Deck 10: Method and Moral Justification

Question 1

Which of the following do Beauchamp and Childress say about justification in ethical reasoning?

A) Justification in ethics is a demonstration in court.
B) To justify an ethical position, it is enough to list reasons for that position.
C) Someone who wishes to justify her ethical position must present cases that show why her position is appropriate.
D) To justify an ethical position, reasons must be given that are both relevant to and sufficient to support the position.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

A top-down model of ethical reasoning:

A) Holds that we reach justified moral judgments through a structure of normative precepts that cover the judgments
B) Is inspired by disciplines such as mathematics, in which a claim follows logically from a credible set of premises
C) Involves applying a general norm to a clear case falling under the norms
D) All of the above

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Which of the following is NOT stated to be a problem for top-down models of ethical reasoning in Beauchamp and Childress's discussion?

A) To make moral judgments in particular cases, norms must generally be specified and balanced, not simply applied.
B) The top-down model relies too heavily on its likeness to reasoning used in other fields, such as mathematics.
C) When presented with a case, ethical thinkers must select pertinent facts and rules, and selecting the right set of facts and rules is not reducible to a deductive form of judgment.
D) A top-down model creates a potentially infinite regress of justification because every level of appeal to a precept requires a further level to justify that precept.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

What is the form of reasoning used in "bottom-up" ethical thinking?

A) Deductive
B) Inductive
C) Both A and B
D) Neither A nor B

Question 5

What is one way Beauchamp and Childress describe the method of casuistry in ethical reasoning?

A) Casuistic thinkers exclude rules and principles from moral thinking.
B) Casuistic thinkers seek a unified theory with universal principles as a foundation for making moral judgments.
C) Casuistic thinkers believe that appropriate moral judgments occur through an intimate acquaintance with particular situations and the historical record of similar cases.
D) Casuistic thinkers focus only on the case at hand when making moral judgments.

Question 6

What is one problem with reliance on casuistry as a system of moral judgment, according to Beauchamp and Childress?

A) Paradigm cases can evolve in the wrong moral direction if they are initially improperly handled, leading to wrong moral judgments about analogous cases in the future.
B) Casuistic thinkers do not consider any general rules, principles, or maxims when discussing cases that require ethical judgment.
C) Reasoning by analogy is not an ethically appropriate way of thinking about cases.
D) Casuistic thinkers do not describe ethical cases properly.

Question 7

Beauchamp and Childress call their own model of ethical reasoning a form of:

A) Principlism
B) Utilitarianism
C) Foundationalism
D) Reflective equilibrium

Question 8

What is the main thesis of thinkers who embrace reflective equilibrium as their method for moral thinking?

A) Principles need to be applied and balanced when confronted with an ethical case.
B) Moral maxims arise from description of and ethical reflection upon particular cases.
C) Justification in ethics and political philosophy occurs through a reflective testing of moral beliefs, moral principles, judgments, and theoretical postulates with the goal of making them coherent.
D) Principles should be informed by on-the-ground ethical judgments.

Question 9

Why do Beauchamp and Childress consider the axiom "put the patient's interests first" to be a starting premise and not an absolute principle?

A) Family members' interests actually come first in ethical thinking about health care.
B) This rule must be made coherent with other considered judgments about ethical responsibilities.
C) Patients can advocate for their own interests, and health care providers must consider other concerns first.
D) This rule is too vague to serve as an absolute principle.

Question 10

Which of the following is NOT a reason that Beauchamp and Childress argue for drawing initial moral norms from the common morality when beginning ethical reasoning in medical ethics?

A) A code of ethics may be coherent without being morally acceptable, and drawing norms from the common morality addresses this problem.
B) Some moral judgments need to be accepted as justified without dependence on other judgments in order to reason about ethical issues.
C) The testing of norms, beliefs, and practices through the search for reflective equilibrium can help modify immoral social practices.
D) Cultures worldwide have been able to achieve the most proper set of moral beliefs possible because of their long traditions of ethical thinking.

