ETHICS FINAL EXAM QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS. VERIFIED 2025/2026.
Understand the steps to take while progressing toward virtue. - ANS -Following rules or
principles
-Making choices of one's own (developing moral reasoning)- Things can lead us astray—money,
power, people, ourselves. These same things test us, do we do what is right when we are
tested?
-Developing virtue
-Internalizing principles
-Reason working on the emotions
Understand examples we considered of how to become more virtuous, including how we can
identify moral exemplars. - ANS a. Just do what is virtuous and what's right even when you
don't feel like it
b. Moral exemplars (One who exhibits a significant amount of wisdom, One who lives an overall
good and virtuous life, One who exemplifies virtues in a clear way in key situations)
c. Reasoning holds desires in check- assisted by self-control
d. Study and learning
e. Self-evaluation
f. Training, discipline, correction, and accountability
g. 3 kinds of people in wisdom literature (Fool: has discipline, Simpleton: easily lead and
influenced, Wise person: constantly engaged in training, thankful for correction)
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,How do people respond to conflict with aggression, and how can we avoid this? - ANS abuse,
violence, accusing, attacking, confrontational, no resolutions, losing friendships
How do people respond to conflict by being passive, and how can we avoid this? -
ANS burying things, no resolution, people walk all over you, eventual outburst
How can conflicts and disagreements be handled in an assertive way? - ANS talking
respectfully, patience, kindness
Understand the personhood argument. - ANS a. Human beings possess intrinsic moral value.
If a fetus is a human, it has rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
b. Human life begins at conception (pretty undisputable scientifically). If left, it WILL grow and
develop into a member of the species. So, what is the distinction between a human being and a
human person?
c. There is no morally or ontologically relevant break in the process of human development
from conception to adulthood
d. Functionality (continues personhood, interest in continued life) VS. Essentiality (you can be a
person without yet forming functionality)
e. CONCLUSION: It is wrong to destroy the life of a human being regardless of what stage of
development he or she is at, which includes fetuses.
Understand why someone might reject the ideas that a human life doesn't attain moral standing
until birth, viability, the point of exhibiting brain activity, implantation, or sentience. - ANS 1.
Birth—but there is no essential difference between the fetus just before and just after birth, it's
a change in location
2. Quickening, when the mother is aware of baby and feels it move—the appearance of
humanness, but the essence of a fetus or anyone doesn't depend on someone's awareness of it
or appearances (if you're disfigured in an accident and don't look like most humans, you're still a
person)
2 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026 ALLRIGHTS RESERVED.
, 3. Viability, time you can first survive outside of the womb—but this varies and says nothing
about ones moral status. It's a commentary about technology
4. Brain activity, by analogy with brain death—but a dead brain is final and irreversible, the start
of a brain is temporary, and it will eventually develop to function
5. Implantation—a more important change of location, but again it has nothing to do with a
change in the nature of the unborn
6. Sentience, the time someone can first feel sensation (& therefore pain)—its less of a problem
to abort if the unborn can't feel pain, but, this confuses the experience of harm with the reality
of harm. (It might even be more painful, the pain receptors aren't fully developed, Just because
they can't feel hard doesn't mean they can't be hurt. If someone is unconscious and in a coma,
they can't feel pain. But this doesn't mean they aren't a person and its okay to hurt them)
What does Thomson use as her primary analogy to pregnancy, and why does she think that
abortion
is morally acceptable? - ANS a. you are hooked up to a famous violinist. If you are no longer
hooked up, the violinist will die.
b. By this she says—it would be nice of you to not have an abortion, but you're not morally
obligated to continue the pregnancy
c. In her analogy, you were kidnapped. Speaks to cases involving rape.
How does Thomson respond to the idea that in voluntarily participating in intercourse, knowing
of the chance it could bring about pregnancy, the mother is in part responsible for the unborn
person inside her if she does become pregnant, which itself gives the unborn person a right to
his
or her mother's care? - ANS Argument by analogy of burglars and people seeds (you take
steps against pregnancy, but it happens anyway). Says it would be selfish to abort, but still not
morally wrong.
What are some of the basic facts that have been discovered through science that are true about
3 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026 ALLRIGHTS RESERVED.
ANSWERS. VERIFIED 2025/2026.
