ETHICS AND LAW

LAWS2018

This multiple-choice quiz has 20 questions. You have one hour and 45 minutes to
complete the quiz. Please answer all these questions on the computer-readable answer
sheet. In all cases, make sure you choose the best or most correct answer.

1. Michael Sandel notes that five years after the publication of Jeremy Bentham’s
Principles of Morals and Legislation, Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals offered
a critique in which he argues that morality is concerned with:
A. Treating every individual as one and aggregating individual preferences to arrive at the
correct moral decision.
B. Treating every person as ends in themselves and aggregating their hopes, dreams and
aspirations so as to determine what works best for the majority of people.
C. Treating every person as worthy of respect, because we are rational beings, capable of
reason, of acting freely and choosing freely.
D. Treating every person as capable of self-actualization and ensuring that they have the
means to do so.
E. B and C
F. A and D.

2. Peter Singer’s version of utilitarianism -- written during the famine in Bangladesh in

1972 -- claims to resolve several problems said to generally plague utilitarianism,
namely:
A. That suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and lack of medicine are bad;
B. That the physical distance between human beings -- and the sovereign borders of nations
-- ought to effect a person’s moral obligations toward others
C. That the number of moral agents that could prevent a particular form of harm from
occurring is irrelevant with regard to an individual’s obligation to prevent the harm in
question.
D. A and B.
E. A, B and C.
F. A and C.

3. According to Donald Davidson, the principle of interpretive charity

A. Diminishes the force of ‘the very heady doctrine’ of conceptual schemes, because it
eliminates error and disagreement.
B. Fails to recognize that most ideas and propositions cannot be translated from one
language to another because each speaker of truth propositions has their own perspective
on what is true.
C. Recognizes that propositions such as “the sky is blue” are true because it is the blueness
of the sky that makes “the sky is blue true’ true.
D. Requires us to accept the proposition that if we do not count the majority of utterances
by other individuals as true, we would have to count these individuals as crazy.
E. A and C.
F. C and D.
4. In Dawood, Justice O’Regan contends that the ‘Constitution asserts dignity to
contradict our past in which human dignity for black South Africans was routinely
and cruelly denied. It asserts it too to inform the future, to invest in our democracy
respect for the intrinsic worth of all human beings’. O’Regan’s justification for her
conclusion that existing temporary resident regulations undermined family life in an
unconstitutional manner is consistent with one or more of the following ethical
maxims:
A. Act in a manner that generates the greatest good for the greatest number.
B. Act in such a way that you always treat others never simply as a means, but always at the
same time as an end.
C. Act in a manner that ensures that the harmony of any given community is always
maintained.
D. Act in such a way that everyone is able to appear in the public square without shame.
E. A and C.
F. B and C.

5. The World Bank’s Focus on Inequality of Opportunity in South Africa echoes Amartya
Sen’s ‘More Than 100 Million Women are Missing’ through its assessment
A. Almost 2/3rds of South African children will, under current circumstances, struggle
in their pursuit of a life worth valuing.
B. Girls in both peri-urban and rural setting will not have access to those basic goods
necessary to pursue a life worth valuing.
C. Girls will always, and inevitably, find it difficult to secure the same degree of
opportunity as boys.
D. All of the above.
E. B and C.
F. A and B.

6. In Soobramoney, a 41 year-old man – a diabetic who suffered from multiple forms of

heart disease – was entering the final stages of chronic renal failure. Health care
professionals in the provincial government had determine criteria by which access to
dialysis will be accorded. One criterion for exclusion is whether the person has a
terminal illness with a short life expectancy or is in the final stages of chronic renal
failure. The Soobramoney Court concluded that the criteria developed by the health
care professionals in Kwa-Zulu Natal were justifiable. The Court’s justification for its
conclusion comes closest to the kind of reasoning employed by:
A. Yvonne Mokgoro
B. Immanuel Kant
C. Amartya Sen
D. Peter Singer
E. Martha Nussbaum
F. None of the above
7. Frank Michelman, in ‘The Uses of Interpretive Charity’, criticizes the position
articulated by Stu Woolman, in ‘The Amazing, Vanishing Bill of Rights’, primarily
because:
A. Michelman believes that Woolman was wrong in contending that cases under scrutiny
suffered from a thinness of reasoning by the Constitutional Court.
B. Michelman believes that if the Constitutional Court says a law or form of conduct is
wrong, then we must accept that the Court’s conclusion and its justifications are correct
– and that Woolman was incorrect to assert otherwise.
C. Michelman believes that Woolman was wrong in contending that the specific cases under
scrutiny suffered from a flight from substance by the Constitutional Court.
D. We must begin with a working assumption that what the Constitutional Court – like all
other persons and institutions – has something meaningful to say, and should not assume
that disagreement exists, until we have exhausted most avenues of inquiry into what the
Constitutional Court means to convey in its judgements.
E. A and B.
F. C and D.

