Contemporary Moral Issues FINAL EXAM Study Guide

According to Sinnott-Armstrong, our moral intuitions in the case of joy-riding in a gas guzzler:

NOT "are trustworthy because they will generally yield the conclusion that we should abstain from harmful acts like joy-riding in a gas guzzler"

According to Sinnott-Armstrong, in normal cases, my driving a gas guzzler for fun on a Sunday afternoon:

NOT "might cause harm, but we cannot measure the harm and so limiting my freedom is unwarranted"

According to Sinnott-Armstrong, the fact that we have no defensible principle that would justify the claim that we are morally obligated to refrain from joy-riding in a gas guzzler:

NOT "suggests that principlism is the wrong approach to ethics, and we should instead be moral particularists"

According to Barry, sustainability is:

at least necessary, and possibly even sufficient for intergenerational justice

According to Barry, sustainability requires:

NOT "that we provide future generations the opportunity to live good lives according to their own conception of what constitutes a good life"

According to Earl et al, the conventional economic wisdom about fertility reduction movements is:

overly simplistic and likely mistaken, but even if it's not mistaken, it is not a decisive objection to fertility-reduction efforts

According to Earl et al, migration management policies:

NOT "likely violate a state's right to freedom of association, and so only volunteer receiving communities should participate"

According to Thomas Pogge, expanding immigration:

NOT "is indefensible because of our robust obligations to fellow citizens"

According to Ryan Pevnick, we should:

allow immigrants into the United States but separate rights of residents from rights of citizens

According to Dr. Welch, authors like David Miller must answer the following question:

Why are the interests of citizens weightier than the interests of non-citizens?

According to Dr. Welch, one question authors like Michael Huemer will have to answer is:

How do we gradually move toward open borders without violating the rights of at least some potential immigrants in the process?

According to Dr. Welch, Williams places the burden of argument on:

those who enjoy the benefit of a system of illegal immigration but who wish to deport undocumented immigrants

According to Miller, even assuming that freedom of movement is a basic human right, the following question remains:

NOT "In virtue of what would it be a basic right? "

According to Miller, if the right to exit nation A is effectively meaningless without a right to enter country B, then:

that would show only that the right of exit might be like other rights - such as the right to marry - that depend for their exercise on finding a willing partner

According to Miller, rich nations:

NOT "have obligations only to their own citizens, so anything they do for citizens of other nations - whether immigrants or not - is supererogatory (that is, it is not morally required but instead is above and beyond the call of duty)"

According to Williams, one under-appreciated fact about illegal immigration is that:

the vast majority of Americans have benefitted from the labor of illegal immigrants

According to Williams, companies that recruit and transport illegal immigrants to the United States:

bear some responsibility for exacerbating whatever social costs are associated with illegal immigration

According to Williams, at least one effect of paying illegal immigrants illegally low wages is that:

companies can then provide their goods and services at a lower cost than they otherwise would, meaning Americans can purchase those goods and services and still have savings that generate investment income, or make possible spending on other items, thereby growing the American economy

According to Huemer, the United States' restrictions on immigration are prima facie:

harmful and coercive

According to Huemer, the challenge for advocates of immigration restriction is to show:

NOT "that the right to freedom of movement is much more limited than it is typically assumed to be"

According to Huemer, if it turns out that the cost of providing social services exceeds the economic benefits of immigration, then states may be justified in:

NOT "eliminating social service systems to avoid discriminating between the immigrant and citizen in allocation of social resources"

According to Dr. Welch, Sinnott-Armstrong's rejection of virtue ethics:

NOT "assumes that harmless fun does not express a vice, when in fact it does because there is nothing ethically good about pursuing fun"

According to Dr. Welch, we might interpret an ideal law principle as asking the following question:

NOT "What law would we adopt if we factored in practical constraints, like the cost of enforcement?"

