Week 4 Quiz

A housemate says a justice dispute is settled once everyone gets the same share. Which statement matches the course's definition of justice?

Select one.

• Everyone receiving exactly the same share of every single good, whatever they did
• Giving each person their due, with theories split on what is due
• Whatever outcome a majority of the group approves
• Whatever result the current rules happen to require

A new rule bars some people from a public library after dark, so they cannot reach an evening class there. In Berlin's (1958) terms, which kind of problem is this?

Select one.

• Positive liberty, because the person lacks the real means to act on the choice
• Equality of outcome, because results end up uneven
• Negative liberty, because someone placed a barrier in the way
• A positive right, because the library must provide a service

A team splits its year-end bonus evenly among all members, whatever each one sold. Which of the three questions of equality does this policy answer?

Select one.

• Equality of opportunity, a fair start for everyone
• Moral equality, the premise that every person counts the same and deserves equal concern
• Negative liberty, freedom from interference
• Equality of outcome, results close together across people

Which sentence appears in Mill's On Liberty (1859), Chapter I, exactly as this course quotes it from the Project Gutenberg edition?

Select one.

• His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.
• His own good, or the offense he gives, is a sufficient warrant.
• Power may rightfully prevent either harm or offense to others.
• His own safety, physical or moral, is the first warrant for law.

In this week's case set, an adult scooter rider skips a helmet, and the only reason offered for compulsion is the rider's own good. What result does the harm principle give?

Select one.

• Permitted, since the rider might be badly injured
• Ruled out, since the rider's own good is not a warrant
• A hard case, since an injury always counts as harm
• Permitted, since a crash would offend other riders

In this week's case set, the outbreak case is a hard case: Mill's two pinned sentences do not, by themselves, settle how much risk to others counts as harm or who decides.

True or false.

• True
• False

Which pairing of thinker and idea is correct? (Rawls wrote A Theory of Justice in 1971; Nozick wrote Anarchy, State, and Utopia in 1974.)

Select one.

• Nozick: the veil of ignorance
• Rawls: the minimal state
• Rawls: the difference principle
• Nozick: the original position

According to Nozick's entitlement theory, what makes a distribution of holdings fair? (The item asks what the theory claims, not whether it is right.)

Select one.

• It works to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of the society
• It is the pattern people would choose from behind a veil of ignorance
• It leaves everyone's holdings close together in size
• Every holding arose through justice in acquisition or transfer

In the running analysis (an illustrative argument with no author) for a bicameral legislature in a new federation, which premise is normative?

Select one.

• Giving smaller units a voice is worth slower lawmaking
• Article I, Section 3 gives every state two senators
• Of 188 national parliaments, 81 are bicameral
• A second chamber slows legislation and catches errors

Select every statement about analyzing the running analysis (illustrative) that matches this course.

Select every option that applies.

• Its premises include three empirical premises and one normative premise
• Finding its unstated assumption shows that the thesis is false
• The IPU count shows a second chamber is a large minority's choice, not most parliaments'
• Its strongest counterargument is stated charitably before the reply
• The IPU count proves that every federation needs two chambers