Deck 6: Using Your Reason, Part 2: Kants Deontology

Question 1

What is universalization? Explain and give an example.

Answer 1

No Answer

Question 2

How does a hypothetical imperative differ from a categorical imperative? Explain with an example of each. Why should someone obey the dictates of the categorical imperative?

Answer 2

No Answer

Question 3

Explain why Immanuel Kant's statement about the immorality of treating other humans as a means to an end was a tremendously important political and social statement for the eighteenth century.

Answer 3

No Answer

Question 4

Immanuel Kant explains that you should not steal when you cannot universalize the rule "Stealing is permissible." Explain why not.

Question 5

What is the difference between an ideal situation and an actual situation in assessing the universalizability of the categorical imperative?

Question 6

What are some problems with the categorical imperative test? Why has it nevertheless been influential in ethical theory?

Question 7

Evaluate the following statement: "Actions are morally good only if they are done because of a good will." Explain "good will" and give reasons why you think the statement is correct or incorrect.

Question 8

What does it mean to treat someone as "an end in himself or herself" rather than as a means (only)?

Question 9

What is Immanuel Kant's criterion of rationality for being regarded as a person? What (or who) does it leave out?

Question 10

Explain Immanuel Kant's concept of a kingdom of ends.

Question 11

Comment on Immanuel Kant's apparent opinion that women and people of color may not be as rational as white males. Compare it with Kant's statement that all of humanity should be treated as ends in themselves.

Question 12

A person decides to act on principle against the wishes of the community. In the context of Immanuel Kant's theory, can we always assume that this person is doing the right thing? How would Kant decide? How would a utilitarian decide? How would you decide?

Question 13

Discuss the permissibility of torture within a classical Kantian moral system. Do you agree with the views? Why or why not?

Question 14

Focusing on the choices made by the main characters in High Noon and 3:10 to Yuma, would you say that doing one's duty regardless of the outcome is always the correct moral approach? Why or why not?

Question 15

Come up with your own example to illustrate conflicting duties as a criticism against Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative test. Can you see how this problem might also be illustrated by Alec Holmes's dilemma in Abandon Ship! when he sees the storm coming? Explain.

Question 16

Compare and contrast Immanuel Kant's idea that we must always treat people as ends in themselves and Alec Holmes's weeding-out process in Abandon Ship!

Question 17

Can Rorschach's moral position in Watchmen be viewed as an example of Kantian duty ethics? Why or why not?

Question 18

Which of the following best describes a deontological theory?

A) a theory that advocates social equality
B) a theory that advocates that humans have free will independent of mechanistic causality
C) a theory that focuses exclusively on the consequences of an action
D) a theory that focuses only on the rightness or wrongness of an act itself

Question 19

Who among the following is an autonomous lawmaker?

A) a member of the government who cannot be bribed
B) someone who is capable of influencing the legislation in his or her own favor
C) a person who follows the categorical imperative
D) a person who follows hypothetical imperatives

Question 20

A store owner is trying to decide whether or not to cheat her customers. Which decision-making process results in a moral act?

A) She decides to try to cheat her customers on occasion when she is certain she can get away with it.
B) She decides not to cheat her customers because she might be found out and lose all her customers.
C) She decides not to cheat her customers because she believes that it would not be right, regardless of the consequences.
D) She decides not to cheat her customers because she likes them very much.

Question 21

According to Immanuel Kant, a person's standing in the moral universe is determined by his or her

A) capability to use reason.
B) social status.
C) educational achievement.
D) willingness to tell lies.

Question 22

Which of the following is NOT a major criticism raised against Immanuel Kant's moral theory?

A) The categorical imperative discriminates against people of no or low income.
B) There is a loophole in the categorical imperative: A situation can be described so specifically that it does not apply universally.
C) The categorical imperative does not allow for exceptions.
D) The view of what is rational depends on who holds the view.

Question 23

Immanuel Kant has three main themes in his book Grounding. Which of the following is NOT one of those themes?

A) the theory that people should be treated as ends in themselves
B) the theory about the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness for rational beings
C) the theory of the categorical imperative
D) the theory of people forming a moral community, the kingdom of ends

Question 24

What does Immanuel Kant mean by a universal law?

