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Reading Companion to On Moral Grounds: the Art/Science of
Ethics (Copyright 1999 edition) Cite the sentence(s) in the text that best
supplies the requested information:
The Questioning or Expository Phase of Ethical Decision Making Pp. 1-76
Pg. 3
What is the subject matter of “ethics”?
Pg. 3
What is the risk entailed by a person’s lack of ethical competence?
Pg. 3
What constitutes “unprofessional” conduct?
Pg. 4
Does ethics as a method of inquiry have relevance to anything
besides the practice of medicine?
Pg. 7
What do we commonly mean when we say that something is
“moral”? When we say that something is “immoral”?
Pg. 7
What may be lacking in a claim that an act is moral (or immoral)
as distinguished from an act’s being ethical (or unethical)?
Pg. 8
For the authors, what is the bottom line meaning of a judgment
that a behavior is moral or immoral?
Pg. 8
Does the term moral apply outside of the realm of human conduct?
Pg. 9
Moral claims (prescriptions) for human conduct do not derive from
social customs or common practices. Moral claims address not
what people typically do, or like to do, or wish to do, or are
compelled to do. Moral claims address what aspect of human
behavior?
Pg. 9
What is the foundation of all morality?
Pg. 9
What is it in the human encounter with the world that inspires
and promotes moral conduct?
Pg. 10
Why are all human beings eligible for moral treatment?
Pg. 10
What is the fundamental experience that underlies the
“foundational moral experience”? (FME)
Pg. 11
At bottom, what proclamation does moral action make concerning
not the one who performs it, but about the one who receives the
effect of the action?
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Pg. 11
What set of conditions create what is called “the supreme
sacrifice”?
Pg. 12
What is it about the supreme sacrifice that makes it so aweinspiring to other human beings?
Pp. 13-15
Describe the paradox entailed by the uniquely human
understanding of oneself, the world, and mortality that makes the
supreme sacrifice an unfathomable mystery.
Pg. 15
In addition to demonstrating respect for others through our sense
of calling to treat them morally, what other kind of experience
typically can arouse one’s moral response and sense of
responsibility to do something about it?
Pg. 15
What are some of the by-products of the human sense of respect
for persons beyond the obvious ones of not inflicting physical harm
or deprivation of material welfare?
Pg. 16
Is there an objective or empirical proof for the conviction that
behaving morally has a constructive or affirmative effect on the
world or human life?
Pg. 19
How is the FME to be described in basic terms? What four
features of the human evaluation of experience come into play
when answering to the summons of the FME?
Pg. 20
Can the FME be elicited by other than a sense of connection to
another human being?
Pp. 21-23
What part do “faith” or “belief” have in establishing the certainty
we assign to some things we regard as true?
Pg. 23
Faith is not a mindless conviction or simply an expression of
fantasy life. What kind of act is involved in reaching a faith-based
conviction?
Pg. 25
Though we cannot pinpoint the occasion of its first occurrence,
what may have been the most significant transformation of human
nature to take place in our specie’s history?
Pg. 28
What is justice?
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Pg. 28
What is “the only coherent and fruitful basis for a moral and viable
society”?
Pg. 29
What do we call the commonplace expressions of a society’s
attempts to create and regulate justice?
Pg. 29
What are the three categories of justice?
Pg. 29
What does the category of “individual justice” regulate?
Pg. 29
What attributes must both (all) parties to an agreement possess in
order for the resulting agreement to be just?
Pg. 30
What distinguishes individually just practices from socially just
arrangements?
Pg. 30
What part does distributive justice play in the balance between
individual and social justice?
Pg. 32
What value promoted in American society is the principal barrier to
the attainment of justice?
Pg. 32
Even though we credit human beings alone with the capacity to
make moral judgments and choices, what human institutions
share in the duty and ability to advance or diminish justice?
Pg. 34
When there is an apparent conflict between two or more moral
values what role does ethics play in sorting out right conduct?
Pp. 35-6
What are common obstacles to effective ethical understanding?
Pp. 41
Good ethical process entails two phases of inquiry. What are they?
Pg. 43
Does everything need to be questioned? What is the chief obstacle
to claiming that some truths or facts are “self-evident”?
Pp. 44-5
Why isn’t determining the raw facts of a case or situation sufficient
for full understanding and reaching a moral conclusion?
Pp. 44-5
Despite circumstances some acts may be classed as absolutely
wrong at all times and under any conditions. What are some of
them?
Pp. 49-76
Briefly explain the role of each reality-revealing question in the
expository phase of ethical inquiry: What does the content of each
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add to the picture? How can lack of clarity or certainty misdirect
the project of fact-finding?
Pp. 64-5
What is the basis for the ethical theory known as
“consequentialism”? How does it justify actions performed in its
name?
Pg. 67
What is the principle of proportionality?