According to Dr. Welch, one reason for presenting these ethical puzzles is:

to demonstrate that these ethical issues form a complex web rather than standing alone in isolation

According to Dr. Welch, the reason for not discussing in this class whether climate change is occurring but rather discussing what our obligations might be with respect to it is that:

NOT "there is simply no way of knowing for sure whether climate change is occurring"

According to Dr. Welch, one problem with using immigration to address the population problem (and age distribution problem) is that:

it still treats the question of immigration as a question of what is best for citizens rather than treating immigrants as whole persons with rights

According to Dr. Welch, filial obligations - if they exist - are strange because:

children didn't choose to enter into the relationship and be the beneficiary of any goods or good intentions

According to Dr. Welch, Debt Theory is:

not actually endorsed by anyone, but almost everyone who writes on filial obligations responds to it

According to Dr. Welch, we might argue that children owe their parents, even if nothing about the relationship generates those obligations. Why?

We might live in a society where people have reasonable expectations that their children will care for them, so failing to care for your parents would be something like promise-breaking, morally speaking.

According to Dr. Welch, Friendship Theory is criticized for:

NOT "assuming children will want to be friends (or at least friendly) with their parents, even though they did not voluntarily enter into the relationship"

According to Dr. Welch, Simon Keller's Special Goods Theory relies on "the context of a reciprocal relationship." Why does Dr. Welch find this troubling?

It either implies that the relationship must now be reciprocal, which will leave out parents in cognitive decline, or it implies that the relationship must have been reciprocal at some point, which would generate obligations even in cases of abandonment or abuse

According to Dr. Welch, if a right is "market inalienable," then:

it cannot be taken away, and the right-holder also cannot give/sell/trade it.

According to Dr. Welch, the phenomenon in which an individual act is benign (and perhaps even reasonable) but is a part of or contributes to a broader social practice that is harmful is called:

the problem of collective harms

According to Dr. Welch, the current legal status of prostitution:

is not a reliable guide for determining what the legal status of prostitution ought to be

According to Dr. Welch, Satz's concern with allowing prostitution is that:

NOT "it might pursue status equality but exacerbate distributive inequality"

According to Dr. Welch, the question of prostitution relates to the question of ethical consumerism/consumption because:

NOT "the body is another form of property, and in a market economy, property is a matter of consumption"

According to Anderson, one dire consequence of state-sanctioned prostitution would be:

NOT "it would degrade legitimate sale of sexual services in contexts of sexual therapy"

According to Nussbaum:

the stigma about prostitution does real damage, but that is not ameliorated by legal prohibition

According to Nussbaum, if a grown woman enters prostitution because she faces otherwise bad economic options, then:

her autonomy has been infringed, but criminalizing prostitution does not restore her autonomy

According to Satz:

NOT "if prostitution contributes to income or status inequality, it is no different from other service-oriented gendered professions (e.g., secretarial labor) in this respect, and so that fact would not serve as an argument for legal prohibition"

According to Satz, if prostitution contributes causally to status inequality between men and women, then:

NOT "that might be an argument for prohibition, as decriminalization does not restore (or even promote) gender equality"

According to Dr. Welch, variations on Singer's drowning toddler example help illustrate:

that we likely agree with Singer's moral principle

According to Dr. Welch, consumer preferences are:

shaped in part by what options are available to them

According to Dr. Welch, one philosophical worry about approaching this issue as one of consumer ethics is that:

most consumers are women, and this subtly changes what it takes to be a "good person" for a woman versus someone who is not a woman

According to Dr. Welch, collective harms are:

harms that no particular individual causes, but arise when many individuals do the same thing

According to Dr. Welch, TOMS are an ethical puzzle because:

the purchase does generate good in the world, but the money could probably be spent doing more good

According to Arnold and Bowie, one reason to be especially concerned about people working in sweatshops in foreign nations rather than focus on illegal sweatshops in the United States is:

the workers in foreign nations often have no recourse to law or social services for the violation of their rights

According to Arnold and Bowie, Kant's Categorical Imperative - that we treat all of humanity as an end in themselves and never as a mere means to an end - is grounded in:

NOT "a controversial claim: namely, that humans are capable of rational, self-governing activity"

According to Arnold and Bowie, MNEs:

NOT "are morally required to respect the dignity of sweatshop laborers since it is only through that labor that MNEs become powerful organizations in the first place"

According to Cassidy, there are two senses of responsibility that might help us think carefully about our own responsibility toward distant others in a global society. What are those two senses?

