Essay Questions

Description

Each essay must be between 500-800 words (no more and no less). Use the ‘word

count’ feature in MS WORD to make sure you stay within the word count limits.

Please read the ‘How to Write an Ethics Paper’ before preparing your answers. This resource gives excellent advice on how to approach the midterm exam assignment.

DO NOT USE OUTSIDE SOURCES TO COMPLETE YOUR ANSWERS. USE THE READING AND MATERIAL FROM OUR COURSE SITE.

Choose 3 of the following 5

1- What limits should an employer be allowed to place on employees’ freedom of expression at work? Explain and give examples. Support your argument with insights from the course textbook (please provide in-text page references). What about acts of expression that happen away from the workplace? Provide details. Should employees be able to criticize employers in public? Should there be restrictions on the boss’s freedom of expression? (500 words)

2- Is it ever ethical to consider a job applicant’s personal attractiveness when hiring? Be sure to clearly define what ‘personal attractiveness’ means and support your position/ view with a moral argument. Conclude your essay with recommendations on how we could make sure that interviewers aren’t positively or negatively biased by a job candidate’s appearance? Explain and give examples. (500 words)

3- Consider the following situation: You are an army officer who has just captured an enemy soldier who knows where a secret time bomb has been planted. Unless defused, the bomb will explode and kill thousands of people. Would it be morally permissible to torture the soldier to get him to reveal the bomb’s location? Suppose you have also captured his children. Would it be permissible to torture them to get him to reveal the bomb’s location? Discuss this problem in light of both Utilitarian and Kantian moral theories and present arguments from BOTH moral perspectives for WHY TORTURE IS MORALLY WRONG. (500 words)

4-Give an example of an action that society generally permits (or forbids) but that you think is morally wrong (or morally permissible). Explain why you think the action is wrong (or permissible). What does this example show about the connection between an action’s being morally permissible and its being permitted by society? Defend your argument against TWO possible objections.

5-How is a corporation like a person? How are they different? Why might one argue that a corporation is a moral agent? Explain and give examples. Defend the argument that defend the moral agency of a corporation from TWO possible objections.