Exam 2

Question 0

Moral Hazard

Answer 0

exists when people are willing to take an undue risk because the costs associated with that risk would be partially or wholly passed on to others

Question 1

What is paternalism?

Answer 1

• view that social coercion can legitimately be employed to prevent individuals from harming themselves
• permissible for the state to use its coercive power to “protect people from themselves” even when others are not harmed.

Question 2

Cognitive Biases

Answer 2

patterns of reasoning that lead to illogical or irrational conclusions

Question 3

The Rule of Law

Answer 3

• No one is above the law

- There is a substantive and procedural due process to power is not abused

Question 4

Torture

Answer 4

any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession

• punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed,
• intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind,
• when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

Question 5

“Ticking Time Bomb” cases

Answer 5

Incidents were torture is considered moral due to the urgency needed to obtain information that could prevent danger that is imminent

Question 6

Privacy

Answer 6

privacy is the right to control access to our bodies, personal spaces, and information about us.

Question 7

The “Market Place of Ideas”

Answer 7

the truth arises out of the competition between different ideas in a free, unconstrained public dialogue—just as the best products arise out of the competition between different products in a free, unconstrained economic market.

Question 8

The Offense Principle

Answer 8

the fact that speech or conduct is seriously offensive to others is a good—though not necessarily decisive—reason to prohibit it.

Question 9

The Brandenberg Test

Answer 9

• whether the advocacy of free speech can be directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action;
• if it can not directly cause lawless conduct then the speech is a acceptable

Question 10

“Fighting Words”

Answer 10

those personally abusive epithets which, when addressed to the ordinary citizen, are, as a matter of common knowledge, inherently likely to provoke violent reaction.”

Question 11

Specific Detterence

Answer 11

Preventing an individual from committing unlawful acts by incarceration.

Question 12

General Deterrence

Answer 12

Preventing general public from committing crimes by utilizing the punishment of others as an example.

Question 13

Retributivism

Answer 13

• basic principle of justice that those who are guilty of crimes deserve to be punished
• Punishment should occur whether or not there is a deterrence factor

Question 14

Lex Talionis ( The Principle of Porportionality)

Answer 14

• law of retaliation
• punishment should match the degree and kind of offense committed
• “eye for an eye”

Question 15

Radical Egalitarianism

Answer 15

?

Question 16

Moderate Egalitarianism

Answer 16

?

Question 17

Brandenburg v. Ohio

Answer 17

KKK rally leader was convicted for hate speech that occured in a forest but appealed conviction due to violation of his first amendement.

-Supreme Court reveresed his conviction on grounds that there was “no clear & present danger” or this was no “immenient lawless aciton” that could have occured as a result of the speech.

Question 18

Skokie v. NSAP

Answer 18

• National Socialist Party plans march through Skokie, Illinois which is a predominately jewish community with Holocaust suvivors.
• Circuit court prohibited those attending rally from wearing nazi memorabilia
• Supreme Court decided that the swastika is a form of free speech and could not be considered “fighting words”

Question 19

Texas v. Johnson

Answer 19

was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that invalidated prohibitions on desecrating the American flag enforced in 48 of the 50 states. Justice William Brennan wrote for a five-justice majority in holding that the defendant Gregory Lee Johnson’s act of flag burning was protected speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Question 20

Snyder v. Phelps

Answer 20

was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that speech on a public sidewalk, about a public issue, cannot be liable for a tort of emotional distress, even if the speech is found to be “outrageous”.

Question 21

Explain Paternalism?

Answer 21

Paternalism is the view that social coercion can legitimately be employed to prevent individuals from harming themselves. So, according to this view, a person’s freedom can legitimately be restricted for that person’s own sake; thus, paternalism implies that it is permissible for the state to use its coercive power to “protect people from themselves” even when others are not harmed.

Question 22

What is Mill’s rejection to paternalism?

Answer 22

1) Individuals know better and care more about what makes them happy than anyone else
2) Even when an individual makes a bad decision, the bad consequences resulting from that decision are outweighed by the good of allowing people to exercise their freedom
- Since the utilitarianism aim of gov. is to maximize happiness a government should not be paternalistic

Question 23

Conly’s three objections to Mill’s argument against Paternalism?

