Study Guide for Midterm Exam

Guidelines.  The midterm exam will take place in class on Friday, March 26.  You will be required to write one essay, which will be taken from Section One of this study guide. The remainder of the exam will consist of a subset of the questions from Section Two. On the actual midterm, each section will be worth half of the grade for the exam.

The midterm is open-note and open-book. So the best way to prepare for the exam is to take this study guide as if it were a take-home exam. Refine each essay until you are satisfied with it. Research the question from Section Two until you are confident in your answers to them. Then just bring in the fruits of your labor to class on exam day. While I encourage you to study with your classmates, the notes you bring in must be your own.  The submission of duplicate or near-duplicate answers will be considered cheating.

The exam will be a bluebook exam. Bring a blue- or black-ink pen for the exam -- no red pen, no pencil. The exam will be short enough to complete in our 50-minute class period, but please show up a few minutes early on exam day to be sure we can get the exams and bluebooks distributed as quickly as possible.  See the syllabus for some remarks about what I look for in your writing.

Before proceeding, please read this note on Presenting, Explaining, and Evaluating arguments.

Section One - Essay

For each numbered item below, write an essay that addresses each of the lettered sub-items. I have set up the essay questions in this way (viz., with lettered sub-items) because I have found that, if I don't, students tend to skip some parts of the question. To be sure you address each part of each question, and to make it clear in what part of your essay you are doing so, you may even write the letters ('(a)', '(b)', '(c)', etc.) directly in your essay, if you wish.

1. (a) Describe the case of Baby Theresa. (Be sure to include all the relevant details; pretend you are describing it to someone who hasn't heard it before.)
   (b) Present and Explain the "benefits argument" (when you do, be sure to make clear what particular moral judgment the argument is meant to establish and what general moral principle is being used to establish it).
   (c) Evaluate that argument. 
   (d) Next, come up with a "playing God argument" (one that you make up) that pertains to the Baby Theresa case, and Present and Explain that argument (when you Explain it, be sure to give an interpretation of the Playing God Principle and be sure to make clear what particular moral judgment about the Baby Theresa case the argument is meant to establish).
   (e) Evaluate that argument.
   (f) Finally, state your own view about the case of Baby Theresa -- is it right or is it wrong for the parents to remove and donate Baby Theresa's organs, thereby killing her prematurely?  Present your own line-by-line argument for your view (you will need to make use of some general moral principle in your argument).  Explain your argument.
   
   
   
2. One crucial premise in Noonan's main argument says that a fetus is a person. On p. 4, Noonan appears to give a sub-argument like the following for this premise:
   
   1. Anything with a human genetic code is a person.
   2. Human fetuses have a human genetic code.
   3. Therefore, human fetuses are persons.
   
   (a) A crucial word in this argument is ambiguous. Identify this word and explain three possible things this word might mean. (To do this, don't just give each meaning a name; explain the concept involved.)
   (b) Due to this ambiguity, there are three interpretations of the argument (one for each way of interpreting the ambiguous word). Criticize each of these three arguments. (Hint: On one interpretation, it might turn out that the argument has a clearly false premise; if so, identify the premise and explain why it is false. On another interpretation, it might turn out that the conclusion no longer helps Noonan establish his main thesis; if so, explain why not. On yet another interpretation, it might turn out that Noonan has given us no reason to accept one of the premises; if so, identify the premise and explain why.)
   
   
   
3. (a) Briefly explain Marquis strategy for answering the Fundamental Question about Abortion.
   (b) Explain the view Marquis calls the "desire account" and how that view can be used to support a pro-abortion position (you can do this by presenting a line-by-line argument, if you wish). Do you think the desire account is plausible? Explain your answer.
   (c) State and explain Marquis's view about the wrongness of killing.
   (d) What does that view imply about active euthanasia? Do you think it has the correct implication here?
   (e) What does the view imply about killing children so young that they are not yet persons in the psychological sense? Do you think it has the correct implication here?
   (f) What does the view imply about abortion? Do you think it has the correct implication here? Explain.
   
