Deck 6: Tradition Approaches to Ethical Theory

Question 1

Virtue refers to a person's moral emotions.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

According to virtue theory, good personal character is foundation of ethical action.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

When a person of good character lies, people are not surprised.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

According to Aristotle, a virtue develops out of a personality characteristic such as shyness or a habit of feeling such as fear.

Question 5

All virtues are excellent according to Aristotle.

Question 6

Consistently practicing a virtue is key to the excellence of virtue, according to Aristotle.

Question 7

According to Aristotle, virtue is a mean or point of proportion between a deficiency and an extreme of personality or emotion both of which he calls vices.

Question 8

The virtue of courage is a mean or point of proportion between the deficiency of cowardice and the extreme of rashness.

Question 9

All emotions have virtues.

Question 10

Developing a habit to practice the excellence of a virtue is important to the practice of virtue.

Question 11

The concept of virtue as a mean identifies a middle ground between the vices of excess and deficiency.

Question 12

For Aristotle the mean is a metaphor for harmony or proportion.

Question 13

The practice of a virtue such as courage is the same for each person.

Question 14

Practice of a virtue must be proper to the disposition of a person.

Question 15

The facts and circumstances of a situation are irrelevant in the practice of virtue.

Question 16

Discerning what would be an excellent or virtuous action in response to a situation is important for the practice of virtue.

Question 17

Community standards of excellence play an important role in establishing what virtuous action is.

Question 18

Communities have no role to play in identifying what is a virtue.

Question 19

Stories are one way communities communicate virtues.

Question 20

One of the roles of ethical persuasion is to persuade community members to practice the virtues of a community.

Question 21

Virtues are consistent across different communities.

Question 22

The practice of virtue is individualistic and does not rely on held from others to achieve and maintain practice of a virtue.

Question 23

Virtue theories presume that members of a community have agreed upon what are the virtues of their community.

Question 24

Virtue theory does not explain how a community decides what the most important virtues are.

Question 25

Virtue theory offers no guidance in an ethical dilemma between two virtues, such as honesty and care.

Question 26

One weakness of practicing virtue theory is that a decision maker could be more concerned about her personal integrity in practicing a virtue than with the impact of her action on others.

Question 27

According to Aristotle's virtue theory, what is ethically excellent in one situation is always ethically excellent in another situation.

Question 28

Moral, civil, and legal rights are all the same thing.

Question 29

The ethical significance of moral rights is that they provide individuals significant protection from harm by others, especially government.

Question 30

Being a human being is the basis of moral rights.

Question 31

Belonging to a community or a nation is the basis of civil rights.

Question 32

One function of moral rights is to give persons freedom of action.

Question 33

One function of moral rights is to protect fundamental interests of individuals as human beings, for example the right not to be tortured.

Question 34

All governments recognize moral rights.

Question 35

Moral rights are application in every situation.

Question 36

Events not caused by human actions, such as natural disasters, do not violate moral rights.

Question 37

Interfering with aid to victims of a natural disaster violates moral rights.

Question 38

Moral rights depend on whether individuals or governments recognize them.

Question 39

One of the earliest legal recognitions of the moral right of freedom is the UK's Magna Carta in 1215 CE.

Question 40

If you recognize that a moral right exists, you have a duty to protect that moral right.

Question 41

There is a clear agreement among nations about what are moral rights and how to protect them.

Question 42

Kant's second expression of the categorical imperative contributes to our understanding of moral rights, that persons should not be treated as objects.

Question 43

Applying moral rights theory to Kant's categorical imperative, communicators have a moral right to receive honest communication.

Question 44

Freedom of speech is a moral right.

Question 45

To protect the moral right to freedom of speech, communicators have a duty to remove obstacles and restriction to speaking

Question 46

A moral right to listening would involve a duty to listen to others to fulfill their moral right to be listened to.

Question 47

Promoting local, non-western communication practices is important to practicing a moral right to communication.

Question 48

Utilitarian ethics focuses on whether the consequences of an action are good or harmful and the number of people affected by an action.

Question 49

People who practice utilitarianism are interested in what can be done to make the world a better place for the greatest number of people.

Question 50

Integrity is a key ethical concern in practicing utilitarianism.

Question 51

The concept of utility in utilitarianism is the amount of good or beneficial consequences of action for the greatest number of people.

Question 52

Thinking about long-term consequences of an action is not important in practicing utilitarianism.

Question 53

Thinking about both short and long-term consequences of communication is important in practicing utilitarianism.

Question 54

To be uninvolved or detached is to practice utilitarian impartiality.