8. Justice Sachs notes as follows in August v Electoral Commission: ‘The universality of

the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each
and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that
everybody counts.’
A. Justice Sach’s view is consistent with the utilitarian view that each person counts as one
and is entitled to have her preferences reflected in political decision-making.
B. Justice Sach’s view is consistent with the deontological view that all persons are of
intrinsic worth and beyond price.
C. Both A and B.
D. Neither A nor B.

9. In “Finely Aware and Richly Responsible”, Martha Nussbaum discusses the place of
‘perception’ in ethics because:
A. She concludes that standing orders generally determine the correct moral choice,
while perception, on some occasions, supplements those standing orders and enables
us to make the correct decision
B. She concludes that perception alone is sufficient for determining the right answer to
ethical conundrums.
C. She concludes that standing orders, while valuable, cannot be used mechanically to
determine ethical responses and require, in addition, the development of our powers
of moral perception.
D. A and C
E. B and C.
F. None of the above.
10. The Constitutional Court in Khosa notes that the Final Constitution commits us to an
understanding of dignity in which ‘wealthier members of the community [must] view
the minimal well-being of the poor as connected with their personal well-being and
the well-being of the community as a whole.’
A. This statement by Justice Mokgoro could draw support from Peter Singer’s notion
that we are obliged to prevent something bad from happening as long as we do not
sacrifice anything of comparable moral importance.
B. This statement by Justice Mokgoro approximates the uBuntu maxim ‘I am because
you are.’
C. This statement by Justice Mokgoro has shares a family resemblance to – but may not
be as demanding as -- Kant’s conception of a Kingdom of Ends.
D. B and C.
E. A, B and C.
F. None of the above.

11. In an early Constitutional Court judgment, Justice Laurie Ackermann wrote as

follows: ‘What lay at the heart of the apartheid pathology was the extensive and
sustained attempt to deny to the majority of the South African population the right of
self-identification and self-determination . . . Who you were, where you could live,
what schools and universities you could attend, what you could do and aspire to, and
with whom you could form intimate personal relationship was determined for you by
the state . . . That state did its best to deny to blacks that which is definitional to
being human, namely the ability to understand or at least define oneself through
one’s own powers and to act freely as a moral agent pursuant to such understanding
of self-definition.’ Ackermann’s views are consistent with the following proposition
or propositions:
A. Apartheid constituted an almost complete reversal of the conclusions that we can draw
from various iterations of Kant’s categorical imperative.
B. The Constitution must be read as rejecting the contention that ‘there are certain primary
goods – civil liberties such as expression, assembly, the franchise – that cannot be
compromised in any way.’
C. We can see how Kant’s Categorical Imperative was cashed out in our Constitutional
Court’s dignity jurisprudence in a variety of different ways: (a) a person must always be
treated as an end-in-herself; (b) each person is entitled to mutual concern and respect; (c)
dignity is designed to create the space for self-actualization; (d) dignity is essential for
self-governance in the political domain.
D. A and B.
E. A and C.
F. All of the above.
12. In ‘More than 100 Million Women are Missing’, Amartya Sen contends that, as of
1990, we can conclude that:
A. Birth rates for males are lower than females.
B. Women are naturally weaker and more susceptible to disease than men.
C. A variety of social, ethical, economic and political practices limit the development of
women and increase their mortality rates in a manner that explains why 100 million fewer
women were alive at the time than birth rates indicated there should be.
D. If all people (a) could enter the public square without shame, and (b) received roughly
the same basket of material and immaterial goods necessary to pursue a life worth
valuing, then we might have 100 million more women on the planet (if not more, given
the significant population growth since the article was written in 1990).
E. A and C.
F. C and D.