   Consider this Marquis-inspired argument:
   
   1. It is morally wrong to kill a living thing if (i) the thing killed is innocent, (ii) killing the thing would deprive it of a future like ours, and (iii) the killing is not done to save any lives.
   2. Typical abortions are killings of a living thing such that (i) the thing killed is innocent, (ii) killing the thing would deprive it of a future like ours, and (iii) the killing is not done to save any lives.
   3. Therefore, typical abortions are morally wrong.
   
   (g) If we asked Thomson to evaluate this argument, she would say that it is unsound. Which premise would she reject, and why? (Be sure to make use of the relevant thought experiment and to describe it enough detail so that someone who never heard it before would understand how it is suppose to bear on the argument above.)
   (h) How do you evaluate this argument? (In other words, do you think it is sound? If not, which premise do you deny, and why?)
   
   
   
4. (a) State your own view on abortion (that is, your own answer to the Fundamental Question about Abortion.
   (b) What general moral principle do you appeal to to support your view?
   (c) Present what you take to be one of the more interesting objections to your view.
   (d) Defend your view against that objection.

Section Two - One Liners

1. What, according to your instructor, is the "fundamental project of medical ethics"?
2. What is the general moral principle being used in The Benefits Argument?
3. Why does Rachels think that "slippery slope" arguments should be approached with caution?
4. True or False?: Even though he claims that one should give equal weight to the interests of each individual who will be affected by what one does, Rachels suggests it is ok in some cases to give special favor to our friends and family.
5. True or False?: Ethical relativism is a fairly recent development in the history of moral philosophy.
6. In The Karamazov Brothers, Dostoevsky presents a case involving a potential "architect of happiness."  What sort of moral theory is the case meant to criticize?
7. True or False?: Feldman argues that philosophy is best characterized as the love of wisdom.
8. True or False?: A philosopher who studies metaphysics studies things like parapsychology, near death experiences, and the mystical powers of crystals.
9. True or False?: Feldman resolutely dismisses the "playing God argument" as an argument advanced only by the philosophically naive.
10. When Feldman considers the idea that those who play God thereby reveal themselves to have bad character, in what subfield of normative ethics is he working?
11. True or False?: A person could believe in the Playing God Principle (at least on some interpretation) without believing in God.
12. True or False?: The most fundamental question in the abortion debate is, Should women have the legal right to choose abortion?
13. Some anti-abortionists have argued against abortion on the grounds that, if abortion is allowed, then involuntary euthanasia and genocide will be next. Very briefly explain why this consideration should not convince a pro-abortionist.
14. Some pro-abortionists have argued that abortion should be used to curb overpopulation. Very briefly explain why this consideration should not convince an anti-abortionist.
15. True or False?: The Church has had an absolute ban on abortion for its entire history.
16. True or False?: Congress voted to ban so-called "partial birth" abortion last year.
17. True or False?: Noonan thinks abortion is morally permissible in cases of rape.
18. Give a counterexample to what I have called 'Noonan’s Non-Maleficence Principle' (i.e., very briefly describe a case in which the principle yields an implausible result).
19. Someone commits the fallacy of equivocation if he or she does what?
20. Give an example of a thing that is a person in the biological sense but not in the psychological sense.
21. Give an example of a thing that is a person in the psychological sense but not in the biological sense.
22. True or False?: Noonan appears not to be sensitive to the ambiguities in the word 'person'.
23. True or False?: Marquis appears not to be sensitive to the ambiguities in the word 'person'.
24. True or False?: Marquis thinks that there no circumstances in which abortion could be permissible.
25. True or False?: Thomson concedes for the purposes of discussion that every fetus is a person in the moral sense.
26. True or False?: Thomson thinks we are morally required to be "Splendid Samaritans."
27. True or False?: Thomson thinks abortion is morally permissible in all circumstances.