Pp. 71-2
Short essay answer:
Differences of viewpoint in ethical inquiry are a good thing. What
does it mean to say that the person who has or knows of no
alternative has no problem? Why is such a condition undesirable?
The Evaluational Phase of Ethical Decision Making Pp. 77-182
Pp. 79-83
Good ethical practice requires more than simply knowing the
existing rule that fits the case. It also requires creative
imagination. How does the exercise of creative imagination
contribute to progressive ethical insight and understanding? (Cite
four general justifications for this claim.)
Pg. 83
What are the six preconditions necessary for eliciting moral
creativity?
Pp. 83-6
(One sentence each). How does each precondition help encourage
moral creativity? OR how does its absence stifle it?
Pp. 89-97
Which of the following claims about affectivity do the authors
assert are true?
All moral experience derives its importance from the human caring we
feel towards others.
Feelings do not qualify as bona fide sources of knowledge concerning the
world outside of our own personal experience.
Reliable ethical conclusions depend solely upon discovering empirical
facts and sound reasoning.
Affective response to circumstances is both a legitimate reason for taking
up a moral problem and in knowing when a reasonably satisfying
resolution of a conflict of views has been reached.
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Character is an inborn feature of human personality and largely
determines the nature of a person’s qualities and attributes.
Morally sensitive persons generally derive a form of pleasure from doing
what they believe to be good or right.
Morally sensitive persons innately feel a sense of revulsion at witnessing
actions or events that manifest brutality, abuse, or willful refusal to care
for that which has some value.
Sound ethical process depends upon the elimination of personal affect
from making value judgments.
Morally sensitive persons should not become military officers.
The risk in taking affective interests and concerns too seriously is that
rational or objective understanding may be distorted in favor of, or
against, reaching certain conclusions.
Pg. 96
Expertise and formal credentials in a subject area are no guarantee
of the correctness of a person’s views. What are three impediments
that may encumber or cause errors in even an authoritative
expert’s views?
Pg. 100
What constitutes reasoning?
Pg. 101
What does the term “reasonable” say about a point of view?
Pg. 102
What is the risk entailed by being overly rationalistic?
Pg. 103
How does the influence of authority potentially mislead a moral
analysis?
Pp. 104-6
What sources of authority play a major part in ethical analysis
conducted in a group setting? Give an example of a way in which
each can interfere with a group’s maintaining its objectivity and
clarity.
Pg. 106
True or false? When possible the mind should not rest with
accepting something as true on the authority of another.
Pg. 110
What are some synonyms for the term “principles”?
Pg. 111
Even principles are subject to suspension depending upon what?
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Pg. 113
What does it take to harmonize the fact that, though principles are
at the core of ethics, ethical conduct is more than conformity with
a set of rules?
Pg. 116
What is wrong with absolutizing a moral principle?
Pg. 118
There are three ways in which “ideals” and “principles” differ in
their focus and influence. Those very same factors reveal the
relative strengths and weaknesses of ideals in their claim to our
loyalty and service. What are they?
Pg. 119
Have you ever wondered what is meant by “that’s the exception
that proves the rule”? How can something that the rule doesn’t
cover demonstrate the value of the rule?
Pg. 120
When confronted with a conflict between two equally valid
principles, what criterion should guide the temporary need to
choose between them?
Pg. 126
Can you think of an exception to the authors’ assertion that, “If
anything has been held by a large number of persons for a long
period, it most likely is not completely valueless”… “there is
probably something worthy of retrieval even in highly erroneous
group positions.”
Pg. 129
What feature of social existence do human beings tend to
substitute for individual animal instinct when faced with
uncertainty in a time or setting that requires an urgent decision?
Pp. 132-5
Humor’s role in sound decision making is that it can relieve
human beings of what common foibles and flaws in the decision
making enterprise?
Pp. 135-8
Even though no one would ever choose to be subjected to a tragedy
and have to learn some new truth in that way, what is a potential
benefit a person or a community might derive from going through
and surviving a tragedy?
Pp. 145-50 How do the words “conscience” and “conscious” share an
underlying link?
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Pg. 148-9
In what way does having a good conscience amount to possessing
a virtue, like having the virtue of courage, or intelligence, or
loyalty? What benefit does conscience bestow upon a person?
Pp. 152-7
Why doesn’t “taboo guilt” improve a person’s moral stature? Why
doesn’t “egoistic guilt” improve a person’s moral stature? “Realistic
guilt” is the proper result of what kind of action? Guilt should be
the experience that follows upon what kind of behavior?
Pg. 159
What condition generates legitimate collective guilt on the part of a
group or a whole society?
Can you give an example of any collective guilt for which American
society might be condemned today?
Pp. 163-76 What are the seven specific hazards to be aware of and avoided in
moral discourse?
Short essay answer:
Based on your personal experience, is there one of these that is
more common than the others as an obstacle to grasping “the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”?