Understand the steps to take while progressing toward virtue. - ANS -Following rules or
principles
-Making choices of one's own (developing moral reasoning)- Things can lead us astray—money,
power, people, ourselves. These same things test us, do we do what is right when we are
tested?
-Developing virtue
-Internalizing principles
-Reason working on the emotions
Understand examples we considered of how to become more virtuous, including how we can
identify moral exemplars. - ANS a. Just do what is virtuous and what's right even when you
don't feel like it
b. Moral exemplars (One who exhibits a significant amount of wisdom, One who lives an overall
good and virtuous life, One who exemplifies virtues in a clear way in key situations)
c. Reasoning holds desires in check- assisted by self-control
d. Study and learning
e. Self-evaluation
f. Training, discipline, correction, and accountability
g. 3 kinds of people in wisdom literature (Fool: has discipline, Simpleton: easily lead and
influenced, Wise person: constantly engaged in training, thankful for correction)
1 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026 ALLRIGHTS RESERVED.
,How do people respond to conflict with aggression, and how can we avoid this? - ANS abuse,
violence, accusing, attacking, confrontational, no resolutions, losing friendships
How do people respond to conflict by being passive, and how can we avoid this? -
ANS burying things, no resolution, people walk all over you, eventual outburst
How can conflicts and disagreements be handled in an assertive way? - ANS talking
respectfully, patience, kindness
Understand the personhood argument. - ANS a. Human beings possess intrinsic moral value.
If a fetus is a human, it has rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
b. Human life begins at conception (pretty undisputable scientifically). If left, it WILL grow and
develop into a member of the species. So, what is the distinction between a human being and a
human person?
c. There is no morally or ontologically relevant break in the process of human development
from conception to adulthood
d. Functionality (continues personhood, interest in continued life) VS. Essentiality (you can be a
person without yet forming functionality)
e. CONCLUSION: It is wrong to destroy the life of a human being regardless of what stage of
development he or she is at, which includes fetuses.
Understand why someone might reject the ideas that a human life doesn't attain moral standing
until birth, viability, the point of exhibiting brain activity, implantation, or sentience. - ANS 1.
Birth—but there is no essential difference between the fetus just before and just after birth, it's
a change in location
2. Quickening, when the mother is aware of baby and feels it move—the appearance of
humanness, but the essence of a fetus or anyone doesn't depend on someone's awareness of it
or appearances (if you're disfigured in an accident and don't look like most humans, you're still a
person)
2 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026 ALLRIGHTS RESERVED.
, 3. Viability, time you can first survive outside of the womb—but this varies and says nothing
about ones moral status. It's a commentary about technology
4. Brain activity, by analogy with brain death—but a dead brain is final and irreversible, the start
of a brain is temporary, and it will eventually develop to function
5. Implantation—a more important change of location, but again it has nothing to do with a
change in the nature of the unborn
6. Sentience, the time someone can first feel sensation (& therefore pain)—its less of a problem
to abort if the unborn can't feel pain, but, this confuses the experience of harm with the reality
of harm. (It might even be more painful, the pain receptors aren't fully developed, Just because
they can't feel hard doesn't mean they can't be hurt. If someone is unconscious and in a coma,
they can't feel pain. But this doesn't mean they aren't a person and its okay to hurt them)
What does Thomson use as her primary analogy to pregnancy, and why does she think that
abortion
is morally acceptable? - ANS a. you are hooked up to a famous violinist. If you are no longer
hooked up, the violinist will die.
b. By this she says—it would be nice of you to not have an abortion, but you're not morally
obligated to continue the pregnancy
c. In her analogy, you were kidnapped. Speaks to cases involving rape.
How does Thomson respond to the idea that in voluntarily participating in intercourse, knowing
of the chance it could bring about pregnancy, the mother is in part responsible for the unborn
person inside her if she does become pregnant, which itself gives the unborn person a right to
his
or her mother's care? - ANS Argument by analogy of burglars and people seeds (you take
steps against pregnancy, but it happens anyway). Says it would be selfish to abort, but still not
morally wrong.
What are some of the basic facts that have been discovered through science that are true about
3 @COPYRIGHT 2025/2026 ALLRIGHTS RESERVED.