Question 11

What is a reason given by Beauchamp and Childress that a commitment to testing moral beliefs for coherence with other beliefs, experiences, and other factors in moral reasoning is not an inherently conservative approach?

A) Testing beliefs for coherence will modify the ethical norms that thinkers begin with, such as nonmaleficence.
B) Testing moral beliefs against any given person's moral experience will lead to changes in those beliefs.
C) The method actually encourages constant improvement and advances in the moral life by encouraging innovative reformulations of moral beliefs.
D) All of the above

Question 12

At what point can a moral judge claim to have reached a considered judgment, according to Beauchamp and Childress?

A) The judgment has been framed from an impartial perspective that reins in conflicts of interest and other temptations of self-interest.
B) The evaluator exhibits attitudes of sympathy and compassion for the welfare of others.
C) The evaluator possesses pertinent information about the relevant matters.
D) All of the above

Question 13

Which of the following is NOT a criterion listed by Beauchamp and Childress for a good theory of authoritative beliefs?

A) Consistency
B) Inalterability
C) Comprehensiveness
D) Argumentative support

Question 14

A problem noted by Beauchamp and Childress with the method of reflective equilibrium is:

A) Nonexperts cannot practice this method of moral reasoning.
B) There is too much contradiction in the ethics literature when different thinkers who have explicitly used this method seem to come up with different claims.
C) The objectives of even a weak wide reflective equilibrium may be unattainable ideals of comprehensiveness and coherence.
D) Reflective equilibrium is not an appropriate method for reasoning about particular policies.

Question 15

How do Beauchamp and Childress's four principles of biomedical ethics relate to what they describe as the common morality?

A) The principles are drawn from the common morality for the purpose of reasoning about biomedical ethics.
B) The principles provide a description of the main content of the common morality.
C) The common morality is derived by various groups and cultures from the principles.
D) Nonmaleficence and beneficence are derived straightforwardly from the common morality, but respect for autonomy and justice need further justification.

Question 16

What is a feature of all common-morality theories, according to Beauchamp and Childress?

A) Common-morality theories rely on ordinary, shared moral beliefs for their starting content.
B) Common-morality theories hold that an ethical theory that cannot be made consistent with pretheoretical moral values falls under suspicion.
C) Common-morality theories are pluralistic, containing two or more nonabsolute moral principles.
D) All of the above

Question 17

Why is the common morality better suited to play a vital role in biomedical ethics than other theories discussed by Beauchamp and Childress?

A) The common morality presents a comprehensive ethical theory.
B) The common morality captures a pretheoretical moral point of view and gives us a way to test our moral claims against this point of view.
C) The specified moral norms brought to light by a common morality theory never change.
D) The common morality is consistent with all customary moralities of various groups.

Question 18

Which of the following do Beauchamp and Childress argue about moral change?

A) Particular moralities, customary practices, and so-called consensus moralities may change through a complete reversal of position on some issues.
B) Particular moralities may change, but considered judgments will never change.
C) The norms of the common morality do not change because these basic moral rules are essential and timeless.
D) Historically, basic norms of morality have often undergone change.

Question 19

According to Beauchamp and Childress, what is the usual process by which societal moral norms undergo change?

A) Basic norms of morality are found to be morally suspect and are rejected or altered.
B) A new theory of morality is developed in the intellectual life of a society and is adopted in place of the old.
C) Norms are changed and specified in order to develop moral rules with no exceptions.
D) As circumstances change, people find reasons for saying that a norm has new specifications or valid exceptions or can be outweighed by other norms.

Question 20

What are the three types of justification of claims about a universal common morality, as described by Beauchamp and Childress?

A) Empirical, moral, and legal
B) Empirical, normative theoretical, and conceptual
C) Moral, theoretical, and legal
D) Communal, moral, and normative theoretical

Question 21

Three models of ethical theory include top-down reasoning, bottom-up reasoning, and reasoning based on coherence and considered judgments.