Answer 23

1. Sometimes even competent adults do not know what is in their own self-interest
2. But, what’s more, even when they do know what is in their own self-interest, they often do not have the strength of will to do it.
3. Sometimes our behavior has irreversible, far-reaching, and dangerous consequences. So, Mill’s assumption that, when people make bad choices, the freedom of being allowed to act on these choices outweighs the bad consequences is false. For example, the possible consequences of riding a motorcycle without a helmet are irreversible, extensive, and really bad.

Question 24

Explain of the UN defines torture?

Answer 24

“any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

Question 25

Why is torture “Prima Facie” morally wrong in both utilitarianism and rights framework?

Answer 25

• There is no utility to torture, intentionally inflicting pain does not bring amount happiness therefore should be avoided
• Torture violates the autonomy of an Invidvidual therefore rights are destroyed in the process

Question 26

Deroshowitz’s case for torture warrants ?

Answer 26

• ticking time bomb cases
  1) allow torture to take place in secret, conducted by governmental officials acting on their own with no independent oversight, or we can “outsource” the job to allies who do not share our moral qualms about torture;
• 2)we can develop a system of judicial oversight, which requires government agents to provide evidence to an independent authority (judge) showing that the candidate for torture has vital information needed to avert an imminent threat and that torture is the last resort and is likely to elicit the information.

Question 27

What is Mill’s argument against society censoring opinions, even false or offensive?

Answer 27

1. Let us suppose that the censored opinion is completely true: if this is the case, censorship is bad because people are denied the truth.
2. Let us suppose that the censored opinion is partially true (and partially false): if this is the case, censorship is bad because it prevents the truth from emerging through a process of rational debate.
3. Let us suppose that the censored opinion is completely false: if this is the case, censorship is still bad because: a) unchallenged true opinions will become mere dogma, and b) people will forget why false opinions are false.

Question 28

Explain Mill’s notion of “Market Place of Ideas”?

Answer 28

That all opinions are freely expressed whethere true or false; those who carry strong evidence will be supported and those ideas that have weak evidence will not be

Question 29

According to Mill when can speech be restricted?

Answer 29

speech may justifiably be restricted only when it has a direct and immediate tendency to cause harm.

-Yelling fire in a crowded theatre

Question 30

Explain the facts and issues in Texas v. Johnson

Answer 30

Facts:

• During the 1984 Republican National Convention, Gregory Lee Johnson (defendant), a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, participated in a political demonstration against the policies of the Reagan administration and some Dallas-based corporations. After a march through the city streets,
• Johnson burned an American flag while protesters chanted. No one was physically injured or threatened with injury, although several witnesses were seriously offended by the flag burning.
• Johnson was convicted by the State of Texas (plaintiff) for desecrating a flag in violation of Texas law.
• Johnson challenged his conviction in state court on the grounds that the law violated his First Amendment free speech right.
• The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari

Issue:
-Is the burning of an American flag as a means of political protest a form of speech that is protected under the First Amendment?

Question 31

How is justice Brennan’s position consistent with Mill’s view on free speech?

Answer 31

• principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”
• (This is consistent with Mill’s view on free expression.) State officials do not have the authority to designate symbols to be used to communicate only limited sets of messages

Question 32

How is Justice Rehquest’s view at odds with Mill?

Answer 32

high purposes of a democratic society is to legislate against conduct that is regarded as evil and profoundly offensive to the majority of people….”

• directly opposed to Mill’s; Rehnquist is advocating the Offense Principle.
• only deprives Johnson of one means of political expression. He is still free to maintain his beliefs and express them in other ways

Question 33

Explain the utilitarian justification of state punishment?

Answer 33

-Forward looking, seek to produce better outcomes
punishment has no intrinsic moral value; rather, punishment is justified solely in virtue of the good outcomes that it brings about—namely, the prevention or deterrence of criminal behavior.
-By nature, criminal behavior tends to produce negative utility (unhappiness); so, society should aim to reduce the crime rate
-approaches that led to the greatest amount of utility to society (increased happiness)

Question 34

Explain an Retributivism justification of state punishment?

Answer 34

-backward looking- seek to correct past wrongs
punishment has intrinsic moral value: punishment is morally valuable independent of the good outcomes that it might bring about.
-basic principle of justice that those who are guilty of crimes deserve to be punished.
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