Ethics Exam 2 Study Guide

Scout vs. Soldier Mindset

Describe both: Scout Mindset is the drive to see things as they are, even if they are unpleasant or inconvenient, while Soldier Mindset is the drive to defend ideas you want to believe and defeat ideas you don't like.

Valuable Future Argument

A specific argument regarding the morality of abortion that you must be able to write out from memory in its specific handout form.

Valuable Future Principle (VFP)

Marquis’s principle stating that killing is prima facie wrong because it deprives a being of a "future like ours"—a future filled with value and experiences.

Fertility Clinic Fire Objection

An objection to the view that embryos have the same moral status as infants, presented in Modus Tollens form (If P then Q; Not Q; Therefore, not P).

Anti-Contraception Argument

An objection to the VFP suggesting that if the principle is true, contraception is also wrong; you must be able to write this argument out from memory.

Egg and Sperm "Valuable Future"

The claim that prior to conception, the individual sperm and egg possess a valuable future, which is used to challenge or support certain views on when life begins.

Judith Thomson’s Assumption

In "A Defense of Abortion," Thomson assumes for the sake of argument that the fetus is a person with a right to life from the moment of conception.

The Violinist Case

A thought experiment where you are kidnapped and attached to a famous violinist to save their life; used to illustrate that the right to life does not necessarily include the right to use another person's body.

Bodily Autonomy Principle

The principle that a person has the right to decide what happens in and to their own body.

Causal Theory of Parental Obligations

The theory that parents have a moral obligation to care for their children because they caused them to exist; used to argue that abortion is impermissible after consensual sex.

McFall vs. Shimp Case

A legal case where a man (McFall) sued his cousin (Shimp) to force a bone marrow donation; used in a Moral Analogical Argument (MAA) regarding the state's right to criminalize abortion.

MAID: Voluntary Active Euthanasia

A scenario where a competent patient requests and receives a direct intervention (like a lethal injection) from a medical professional to end their life.

MAID: Passive Euthanasia

Withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment (like a ventilator or feeding tube), allowing the patient to die from their underlying condition.

Physician-Assisted Suicide

A scenario where a doctor provides the means for death (like a prescription for lethal drugs), but the patient performs the final act of administration.

Kerry Robertson Case

The first person to use Victoria, Australia's voluntary assisted dying laws; she had terminal cancer and chose to die at a nursing home surrounded by family.

Autonomy

The capacity of an individual to make informed, uncoerced decisions; in class, three specific reasons for its importance and corresponding examples were discussed.

The Naturalness Argument

An argument for the permissibility of killing animals for food based on the idea that it is "natural" for humans to do so.

Relative Inefficiency of Animal Agriculture

The concept that animal products produce fewer calories and protein than the feed required to raise them (e.g., 100 calories of feed results in significantly fewer calories of meat).

Farmed Animal Welfare Concerns

Specific issues affecting animals like pigs (e.g., gestation crates for sows), chickens (e.g., battery cages for hens), cows, and fish.

The Inefficacy Argument

An argument suggesting that an individual's choice to stop eating meat has no actual impact on the animal industry or the number of animals kill