PHL
205
CONTEMPORARY MORAL ISSUES
SPRING 2014
EXAM 4 STUDY GUIDE
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: What percentage of the population are
homosexuals, according recent and careful studies? What were the
original motivations for states requiring a "marriage license?" In
about how many states is same sex marriage legal in the U.S.? What
has been the recent trend? What happened recently in Oregon
regarding same sex marriage? What are the arguments for and against
legalization of same sex marraige? Are there any alternatives to
having marriage rules handled by the government and making peoples'
individual romatnic and life partner choices subject to "the tyranny
of the majority"? What did the U.S. Supreme Court case Lawrence v.
Texas (2003) establish? What is the difference between "Gay
Marriage" and "Civil Unions" or "Domestic Partnerships"? What legal
benefits do heterosexual married couples enjoy which gay couples
desire? What are Thomas Sowell's arguments against gay marraige and
what are some responses? What do polls and recent elections indicate
about what most Americans think about the concept of same-sex
marriage? Is there a generational difference?
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Which groups are targeted for special
treatment by affirmative action? Which groups are not? In
general, what do affirmative action laws say must be done in college
admissions, employment and the awarding of government contracts? How
are they different from mere anti-discrimination laws? Who is
subject to these laws? (all government agencies? all private
businesses? both? only certain government agencies or particular
kinds of companies?) What are some examples of actions required by
government agencies, businesses and schools to meet affirmative
action requirements? What is a meritocracy?
What new "diversity" policy did the instructor and economist Walter
E. Williams suggest for grading? How does it relate to race and
gender-based preferences? What is the difference between strong and
weak forms of affirmative action? What is problematic about
compensitory justifications of racial preferences and concepts of
racial privilege and racial guilt? What is "economic" affirmative
action? What does the American Anthropological Association have to
say about the concept of race?
What was Frank Ricci's lawsuit against the City of New Haven,
Connecticut about?
Why does Thomas Sowell call Affirmative Action for blacks a "grand
fraud"? What are his arguments against it? When official race-based
preferences were ended in the University of California system, what
was the results for African-American students? What does he say
about the claim that a certain "critical mass" of minorities is
necessary for minority students to do well? What does he say about
the argument that we need racial preferences becasue young
minorities need role models?
What unintended consequences did LBJ's "Great Society" programs
have?
How do black immigrants from Nigeria, Jamaica and the Caribbean fare
compared with the native black population in academic and economic
performance? What are some other explanations for differences
in academic and economic achievement among African-Americans besides
overt discrimination or genetic differences discussed in class and
cited by John McWhorter in his book Losing the Race? How might the academic and
economic achievement levels of Asian immigrants support the type of
explanations for racial disparity offered by McWhorter? How do
blacks, Hispanics, whites and Asians rank in rates of incarceration,
academic performance and out of wedlock births? What explanations
were suggested by the instructor for these differences?
If you account for the higher single parenthood rate and the fact
that more blacks live in the South, where wages (but also cost of
living) are lower, what happens to the disparities between the wages
of blacks and whites? What are some harmful effects of Affirmative
Action policies?
DIVERSITY AND ACADEMIC BIAS:
What arguments in favor of "rethinking diversity" does the
instructor give in his article? What does he mean when he discusses
diversity's "Balkanizing influence"? How does he argue that an
inordinate focus on racial or ethnic identity and past
discrimination divide people rather than bring them together? What
notion of diversity does he support? What does the American
Anthropological Association say about race?
What is the general political makeup of academia? What are some
examples of academic bias cited by David Horowitz? What reasons does
Horowitz give for believing that the present practices in academia
are an offense to the spirit of free inquiry and violate the
Constitution? What does the National Association of Scholars have to
say about issues of race class and gender and the inclusion of
non-Western work and work by minorities and women in campus
curriculum? How does Peter Schwartz argue that the concept of
diversity is itself a racist notion?
What does "Diversity" mean when used by LCC or other educational
institutions or by government or industry? Does it mean skin color
or national origin, or does it mean diversity of opinion and point
of view? What are problems associated with a racially, ethnically
and culturally mixed society? Besides making people race-conscious
and aware of past and present discrimination against various groups,
what other approach did the instructor suggest may in the long run
prove more successful?
CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM: According
to
the instructor what were the primary causes of the housing boom and
bust and subsequent economic collapse? Why is it a bad explanation
to
blame "greed on Wall Street,"unbridled capitalism" or "speculators"?
Why reasons did the instructor give that the repeal of
Glass-Steagall
was only a catalyst and not a cause of the global recession?
Why does Milton Friedman say that no one on earth
can
make a pencil? What is this statement intended to illustrate?
Define collectivism (socialism/communism) and capitalism.
According to Steve Forbes, what events in the 20th Century gave rise
to
the idea that collectivism works? Why is this a misinterpretation of
history? How did the election of Ronald Reagan affect attitudes in
the
U.S.? How does Forbes defend capitalism against the charge that it
is
immoral? How does he argue that philanthropy and capitalism are flip
sides of the same coin? According to Forbes, why is it necessary to
let
capitalism's inherent disruptiveness run its course? Why does he
argue
that capitalism is the friend of the environment? What are Forbes'
three collectivist myths and five principles of prosperity?
What is the point of Bill Burrows' "Taxing Parable"?
What is money? What is the market? How is the price of an item
determined in a market system? What did Adam Smith mean by the
"invisible hand of the markeplace?" Rather than fine tune the
machinery
of the economy and make it run more efficiently, how do governments
more typically create market distortions and depress production? How
does the instructor argue that corporations have no power over you
unless it is actually given to them by the government? Who in
society
does he suggest is most guilty of "greed?" Why? Why does he warn to
beware of college professors? What did Founding Fathers such as
Samuel
Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison believe about
property rights? Do the wealthy inherit most of their wealth or earn
it
in some way? Why is inequality the natural consequence of freedom?
Who
pays most of the income taxes in America? Who doesn't pay?
Explain how markets may be described as "self-correcting." Explain
the
concepts of economic Darwinism or "creative destruction" (a phrase
coined by economist Joseph Shumpeter and described in Forbes when he
talks about capitalism's inherent disruptiveness). How might
such
a "hands-off" approach promote the general welfare of society?
What were Karl Marx's criticisms of capitalism? What is the
communist
slogan which describes how economic goods should be distributed?
What
is class struggle? Who are the proletariat and bourgeosie? Why
didn't
the worldwide violent revolution of the working class take place as
Marx suggested, but only isolated worker's revolutions in countries
like Russia, China, Cuba, Spain and South America? What does the
instructor mean when he suggests that communism is not "scalable?"
Which, if any of the major goals of the communist manifesto have
been
implemented in America today? What did the instructor mean when he
said
socialism and capitalism exist on a continuum? What does the Russian
writer in Pravda have to say about current U.S. Economic Policy
under
Obama?
What is laissez-faire
capitalism? What is "crony" capitalism? Why is crony capitalism
phoney
capitalism? Why is it more accurately called "crony socialism" or
"crony fascism"? How is it different from what Walter Donway
describes as "making money"? How are "green energy" projects such as
Solyndra a good example of crony socialism? What are the three ways
government can fund its spending? What effect does each have on the
economy? What is the Federal Reserve? What is Keyensian economics
and
how is it distinguished from the Austrian school? How was the $787
billion Democrat stimulus package an example of an application of
the
Keynesian theory? How was Cash for Clunkers also an example? " Why
are
economic issues moral issues?
Define the following terms: Economics, deficit, national debt and
sovereign debt. What's going on in Greece, Portugal and Spain and
other
European countries, and how might this activity is a harbringer of
things to come in this country? What brought on Greece's problems
and
how is the U.S. emulating them? What was the point of the whimsical
Clarke &
Dawe
video about the sovereign debt crisis? To whom is this money owed?
What ethical issues does
deficit spending on the scale currently being practiced raise?
In what way may Social Security be described as a Ponzi or pyramid
scheme, similar to the scheme with which Bernard Madoff's fraudulent
bilked rich Palm Beach investors? How did Chile put its retirement
system on found footing? China is slowing down purchases of
treasuries
and Japan's is unable to buy as many in the wake of the tsunami and
subsequent nuclear disaster. What happens when they, or the rest of
the
world stop buying U.S. treasury bonds because they worry about being
repaid? What warnings did the U.S. Government recently receive from
the
financial rating agency Standard & Poors?