NOT "Management and causal responsibility"

According to Cassidy, Scheffler offers a useful explanation for what phenomenon?

NOT "Our understanding of moral agency, according to which duties not to harm are more important than duties to help, and it is morally wrong to prefer friends and loved ones over strangers"

According to Cassidy, how would Scheffler respond to Singer and Pogge?

NOT "By suggesting that their moral worldviews are implausible given how small our moral circles actually are"

According to Singer, the principle of equality suggests that:

NOT "we should allocate healthcare resources so as to save as many American lives as possible"

According to Dr. Welch, one might simply argue something like this: "Look, I know there's a difference between animals and humans. I just can't articulate it." How does Dr. Welch respond to this objection?

We should consider whether we would normally allow people to avoid defending their positions, particularly when others are impacted by those decisions.

According to Dr. Welch, we have at least 3 categories of interests. What are they?

Basic interests, serious interests, trivial interests

According to Dr. Welch, Singer is effectively telling us:

that it is not permissible to discount a non-human animal's interests merely in virtue of the fact that they are not human

According to Dr. Welch, Regan's view of Singer is that:

NOT "Singer's view is generally correct, but the conclusions he draws are mistaken"

According to Dr. Welch, the key difference between Singer's and Regan's views regarding animal research is:

NOT "whereas Regan believes both human and non-human research is permissible so long as we have consent of the research subject, Singer believes that no research is ever morally permissible, regardless of consent"

According to Dr. Welch, Frey finds himself with only two options: stop all research, or do the research on humans (perhaps even without consent). How does Frey then proceed?

He endorses the option of using humans (at least "marginal case" humans) in research regardless of consent, because the scientific progress is too important to give up.

According to Singer, the reason we cannot argue that humans are superior to animals is:

NOT "not all humans are rational or moral agents"

According to Singer, we ought to be willing to conduct research on non-human animals:

NOT "never; we ought not to perform research on non-human animals"

According to Singer, if we reject the argument for vegetarianism on the grounds of tradition, custom, or the difficulty of making such a drastic change to our daily lives, then:

we are morally similar to the slaveholder who would not change their way of living and free slaves

According to Frey, we must:

NOT "accept that humans are superior to animals in intellect and reason and thus receive protections in research not extended to non-human animals"

According to Paton, humans are superior because:

NOT "they are capable suffering, whereas non-human animals are not (or are capable only to a lesser extent)"

According to Frey's response to Paton, Paton's argument that humans are superior to non-human animals is flawed because:

he identifies as morally relevant a characteristic that does not apply to all humans

According to Harris, participation in scientific research is:

morally required and perhaps even compulsory

According to Dr. Welch, Rawls' Fair Equality of Opportunity principle can be interpreted as saying that:

similarly talented and motivated people should face similar life prospects

According to Dr. Welch, the reason college cannot be free is that:

it costs money to run a college, including salaries, equipment, space, etc.

According to Robert Nozick, taxation is:

theft, because it takes compensation away from one person and redirects it to another (in this case, in the form of paying for college)

According to Dr. Welch, one concern about the public good argument for free-on-delivery college is:

How much control might this give the public over an individual student's college curriculum?

According to Brighouse, the call to redirect all public funding of higher education to early childhood and K-8 is:

tempting, but he is not convinced eliminated funding of higher education actually would go to something more valuable, like early education

According to Brighouse, free college is:

bad policy, but possibly good politics