Normative ethics practice questions.

A critic argues that a rule utilitarian who keeps a rule in the rare case where breaking it would clearly produce more good is worshipping the rule, while one who breaks it in every such case has become an act utilitarian. This objection is that rule utilitarianism

• cannot say which rules a society happens to have adopted at any given time
• requires calculations that no ordinary agent could carry out before acting
• cannot account for the special obligations that people have towards their own families, which every plausible moral theory must somehow accommodate
• faces a dilemma between an irrational adherence to rules and a collapse into the theory it was meant to improve on

Answer: faces a dilemma between an irrational adherence to rules and a collapse into the theory it was meant to improve on

The objection is a dilemma, associated with Smart's charge of 'rule worship' and Lyons' collapse argument: keeping the rule when breaking it would do more good looks irrational for a consequentialist, while breaking it makes the view equivalent to act utilitarianism. The usual reply is that rules are assessed by the consequences of their general acceptance, including predictability and not relying on each agent's on-the-spot calculation, so keeping the rule in the exceptional case is not irrational.

Kant distinguishes maxims that cannot even be conceived as universal laws from maxims that could be conceived as universal but could not be willed. The maxim 'I will never help anyone in difficulty' fails, on his account, in the second way because

• a world in which nobody helped anyone is impossible to describe without contradiction, since the terms of the maxim conflict with one another
• most people would in fact be unwilling to live in such a world
• the agent, who will sometimes need help, cannot consistently will a world in which such help is unavailable
• helping others produces better consequences overall than refusing to help them

Answer: the agent, who will sometimes need help, cannot consistently will a world in which such help is unavailable

A world of universal indifference is perfectly conceivable, which is why the test has two stages; what fails is the willing, because the agent's own ends require what she is proposing to abolish. The false-promising maxim, by contrast, fails at the first stage, since universal promise-breaking would destroy the institution the maxim relies on.

Situationist critics of virtue ethics appeal to experiments in which small features of a setting — finding a coin, being in a hurry, the presence of a bystander — predicted helping behaviour better than any measured trait of the participants. The philosophical challenge this is taken to pose is that

• virtue ethics gives no guidance about what to do in any particular situation
• the experiments show that people are on the whole selfish rather than benevolent
• the broad, situation-general character traits that the theory relies on may be much rarer than it assumes
• moral education is impossible, since character cannot be changed once formed in childhood by parents or by teachers

Answer: the broad, situation-general character traits that the theory relies on may be much rarer than it assumes

The challenge is empirical but bites on a philosophical commitment: if global traits are rare, an ethics that tells us to become courageous or generous is recommending something few can attain. Replies question the traits the experiments measured and note that Aristotle regarded full virtue as rare and habituation as demanding.

A shopkeeper always gives correct change, and says frankly that he does so because dishonesty would ruin his trade. On Kant's account, how is this action to be assessed?

• It has moral worth, since the maxim of giving correct change could be universalised
• It has moral worth, because acting honestly is what a person of good character does
• It conforms to duty but lacks moral worth, because the motive is self-interest
• It is right only if honesty here produces more good than any alternative would

Answer: It conforms to duty but lacks moral worth, because the motive is self-interest

Kant separates acting in accordance with duty from acting from duty: the universalisability test settles what duty requires, but moral worth depends on the motive, so honesty practised for profit conforms to duty without moral worth. The tempting error is to think that passing the universalisability test confers worth on the action.

Aristotle says that the mean in which virtue consists is a mean 'relative to us' rather than an arithmetical mean. What does this claim commit him to?

• That the right amount varies with the agent and the circumstances
• That each person settles for herself which actions are virtuous ones
• That the virtuous response is always the midpoint between two extremes
• That strong feelings are always vicious, since virtue lies in moderation

Answer: That the right amount varies with the agent and the circumstances

The mean is fixed by what the situation and the agent's position call for, which is why it cannot be read off a rule and why practical wisdom is needed to find it. Note the neighbouring error: making the mean agent-relative is not subjectivism, since the person of practical wisdom, not the agent's own say-so, sets the standard.

A theory holds that practical reason grasps certain basic human goods, such as life, knowledge and sociability, and that an action is wrong if it acts directly against one of these goods. Which theory is this?

• Divine command theory, which grounds rightness in what God has commanded
• Rule utilitarianism, which assesses rules by the good their acceptance produces
• Contractarianism, which grounds rightness in agreement between rational parties
• Natural law theory, in the tradition descending from Aquinas

Answer: Natural law theory, in the tradition descending from Aquinas

The distinguishing mark is that the basic goods are said to be grasped by reason attending to what human beings need, not read off a command or calculated from consequences. Natural law is often confused with divine command theory because of its theological setting, but on Aquinas' account the precepts are accessible to reason without revelation.