DSST Ethics in America 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: The First Amendment's protection of free speech raises which primary ethical tension in American society?
- Individual liberty versus prevention of harm to others (Correct answer)
- Privacy versus national security
- Economic freedom versus environmental protection
- Religious freedom versus scientific progress
Correct answer: Individual liberty versus prevention of harm to others
Free speech debates in America center on balancing individual liberty with the harm principle—how much speech causing harm to others should be protected.
Question 2: Which ethical framework most directly supports affirmative action policies in the United States?
- Libertarianism
- Distributive justice / egalitarianism (Correct answer)
- Ethical egoism
- Divine command theory
Correct answer: Distributive justice / egalitarianism
Affirmative action is most often defended through distributive justice frameworks that seek to correct historical inequalities and achieve fairer outcomes.
Question 3: In environmental ethics, 'deep ecology' differs from mainstream environmentalism by:
- Focusing solely on economic benefits of conservation
- Asserting that nature has intrinsic value independent of human interests (Correct answer)
- Prioritizing human welfare above all ecological concerns
- Limiting concern to endangered species only
Correct answer: Asserting that nature has intrinsic value independent of human interests
Deep ecology holds that all living beings and ecosystems have intrinsic value beyond their usefulness to humans.
Question 4: Which of the following statements best represents a libertarian position on taxation?
- Progressive taxation is necessary for social justice
- Redistributive taxation is a form of coerced labor and violates individual rights (Correct answer)
- Taxation should maximize total social utility
- Tax policy should reflect community virtue
Correct answer: Redistributive taxation is a form of coerced labor and violates individual rights
Libertarians like Robert Nozick argue that forced redistribution through taxation violates individuals' rights to the fruits of their own labor.
Question 5: The 'trolley problem' is primarily used in ethics to illustrate:
- The difficulty of calculating utilities in real-world situations
- Conflicts between doing harm and allowing harm, and between utilitarian and deontological reasoning (Correct answer)
- The role of virtue in emergency decision-making
- The social contract's limits in life-and-death situations
Correct answer: Conflicts between doing harm and allowing harm, and between utilitarian and deontological reasoning
The trolley problem highlights tensions between utilitarian reasoning (sacrifice one to save five) and deontological prohibitions against using a person merely as a means.
Question 6: Which principle from bioethics holds that healthcare providers must 'above all, do no harm'?
- Autonomy
- Beneficence
- Justice
- Non-maleficence (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Non-maleficence
Non-maleficence, often expressed as 'primum non nocere' (first, do no harm), obligates healthcare providers to avoid causing unnecessary harm to patients.
Question 7: Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' primarily argues that:
- Violent resistance to unjust laws is morally justified
- Unjust laws have no moral claim on citizens and may be broken through nonviolent civil disobedience (Correct answer)
- All laws must be obeyed until changed through legal processes
- Civil rights should be won through economic pressure alone
Correct answer: Unjust laws have no moral claim on citizens and may be broken through nonviolent civil disobedience
King argued, drawing on Aquinas and Augustine, that an unjust law is no law at all, and that nonviolent civil disobedience against such laws is morally required.
DSST Ethics in America 4
The First Amendment's protection of free speech raises which primary ethical tension in American society?