A) a law of physics, like gravity
B) a moral law dictated by a moral authority
C) a moral law binding for all rational beings
D) a civil law binding for all citizens

Question 25

What does Immanuel Kant mean by "the right to a person akin to a right to a thing"?

A) a defense of the right to own slaves
B) a defense of property rights
C) an intermediate category of being a person but without complete freedom
D) an intermediate category of being half saint, half devil

Question 26

According to Immanuel Kant, which of the following describes an internal lie?

A) a lie that makes someone contemptible in one's own eyes
B) a lie that has harmful results only for the liar
C) a lie that someone keeps entirely to himself or herself
D) a lie that causes no harm but brings benefits to all involved

Question 27

Which of the following is a similarity between the films High Noon and 3:10 to Yuma apart from the fact that they are both Westerns?

A) They both advocate a utilitarian approach to life.
B) The "bad guy" is the main character in both films.
C) They both focus on duty as an intrinsic value.
D) They both have female heroes.

Question 28

Immanuel Kant's moral theory deals with maximizing the happiness of everyone involved.

Question 29

In Immanuel Kant's view, a good will cannot be good if it does not take consequences of one's actions into account.

Question 30

In Immanuel Kant's view, a good will is good regardless of whether it accomplishes its purpose or not.

Question 31

Immanuel Kant is a hard universalist.

Question 32

A hypothetical imperative is a conditional command describing a "if-then" situation.

Question 33

According to Immanuel Kant, an act that is done for reasons other than a sense of duty is not necessarily a morally wrong act.

Question 34

A maxim is an act that has the maximum number of good consequences.

Question 35

Universalization means to ask yourself if everyone actually agrees with your own moral values.

Question 36

When we universalize a maxim, we ask ourselves if it could be made into a universal law.

Question 37

Immanuel Kant achieved influence not only in Western philosophy but also in science and social thinking.

Question 38

Immanuel Kant has been criticized for claiming that his theory does not take consequences into account, when in fact it does.

Question 39

Immanuel Kant was an agitator for his ideas.

Question 40

According to Immanuel Kant, a rational being is any being capable of feeling pleasure or pain.

Question 41

Christine Korsgaard agrees with Immanuel Kant that there is no good justification for lying.

Question 42

A person being used as merely a means to an end is treated as having instrumental value only.

Question 43

Immanuel Kant stated that it is the social status that determines one's standing in the moral universe.

Question 44

Immanuel Kant would condemn an act of using someone as a tool, even if the purpose is good-such as creating happiness for a large number of people.

Question 45

Rebecca's college professors get paid for teaching classes, and without Rebecca and other students, they would not receive a paycheck. In this scenario, Rebecca and the students can be considered as merely being used as a means to an end.

Question 46

Immanuel Kant had doubts about the full rationality of women and people of color.

Question 47

Immanuel Kant had immense faith in the rationality of all humanity, regardless of his own prejudices.

Question 48

According to Immanuel Kant, we may treat animals any way we like, including being cruel to them.

Question 49

According to Immanuel Kant's theory, humans who do not qualify as rational beings must be classified as things.

Question 50

According to Immanuel Kant, humans have free choice; the choices made by animals are merely brutish.

Question 51

The kingdom of ends refers to Immanuel Kant's theory of history that when everyone has learned to use the categorical imperative, history will come to an end.

Question 52

Immanuel Kant was against animal experimentation for the sake of mere speculation.

Question 53

According to Immanuel Kant, lying (in the ethical sense) must be shown to be harmful to others in order to be considered morally wrong.

Question 54

In the film High Noon, nobody is willing to help Marshal Will Kane because he has cried "wolf" once too often.

Question 55

In 3:10 to Yuma, Dan Evans is clearly an egoist.

Question 56

In 3:10 to Yuma, Ben Wade shows us that criminals do not have real values or principles.

Question 57

In Abandon Ship!, Alec Holmes decides that everyone will try to survive together and will possibly die together and no one will be selected over others to live while the rest are thrown into shark-infested waters.

Question 58

Convergent evidence indicates that nonhuman animals do not have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states.