Question 22

Casuists focus on description and comparison of particular cases, but they think moral judgments must still be made based on an appeal to principles.

Question 23

Casuistry is similar to case law in its reliance on precedent to make moral decisions.

Question 24

Proponents of casuistry point out that ethicists often agree on what is morally right to do in a given case, even if they don't agree on the reason or reasons why.

Question 25

According to Beauchamp and Childress, casuists do not recognize the moral principles involved in ethical reasoning about cases, but they at least do describe the ethical issues involved in a given case properly.

Question 26

Beauchamp and Childress reject the use of the casuistical method and of analogy in moral reasoning.

Question 27

As discussed by Beauchamp and Childress, when some feature in a person's or group's prevailing structure of moral views conflicts with one or more of their considered judgments, they must modify something in their viewpoint in order to achieve equilibrium.

Question 28

Proponents of reflective equilibrium in ethical thinking argue that a theory or set of moral beliefs is justified if it maximizes the coherence of the overall set of beliefs that are accepted upon reflective examination.

Question 29

The form of reflective equilibrium Beauchamp and Childress use in their ethical reasoning is known as coherentism.

Question 30

One unresolved problem with the method of reflective equilibrium is that it is not always clear how to know when the effort to achieve reflective equilibrium is going well or when it has succeeded.

Question 31

Beauchamp and Childress claim that the four basic principles they describe in their book are an expression of the full moral content of the common morality.

Question 32

Common-morality theories and customary moralities are two expressions of the same thing.

Question 33

Norms in particular moralities can differ because the abstract starting points in the common morality can be developed in different ways to create practical guidelines with varying degrees of coherence.

Question 34

We can have the most confidence in principles and considered judgments if we can justify them on the basis of a comprehensive ethical theory.

Question 35

In ethical discourse, the objective of __________ is to establish one's case by presenting sufficient reasons for it.

Question 36

___________ is the use of case comparison and analogy to reach moral conclusions.

Question 37

The case that provides an enduring and authoritative source of appeal for moral thinking about similar cases is called the _________ case.

Question 38

_________ ________, as a form of ethical reasoning, is a way of bringing principles, judgments, and background theories into a state of equilibrium or harmony.

Question 39

Reflective equilibrium that takes into account assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of the full body of all relevant and impartially formulated judgments, principles, theories, and facts is called _________ reflective equilibrium.

Question 40

According to John Rawls, as quoted by Beauchamp and Childress, the moral convictions in which we have the highest confidence and believe to have the least bias are _________ _________.

Question 41

The norms with which those who seek reflective equilibrium in their ethical thinking come, according to Beauchamp and Childress, from the _________ morality.

Question 42

A moral belief that is used initially and without argumentative support needs to be tested for _______, or its consistency with other beliefs, norms, and experiences and the facts of given cases, before it can serve as an anchor of moral reflection.

Question 43

Criteria for a good theory of authoritative beliefs in Beauchamp and Childress's model include __________, covering the appropriate territory in the moral domain.

Question 44

The common morality anchors moral theory by capturing the _________ moral point of view, or the judgments and norms that make up moral thinking prior to systematization in a general ethical theory.

Question 45

As the common morality is made more specific, specified moral norms can be altered over time in a process Beauchamp and Childress call moral ________.

Question 46

Even when abstract moral norms do not change, often the ________ of their application can change, meaning that moral principles are deemed to apply to more or different groups than previously.

Question 47

Beauchamp and Childress argue that a theory of the common morality should remain open to the possibility that the common morality may incorporate more substantially a rule of nondiscrimination by including rules of _______ moral consideration for groups such as women, people of every ethnicity, the great apes, and other parties currently excluded from some kinds of moral considerations.

Question 48

__________ justification of common-morality theory would need to involve rigorous study of the moral beliefs of different cultures to show whether those cultures accept, ignore, abandon, or reject the standards of the common morality.