Chapter 7 Quiz: Justice
Multiple Choice
1. In Rawls's "original position," you reason about justice:
a) From the perspective of the most talented and hardworking members of society
b) Without knowing your race, class, natural talents, or place in society
c) By calculating the average utility across all possible social positions
d) Based on your community's traditional values and relationships
2. Rawls's "difference principle" holds that economic inequalities:
a) Are always unjust because they violate the principle of equal dignity
b) Are always just if they arose from voluntary transactions
c) Are permissible only if they benefit the least advantaged members of society
d) Should be maximized in order to create the best incentives for productivity
3. Nozick's entitlement theory claims that justice in distribution is:
a) Determined by the pattern of the distribution — who has how much relative to others
b) Historical — dependent on whether holdings arose through just acquisition and transfer
c) Determined by what maximizes aggregate utility across all members of society
d) Based on what principles everyone would agree to from behind a veil of ignorance
4. The Wilt Chamberlain argument is designed primarily to show that:
a) Athletes deserve to earn very high salaries for their rare talents
b) Free markets are morally superior to all other economic systems
c) Maintaining any patterned distribution of justice requires restricting voluntary choices
d) Natural talents are morally arbitrary and their benefits should be redistributed
5. Peter Singer's argument about global poverty concludes that:
a) We are obligated to help distant strangers to the same degree as drowning children near us
b) Geographic proximity determines the strength of our moral obligations to others
c) Charitable giving, while admirable, is never morally required
d) Utilitarian calculations rarely support redistribution from wealthy to poor countries
6. In Confucian ethics, the doctrine of "graded love" means:
a) We should love all people equally but more intensely than we currently do
b) Moral obligations are differentiated by specific relationships, with stronger obligations to those close to us
c) Love diminishes with social distance and we owe nothing to distant strangers
d) The ruler's love for his people must be greater than a parent's love for a child
7. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa applied Ubuntu principles by:
a) Pursuing maximum criminal sentences for human rights violators to deter future abuses
b) Distributing reparations payments equally to all Black South Africans regardless of individual harm
c) Prioritizing truth-telling and restoration of relationship over retributive punishment
d) Granting blanket amnesty to all perpetrators without requiring testimony or accountability
8. The "communitarian objection" to Rawls (associated with Sandel, Walzer, and others) holds that:
a) The difference principle does not redistribute wealth far enough to achieve genuine equality
b) The veil of ignorance encodes an individualist conception of the self that distorts moral reasoning
c) Rawls's framework is too focused on communities and not enough on individual rights
d) The original position should also require ignorance of your generation and historical period
9. From a Rawlsian perspective, which of the following would be most likely to be considered JUST?
a) A society with perfect equality of income but where basic political liberties are restricted
b) A society with high inequality where gains flow primarily to the wealthy, raising their income but not the worst-off
c) A society with significant income inequality where the arrangement produces better outcomes for the poor than any alternative would
d) A society that maximizes total GDP regardless of how it is distributed
10. Which of the following best captures the key difference between retributive and restorative justice?
a) Retributive justice requires rehabilitation; restorative justice requires punishment
b) Retributive justice asks what punishment is deserved; restorative justice asks how harm can be repaired and relationship restored
c) Retributive justice focuses on future deterrence; restorative justice focuses on past desert
d) Retributive justice is practiced in the Global South; restorative justice is a Western liberal invention
Short Answer
11. What is the "baseline problem" for Nozick's entitlement theory? Explain why it creates difficulties for the claim that the current distribution of property is historically just.
12. The chapter says that Confucian and Ubuntu frameworks both challenge the demand for impartiality in justice, but they do so differently. Explain the difference between their challenges.
13. Why does the utilitarian approach to criminal justice sometimes conflict with retributive justice? Give a specific example where the two approaches would recommend different sentences.
14. Explain why climate justice is especially challenging for all the frameworks covered in this chapter. Which framework do you think handles the cross-generational dimension best, and why?
Essay Questions
15. (Short essay, 400–500 words): A city is deciding whether to build a new stadium that will bring economic activity and jobs to the city, but will require displacing a low-income neighborhood whose residents cannot afford to move to comparable housing in the area. Apply the Rawlsian and Ubuntu frameworks to this decision. Where do they agree? Where do they diverge? Which framework's analysis do you find most compelling, and why?
16. (Longer essay, 600–800 words): The chapter presents a tension between frameworks that ground justice in universal principles (Rawls, utilitarianism) and frameworks that ground it in particular relationships (Confucianism, Ubuntu). Is this tension resolvable, or does it reflect a genuine and permanent disagreement about what persons are? Develop your argument using specific evidence from the frameworks, and take a position.
Answer Key (Selected)
- b
- c
- b
- c
- a
- b
- c
- b
- c
- b