Students

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Learning Objectives

After reading these chapters, you should be able to:

Explain the role of a "savior baby" and the ethical issues surrounding PGD.
Recognize the ethics of selective abortion for disability.
Discuss the historical context of cloning and reproductive technologies.
List the options made available through genetic screening.
Summarize the debate surrounding stem cell research.
Analyze the viability of cloning and the broader fears emerging from the development of new technology regarding human biology.
Identify the issues surrounding the ethics of enhancement.

Identify the ethical issues unique to reducing a multiple pregnancy.
Summarize the statistics, laws, and facts regarding pregnancy and fetal development that provide a basis for the abortion debate
Recognize criteria put forth for defining personhood.
Explain gradualism as a way to understand moral status.
Analyze the question of abortion from the position of the natural law tradition.
Discuss the principle of the double effect as it relates to abortion.
List ethical questions regarding abortion in addition to the question of moral permissibility.

Discuss the role of hospice.
Explain the difference between active and passive euthanasia.
Recognize attacks on the moral significance of the active/passive distinction.
Distinguish between consequentialist and deontological approaches.
Define voluntary, involuntary, and nonvoluntary euthanasia.
Understand the difference between assisted and unassisted euthanasia.
Identify two principal points on which those who stress the sanctity of life differ from those who argue in favor of a right to die.
Summarize the slippery slope argument in euthanasia.

List the statistics related to crime and punishment in America.
Recognize ways in which the U.S. criminal justice system is exceptional in the world.
Identify backward looking theories and forward-looking theories as approaches to punishment.
Recall the difference between deontological and consequentialist approaches.
Discuss the differences between retribution and revenge.
Explain specific deterrence and general or indirect deterrence.
Summarize the role of rehabilitation in punishment.
Analyze arguments for and against the death penalty.

Recognize the moral costs of war to the soldiers who serve.
Summarize the history of just war theory.
List conditions that must be met if entrance into a war is to be considered just.
Discuss three conditions necessary for the just conduct of war.
Recall the four principal conditions of the principle of double effect.
Identify means of war that are considered evil in themselves.
List conditions for a just peace.
Analyze the limitations of just war theory with regards to terrorism.
Explain the two extremes of pacifism and Realpolitik relative to just war theory.

Define the terms race and ethnicity.
Discuss empirical issues relating to racial differences in the United States.
Explain racism as both a descriptive and an evaluative term.
Analyze the role of compensatory programs.
Recognize separatist, assimilationist, and pluralist models of the place of race and ethnicity in society.
Summarize equal rights, affirmative action, special protection, and market-based approaches to eliminating discrimination.
Explain the notion of justice as fairness.
Identify the different arguments in favor of hate crime laws.

Distinguish between sexist attitudes and sexist behavior.
Explain overt and institutional sexism.
Analyze sexism in language.
Discuss types of harassment.
Recognize three models of the place of gender in society.
Summarize the nature-nurture controversy as it relates to gender roles.
Identify the level of gender equality internationally.

Recognize the view that gay rights are human rights.
Discuss the complexity in defining sexual orientation.
Explain the ethical issues surrounding homosexuality.
Summarize different senses of the term unnatural.
Identify ways in which discrimination against homosexuals is unique.
Analyze the state’s interest in sanctioning marriage in terms of its view on homosexuality.
Recall the differences among toleration, acceptance, and endorsement.

Recognize the extent of the problem of world poverty and world hunger.
Discuss arguments in the case for helping other countries.
Recall the difference between positive and negative rights.
Distinguish between perfect duties and imperfect duties.
Identify the human component of natural disasters.
Analyze arguments in the case against helping other countries.

Discuss some of the practices common in contemporary animal farming.
Explain utilitarian concerns regarding the treatment of animals.
Summarize the topic of animal rights.
Identify the middle ground in the area of medical research on animals.
Recognize the common ground in the debate over animal agriculture and eating meat.

Discuss the ways in which Native Americans understand their relationship to the natural environment.
Recognize the tension between science and religion.
Identify three central questions that must be addressed when considering environmental ethics.
Recall human-centered approaches to environmental ethics.
Explain expanded circle approaches to environmental ethics.
Analyze the problem of environmental racism and possible solutions.
Summarize a Third World critique of the trend in American environmentalism.

Recognize the codes of ethics that hackers use to describe their own activities.
Discuss the emergence of a computer-mediated world.
Explain how ethics arise in response to a policy vacuum.
Summarize the concept of privacy and control of personal information.
Identify the issues of free speech, privacy, and censorship.
Analyze the impact of computers on property rights and intellectual property.
Discuss the ways in which responsibility issues have been transformed.

Exams

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