Download Summary bioethics exam questions 2026 and more Exams Bioethics in PDF only on Docsity!
Bioethics
What field systematically studies ethical questions arising in patient care, biomedical research, public health, and biotechnology?
Descriptive ethics
Which branch of ethics reports what people actually believe and do?
Metaethics
Which branch of ethics asks what moral claims are and whether they are objective, true, or expressions of feeling?
applied, normative
Most bioethics is _______ rather than purely theoretical and ________ rather than purely descriptive.
legal
Which type of claim answers the question "What may or must we do under law?"
Autonomy
The common-morality idea that we should ask first instead of pushing people around becomes _________ in clinical ethics.
Beneficence
The common-morality idea that we should help people who are hurt becomes _________ in clinical ethics.
Non-maleficence
Which principle is usually summarized as "do no harm" in clinical ethics?
Justice
Which principle is most directly concerned with fair distribution of benefits and burdens in health care?
Explication
What term means making a familiar moral idea more precise without replacing it?
Principlism
What name is given to the Beauchamp and Childress approach built around autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice?
prima facie
What do we call a duty that normally binds unless it is overridden by a stronger moral consideration in a particular case?
Specification
What term names narrowing a broad principle so it can guide a concrete case?
Balancing
What term names weighing competing prima facie duties in a concrete case?
The Greatest Happiness Principle
What name did Mill give to the rule that actions are right insofar as they promote happiness?
hedonic calculus
What did Bentham call the process of weighing pleasures and pains to choose the best act?
preference utilitarianism
Singer's version of utilitarianism judges acts by how well they satisfy the preferences of everyone affected; this is _______.
Speciesism
Treating human interests as automatically more important than animals' like interests is
Categorical imperative
What is Kant's main test for whether an action is morally permissible?
end, means
In Kant's humanity formulation, persons must be treated as an ________ and never merely as a _________.
Phronesis
What Greek term names the practical wisdom central to virtue ethics?
Eudaimonia
What Greek term names flourishing or living well in Aristotle's ethics?
Xiao
In Confucian ethics, what term names filial piety?
Kantian Ethics
Which ethical lens treats autonomy as central because persons must never be used merely as means?
equal consideration of interests
What principle says that like interests deserve equal weight no matter whose interests they are?
Ren
Which Belmont principal grounds meaningful consent and extra protection for vulnerable participants?
Justice
Which Belmont principle asks who bears research burdens and who receives benefits?
paternalistic model
Which Emanuel and Emanuel model has the clinician choose what is best for the patient?
informative model
Which Emanuel and Emanuel model has the clinician provide facts and options but not value guidance?
Interpretive model
Which Emanuel and Emanuel model has the clinician help clarify the patient's values?
Deliberative Model
Which Emanuel and Emanuel model has the clinician recommend and reason about values with the patient?
process, signature
A consent form can document a decision, but informed consent is really a _______ rather than just a __________.
Reasonable Patient Standard
What disclosure standard asks what a reasonable patient would consider material to the decision?
teach-back
Asking the patient to explain the plan back in their own words is?
minimum necessary
Under HIPAA, staff should usually disclose only the _______ information needed for the task.
capacity
What term names a patient's decision-making ability when it is assessed for a specific choice at a specific time?
voluntariness
Which element of valid consent is at issue when a patient is pressured by staff or family?
Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital
Which case includes Cardozo's statement that every adult of sound mind has a right to decide what shall be done with their own body?
appreciation
Which Appelbaum and Grisso capacity ability asks whether the patient grasps how the information applies to them personally?
Duty to protect
Beyond a duty to warn, what broader duty did Tarasoff II impose on clinicians facing a serious threat to an identifiable person?
knowledge
What is the main goal of clinical research?
help this patient
What is the main goal of clinical care?
randomization
What process assigns participants to study arms by chance to keep comparisons fair?
equipoise
Clinical ________ exists when the expert community is genuinely uncertain which arm is better.
Polio Pioneers
What nickname was given to the children who took part in the 1954 polio vaccine trial?
double-blinding
Which design feature most directly prevented doctors' hopes from tipping borderline diagnoses in the placebo-controlled half of the 1954 polio trial?
clinical endpoint
What kind of endpoint measures something patients directly care about, like avoiding a stroke or living longer?
surrogate endpoint
An outcome like LDL level or tumor size used as a stand-in for patient benefit is a
DSMB (Data and Safety Monitoring Board)
What independent board can stop a trial early for harm, benefit, or futility?
misconception
When subjects think a study is being chosen mainly for their personal medical benefit, they are showing the therapeutic _______.
intention-to-treat
Which type of vulnerability is most clearly in play when a patient feels unable to refuse their own physician's request to enroll?
medical vulnerability
What type of vulnerability arises when serious illness or lack of alternatives makes a study especially hard to refuse?
infrastructure vulnerability
What type of vulnerability arises when the local setting cannot reliably deliver the follow-up or post-trial care it promises?
respect for persons
Which Belmont principle is most directly implemented through real consent and extra protection for vulnerable participants?
standard form
What is the name for the numbered-premises-plus-conclusion format used to make an argument explicit?
valid
What do we call an argument whose conclusion follows from its premises if those premises were true?
sound
What do we call an argument that is valid and also has true premises?
equivocation
Using the word "human" first in a biological sense and then in a moral sense within the same argument is ______.
begging the question
If an argument assumes abortion is murder in a premise and then concludes abortion is wrong, it is _______.
viability
What term names the point at which a fetus could plausibly survive outside the womb with intensive medical support?
future-like-ours argument
What is the name of Don Marquis's argument that abortion is wrong because it deprives the fetus of a valuable future?
Mary Ann Warren
Which philosopher argues from five marks of personhood?
body
In Thomson's violinist argument, a right to life does not automatically include a right to another person's ______.
Rosalind Hursthouse
Which thinker reframes abortion around character, relationships, and what is salient in a human life rather than fetal personhood?
zygote
What developmental term names the single cell formed at fertilization?
embryo
What developmental term names the developing human from implantation through the eighth week?
fetus
What developmental term names the developing human from the ninth week of gestation until birth?
responsibility objection
What objection says Thomson's violinist argument may fit rape better than pregnancy from consensual sex because sex can create responsibility for a dependent being?
Quickening
What common-law line treated abortion as a crime only after the pregnant woman first felt fetal movement?
pars viscerum matris
In Roman law, the fetus was treated as part of the mother, or _______.
Horatio Storer
Which AMA physician led the 19th-century campaign to criminalize abortion from conception?
stare decisis
What principle tells courts to stand by things decided unless there is a strong reason to overrule precedent?
trimester framework
Roe divided pregnancy regulation using a _______.
undue burden
What standard from Planned Parenthood v. Casey asks whether a law places a substantial obstacle in the path of abortion access?