Question 55

Utilitarian impartiality is treating your personal interest to receive a benefit or avoid harm as no more important than anyone else's personal interest to receive a benefit or avoid harm.

Question 56

The idea of the "greatest good for the greatest number" is a well-recognized and accepted ethical principle.

Question 57

Practicing utilitarian impartiality, you would conclude that your freedom of speech is no more important than the freedom of speech of your political opponent.

Question 58

Utility as an ethical good is what makes people feel good.

Question 59

Utility as an ethical good is what makes people feel good in the long-term, not the short-term.

Question 60

The ethical good of education is the long-term consequences of being educated, rather than the short-term consequences of studying, taking tests, and writing papers

Question 61

Utilitarianism focuses on what is good for the majority, not the minority of people.

Question 62

Rationalizing harm to an individual or a minority group to the benefit of the majority is a weakness of utilitarianism.

Question 63

John Stuart Mill proposes that protecting the freedom of speech of minorities is a method for challenging rationalizations that benefit the majority.

Question 64

Utilitarian impartiality makes the practice of utilitarianism challenging, because it could require you to sacrifice your personal self-interest to benefit others.

Question 65

Rationalizing sacrifice of individual or minority interests for the majority is an ethical danger of utilitarianism.

Question 66

Traditional theories of ethics are

A) universal.
B) based in the philosophical theories of ancient Greece and Rome.
C) well recognized and widely accepted theories before the twentieth century.
D) modernist theories.

Question 67

Which of the following is not part of Aristotle's concept of virtue?

A) Virtue concerns what is ethically good or excellent.
B) Virtue exists as a point of proportion between excess and deficiency
C) Virtue concerns a form of action, emotion, or personal quality.
D) Virtue is an agreed upon standard that is applied consistently.

Question 68

The mean or point of proportion between an excess and deficiency of emotion is

A) always a point of excellence.
B) excellent only if it is ethically good.
C) innate, never learned.
D) applied consistently.

Question 69

Courage is

A) a mean between cowardice and rashness.
B) an excellence of the emotion of fear and disposition of confidence.
C) a virtue
D) All of the above.
E) None of the above.

Question 70

Virtue theory is a distinctive ethical theory because it focuses on

A) what is good in human emotion.
B) consequences.
C) consistency.
D) how to avoid rationalizations.

Question 71

A common misinterpretation of virtue theory is that virtue is

A) universal.
B) absolute.
C) a midpoint between excess and deficiency.
D) rationalization.

Question 72

One role reason plays in Aristotle's theory of virtue is to

A) identify which virtue is needed.
B) discover what is the point of excellence between excess and deficiency in a specific situation.
C) discover rationalizations of poorly examined social convention.
D) discover who is most virtuous.

Question 73

One reason individual practices of a virtue can vary is because

A) individual personalities and dispositions differ.
B) virtues are poorly taught.
C) some people are shy.
D) people do not follow the rules of a virtue.

Question 74

Practicing a community based or shared virtue challenges a decision maker to

A) follow rules.
B) focus on her integrity.
C) notice how her actions vary from the virtue of a community and then pull herself towards that virtue.
D) judge the actions of others.

Question 75

The method for deciding what are a community's virtues is

A) not part of virtue theory.
B) an application of the golden mean.
C) based on moral intuition.
D) up to the individual.

Question 76

Discussion, debate, dialogue, and persuasion about virtues

A) sometimes changes a community's standard of excellence.
B) helps maintain a community's standard of excellence.
C) can create a community's standard of excellence
D) All of the above
E) None of the above.

Question 77

Moral rights are important because they

A) are absolute.
B) are recognized by all governments.
C) provide significant protection from harm caused by government or other people.
D) do not involve reasoning in their application.

Question 78

One function of moral rights is to give freedom of action. The second function of moral rights is to protect

A) rights of citizenship from encroachment.
B) basic human nature from outside interference.
C) fundamental interests of individuals as human beings, such as the right not to be tortured.
D) individuals from consequences of natural disasters.

Question 79

In saying that moral rights are universal but not absolute, we recognize that moral rights

A) are not relevant in every situation.
B) protects against harm caused by human action.
C) excludes harm to human survival caused by nature, such as a flood.
D) All of the above.
E) None of the above

Question 80

The immediate damage caused by a hurricane does not involve moral rights, because

A) it is an act of nature not directly caused by human action.
B) it is voluntary.
C) people can choose to protect themselves from hurricanes by leaving the area.
D) All of the above
E) None of the above