • it is wrong to lie even to save an innocent person's life
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    Answer: it is wrong to lie even to save an innocent person's life

    Explanation: A murderer asks where your friend is hiding. In a late essay Kant held that lying would still be wrong, a conclusion many readers find hard to accept.

17. 17.What does W. D. Ross mean by calling a duty 'prima facie'?

    • It is absolute and can never be overridden
    • It only seems to be a duty and has no real force
    • It is binding unless a stronger duty outweighs it in the particular situation
    • It is derived from the consequences of following it
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    Answer: It is binding unless a stronger duty outweighs it in the particular situation

    Explanation: In 'The Right and the Good', Ross argued that duties such as fidelity or non-maleficence are genuine obligations. In a conflict, judgement decides which one is weightier in that case.

18. 18.W. D. Ross held that all our duties can be derived from a single supreme moral principle.

    • True
    • False
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    Answer: False

    Explanation: Ross was a pluralist. He listed several basic duties, including fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence, self-improvement and non-maleficence, with no master principle to rank them.

19. 19.In Aristotle's ethics, eudaimonia is best translated as

    • A feeling of pleasure
    • Flourishing, or living well
    • Obedience to duty
    • Freedom from all mental disturbance
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    Answer: Flourishing, or living well

    Explanation: Eudaimonia is the highest human good: a whole life lived well, in activity in accordance with virtue. It is not a passing feeling, and freedom from disturbance (ataraxia) is a Hellenistic ideal.

20. 20.In Aristotle's account, courage is a mean between cowardice and rashness.

    • True
    • False
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    Answer: True

    Explanation: Aristotle treats each virtue of character as a mean between a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess. Too little confidence in the face of danger is cowardice and too much is rashness.

21. 21.According to Aristotle, how do we acquire virtues of character?

    • By habituation, through repeatedly doing virtuous acts
    • By studying moral philosophy
    • At birth, as fixed natural traits
    • Through divine grace alone
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    Answer: By habituation, through repeatedly doing virtuous acts

    Explanation: Aristotle says we become just by doing just acts and brave by doing brave acts. Nature gives us the capacity for virtue, but practice develops it.

22. 22.Which intellectual virtue does Aristotle treat as essential for knowing how to act well in particular situations?

    • Scientific knowledge (episteme)
    • Craft skill (techne)
    • Cleverness (deinotes)
    • Practical wisdom (phronesis)
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    Answer: Practical wisdom (phronesis)

    Explanation: Phronesis is the ability to deliberate well about what is good in a concrete case. Mere cleverness can serve bad ends, while practical wisdom cannot exist without virtue of character.

23. 23.Which philosopher coined the term 'consequentialism' in a 1958 essay that also helped revive virtue ethics?

    • Alasdair MacIntyre
    • Philippa Foot
    • G. E. M. Anscombe
    • Bernard Williams
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    Answer: G. E. M. Anscombe

    Explanation: Anscombe's 'Modern Moral Philosophy' criticised the modern focus on duty and obligation and introduced the word 'consequentialism'. MacIntyre's 'After Virtue' came much later, in 1981.

24. 24.Who introduced the trolley case in a 1967 paper on abortion and the doctrine of double effect?

    • Judith Jarvis Thomson
    • Philippa Foot
    • Peter Singer
    • John Rawls
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    Answer: Philippa Foot

    Explanation: Foot used the runaway tram to compare killing with letting die and intending with foreseeing harm. Thomson later developed the case and gave the 'trolley problem' its name.

25. 25.The doctrine of double effect draws a moral distinction between

    • harm that is intended and harm that is merely foreseen as a side effect
    • acts and omissions
    • perfect and imperfect duties
    • higher and lower pleasures
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    Answer: harm that is intended and harm that is merely foreseen as a side effect

    Explanation: The doctrine, usually traced to Aquinas's discussion of self-defence, holds that causing a foreseen harm can be permissible when the harm is not intended and there is a proportionate reason. Intending the same harm as a means or an end is not permissible.