ETHICS 320
FINAL EXAMINATION STUDY GUIDE
The final exam takes place on May 4 at 7:15 p.m. All students must take the exam at the
scheduled date and time. No exceptions will be granted.
The final exam will consist of approximately 10 essay-type questions. You should use
your discretion to determine how much is required to provide a complete answer to each
question.
The exam will cover the contemporary moral issues that we have studied during the
second half of the semester starting from the midterm: sexual morality, abortion, suicide and
physician assisted suicide, assisted reproductive technologies, genetic research and the moral
status of animals.
The questions on the exam will be based on the readings, handouts, class discussions,
presentations and lectures. This study guide by this reference incorporates all the reading
questions, questions posited during power-point presentations, group discussion questions, and
homework assignments as well as questions connected to documentaries that we have seen.
The final exam requires that:
 you studied, understood, and explored all the scientific, legal, religious (where relevant),
and ethical implications of the above mentioned contemporary moral issues
 you are able to present and argue an ethical position (Western and/or Eastern ethical
approach) on a given issue
 analyze arguments for and against a moral position
 contrast different perspectives on a specific issue
 present your own argument or a counter-argument on a moral issue
When preparing for the final exam, use the following resources: textbook, handouts, lecture
notes, videos and website material (http://myweb.lmu.edu/mjuszli).
 Elements of critical thinking and the process of moral reasoning:
o Clarifying concepts
o Formulating the problem
o Delineating facts and assumptions
o Delineating possible solutions
o Evaluation
o Reply to objections
o Consider consequences
1. Sexual Morality

Clarifying concepts: sex, sexuality, sexual behavior, embodiment

Arguments for the liberal view, moderate view and conservative view

Moral issues: dignity and respect for persons, autonomy and consent,
fidelity and trust, justice and equality, unnatural, consequences, the common
good
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1. Roger Scruton, Sexual Morality
2. Alan H. Goldman, Plain Sex
3. Chung M. Tse, Confucianism and Contemporary Ethical
Issues
4. Geoffrey Parrinder, Chinese Yin and Yang
2. Abortion
 Methods of abortion
 Clarifying concepts: abortion, pregnancy, personhood
 The moral status of the fetus
 The embryogenesis process
 Legal, psychological, and social aspects
1.
2.
3.
4.
Don Marquis, Why Abortion is Immoral?
Judith Jarvis Thomson, A Defense of Abortion
R.E. Florida, Buddhist Approaches to Abortion
Ren Zong Qui et al., Can Late Abortion Be Ethically
Justified?
3. Physician Assisted Suicide
 Euthanasia
 Assisted vs. unassisted euthanasia
 Ordinary and extraordinary care
 Killing and allowing to die
 Not starting treatment and stopping treatment
 PVS patients
 Pain and suffering
 Advanced directives, substituted judgment, and best interest standard
 Arguments for and against physician assistance in dying
 Duty-based and rights-based views
 Intended versus foreseen but unintended taking life
 Moral issues: sanctity of life, autonomy and self-determination,
nonmalificence, compassion and the principle of mercy, death with dignity,
quality of life, the physician’s role as a healer, patient competence, justice
and the principle of equality, burdens to society and the duty to die
1. John D. Arras, Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Tragic View
2. Karma Lekshe Tsomo, Extending Life and Hastening Death
3. Dong and Wang, Life, Death, and End-of-Life Care: Taoist
Perspective
4. Assisted Reproductive Technologies
 Diagnostic technologies
 Fertility technologies
 Ethical implications of ARTs
2
1. The Constitutional Aspects of Procreative Liberty, Ethics
Committee of the American Fertility Society
2. Ruth Macklin, What is Wrong with Commodification?
3. Sara Ann Ketchum, Selling Babies and Selling Bodies
5. Genetic Research
 Genetic technologies: gene therapy and genetic enhancement
 Ethical concerns
1. LeRoy Walters and Julie Gage Palmer, Germ-Line Gene
Therapy: Ethically Acceptable in Principle
6. The Moral Status of Animals
 Extrinsic, intrinsic, and inherent value
 Speciesism and moral status
 Conventional, animal welfare, animals rights, animal liberation views
 Xenotransplantation (questions)
1. Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights
2. Tibor R. Machan, Do Animals Have Rights?
3. Mary Evelyn Tucker, Ecological Themes in Taoism and
Confucianism
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