Philosophy 101 Exam Three Study Guide

Exam Three is scheduled for Wednesday, April 23. Please bring a green scantron #882 and No. 2 pencil. This test will consist of only objective questions and no short answer questions. Marquis: "Why Abortion is Immoral" 1. What does Marquis conclude about abortion? What does it mean to be "prima facie" wrong? What hard cases does he not explore in his essay? 2. Why does Marquis think it is wrong to kill beings like us? What does he think is the wrong-making feature of killing a fetus? 3. How does Marquis argue that his theory is consistent with beliefs that many people hold? What are these beliefs? How does he defend that his theory is superior to other theories on abortion?

Warren: "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion" 4. According to Warren, what gives people the moral status of personhood? How does she use the terms "people" and "human beings"? What examples of human beings are not considered people by Warren? What non-humans should be recognized as people with moral rights? 5. What is Warren's extreme pro-choice view on abortion? When is abortion morally permissible? Why does Warren view a fetus to have no more a right to life than a newborn guppy? What rights does a woman have and why do they override the right to life of a fetus? 6. In what ways is a newborn baby similar to a late-term fetus? How are they different? Does Warren consider abortion or killing a newborn infant as murder? According to Warren, under what conditions is infanticide morally right or wrong?

Thomson: "A Defense of Abortion" and English: Abortion and the Concept of a Person 7. What point is Thomson trying to make when she uses the following analogies? a) The Unconscious Violinist Analogy, b) The Henry Fonda Analogy, c) The People Seeds Analogy, d) The Box of Chocolates 8. In what circumstances, according to Thomson, is abortion morally permissible? In what cases is it NOT morally permissible? What is the difference between a Minimally Decent Samaritan and a Good Samaritan? What is the relevance of this distinction in the abortion debate? 9. In what cases, according to Thomson, is abortion morally permissible or impermissible? In what cases is it NOT morally permissible? What is the difference between absolute versus prima facie right to life? What is the difference between negative versus positive rights? What kind of right to life does Thomson think the fetus has and what sort of obligation does a woman have towards the fetus? 10. What are Englishs conclusions on abortion? English offers several variations of the hypnotic attacker analogies? Which scenarios reflect her own position on abortion and which represent the views of others?

11. In Englishs view, is personhood relevant to determining the moral permissibility of abortion? Does she think that the fetuss resemblance to persons is morally relevant? Why or why not? What does English mean by the coherence of attitudes and how does this relate to late term abortions?

Gelernter and Reimer: Death Penalty 12. What are the two main justifications of punishment? What is the principle of Lex Talionis? What is specific versus general deterrence? 13. Who is Karla Faye Tucker? How was her death penalty case morally problematic and why did it stir up so much controversy in the public eye? What would Gelenter and Reiman judge to be the morally appropriate punishment for Tucker? How might it be argued that reducing Tuckers punishment to life imprisonment would be a violation of distributive justice? 14. Why does Gelernter think that society has a duty to enforce the death penalty to some convicted murderers? Does Gelernter think deterrence or vengeance is the main goal of the death penalty? Why or why not? 15. Does Gelernter think that life imprisonment can do the job as well as the death penalty in sending out the proper message? What other objections does Gelernter present against his view and how does he respond to them? Whom does he blame for the countrys moral evasiveness? 16. What does Reiman reply to critics who claim that the death penalty is wrong because it is irrevocable? In what sense is the death penalty just in Reimans view? How does he justify this? In what sense is the death penalty also unjust? Although Reiman favors lesser punishments over the death penalty for murderers, how does he argue that lesser punishment might be unjust to actual or future victims? 17. According to Reiman, what are popular but weak arguments against the death penalty? How does he respond to them? What four propositions sum up Reimans position on the death penalty? Aristotle: Virtue Ethics 18. For Aristotle what is the difference between intellectual and moral virtues? What sorts of intellectual virtues are there and how do people come to acquire them? How do people cultivate moral virtues? 19. What does Aristotle mean by happiness (eudaimonia)? What material goods or circumstances are also necessary for a persons happiness? What is the function of a human being? What is the ultimate end toward which all our actions are aimed? 20. Aristotle recognizes that courage, pride, friendliness, wittiness, liberality, modesty and temperance are virtues. How are these sets of virtues generally characteristic of and valued by certain groups of people? What vice of deficiency and excess correspond to each virtue? 21. How does the Golden Mean help to identify virtue? According to Aristotle, would a moral ideal have to fight off temptation and struggle to be good? Why or why not?