Chapter 13 Self Quiz

. In 1972 the United States created the Office of Technology Assessment performed a similar function to which federal agency?

FBI

NSA

FDA

ATF

. How might we evaluate the government's assessment of the Internet?

Highly accurate;, predicted exactly how the technology would be used

Somewhat inaccurate; misidentified good consequences as bad

Somewhat accurate; predicted many uses of the technology but not all

Highly inaccurate; missed crucial directions the technology would take

. If we think of the introduction of new technologies in society as social experiments, then which of the following criteria would be relevant for evaluating the moral permissibility of such experiments?

Is it possible to stop the experiment?

Have the participants given their informed consent to participating?

Are the potential hazards and benefits distributed fairly?

All of the above

. If we think of autonomous military robots as an ongoing social experiments, we could object that they are morally problematic because

we may not be able to stop the experiment if we so wish.

we have not given our informed consent to the experiment.

the potential hazards and benefits are not fairly distributed.

All of the above

. Some argue that the question "Is X an ethically acceptable technology" should be replaced by the question "Is X an ethically acceptable social experiment?" Which of the following is the best objection to this idea?

It is not clear what is meant by the term social experiment.

The two questions are not equivalent: A technology can be acceptable even if it is not an acceptable social experiment.

It is much easier to answer the question "Is X an ethically acceptable technology" than the question "Is X an ethically acceptable social experiment?"

The term ethically acceptable technology is undefined.

. The case of stem cells show that evaluating technology as a social experiment fails to solve the ethical questions because

the debates between utilitarians and deontologists remain and are unresolved.

this sort of experimentation does not involve informed consent.

the length of the experiment is too long.

we already have moral agreement in this case.

. The best argument against replacing the question of the acceptability of technology with its acceptability as a social experiment is

most experiments are ruled unethical anyway.

this approach does not replace the question of the acceptability of the technology.

social experiments are too easy to justify.

research ethics assumes deontology.

. The case of email being necessary for performing job functions in the 21st century counts against using the Nuremburg Code to evaluate technology as a social experiment because the

fifth principle about the subject having liberty to end experiment is too strong.

second principle of yielding fruitful results is too vague.

fourth principle of protection from death is impossible to guarantee.

All of the above

. Martin and Schinzinger recognize it is impractical to obtain informed consent for new technology from everyone affected so they suggest we

use a weaker principle that only requires that the information a rational agent would require has been widely disseminated.

limit social experiments to small towns.

inform the public and consumers immediately prior to use of the new product.

None of the above

. Van de Poel responds to earlier attempts to determine whether technology is an acceptable social experiment with a more nuanced and forgiving set of criteria including which of the following?

During the course of the experiment, the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end.

The experiment is approved by democratically legitimized bodies.

The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved.

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