13. In ‘Finely Aware and Richly Responsible’ Martha Nussbaum describes a relationship
between a father and a daughter in which these two moral agents worked back and
forth between ‘two consciousnesses and two viewpoints – not by confounding their
separateness . . . but by showing the extent to which fine attention to another can
make two separate people inhabit the same created world – until at the end they even
share descriptive language: “At the end of another minute, he found their word.”
And: “she helped him out with it.” Nussbaum’s moral approach is best described as:
A. Developmental.
B. Deontological.
C. Relational.
D. Postmodern.
E. B and C.
F. C and D.

14. Sen, Smith and Nussbaum all contend that a truly moral social order will provide or
protect primary goods as such as a basic income and civil and political liberties so
that each person has the ability to choose a life one has reason to value, as she
understands what is truly valuable. Nussbaum offers a ‘core set’ of primary goods
that can be converted into capabilities. Her list of capabilities includes:
A. Sufficient remuneration from employment in order to pursue a life worth valuing.
B. The rule of law, constitutional supremacy and a variety of political and civil rights.
C. Play, senses, imagination, thought, emotions, and affiliation.
D. Life, bodily health, bodily integrity and non-discrimination.
E. A and B.
F. C and D.
15. In 1968, Ms Shilubana’s father, Hosi Fofoza Nwamitwa, died without a male heir.
Customary law at the time did not permit a woman to become Hosi. As a result, Ms
Shilubana did not succeed him. Instead, Hosi Fofoza’s brother, Richard Nwamitwa,
succeeded him. However, some thirty years and a peaceful constitutional revolution
later, the traditional authorities of the Valoyi community passed resolutions in 1996
and 1997 that held that Ms Shilubana would succeed Hosi Richard. Her succession
was subsequently approved by the provincial government. Hosi Richard died in 2001.
Not everyone was pleased to see Ms Shilubana’s ascension to Hosi. Sidwell
Nwamitwa, Richard’s son, sought an interdict to prevent Ms Shilubana’s installation.
He claimed that he, as Hosi Richard’s eldest son, was entitled to succeed his father.
Both the Pretoria High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Mr
Nwamitwa. The Constitutional Court reversed the rulings of both the Pretoria High
Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal.
A. The Constitutional Court’s holding in this matter is consistent with a deontological
approach that treated Ms. Shilubana as a being of intrinsic worth, an end in herself,
and entitled to equal concern and respect
B. The Constitutional Court’s holding in this matter is consistent with a relational and
feminist approach that allowed community members to perceive Ms Shilubana as the
equal of any man, and this worthy of the holding the position of Hosi.
C. The Constitutional Court’s holding in this matter is flowed from its conclusion that
this traditional community ought to be able to decide, consistent with principles of
uBuntu and constitutional rights to develop traditional and cultural practices, that
women such as Ms. Shilubana should be able to succeed her Richard.
D. The Constitutional Court’s holding in this matter flowed from its view that a mere
aggregation of Valoyi community member preferences, the greatest good for the
greatest number, was sufficient in terms of the Constitution to ensure that Ms.
Shilubana remain Hosi.
E. All of the above.
F. A, B and C.

16. A determination by the High Court that a legal practitioner is no longer a ‘fit and
proper person’ to practice law:
A. Involves a three-step process of reasoning;
B. Involves the application of penalties prescribed by the Legal Practice Act, 2014;
C. Involves the exercise of a value judgment by the High Court;
D. Is similar to an ordinary civil trial, applying the ordinary rules of evidence to determine
wrongdoing by the practitioner.
E. A and C.
F. C and D.
 17. Your client, Diphiri Van Deventer, confesses guilt to you during a consultation at
your legal practice. S/he faces a charge of shoplifting a facemask. S/he wants to you
tell the Court that s/he is innocent of the crime.
A. Tell Diphiri that you cannot represent her under the circumstances and advise her to
obtain the services of another legal practitioner.
B. Tell Diphiri that you will defend her by saying to the Court that she did steal the
facemask, but that theft of the facemask was necessary and justifiable during the pandemic.
C. Tell the Court Diphiri did not steal the facemask.
D. Keep everything Diphiri said to you confidential, as long as s/he is your client.
E. C and E.
F. A and D.

18. The German Constitutional Court addressed a request by the German military to
answer the following abstract question: As a constitutional matter, could the German
military shoot down a plane commandeered by hijackers who planned to crashed the
plane into the German city of Dresden – killing everyone on board and even more people
on the ground? In terms of the schools of ethical thought covered in class, the German
Constitutional Court’s decision could best be described as:
A. Developmental.
B. Deontological.
C. Relational.
D. Feminist
E. Utilitarian.
F. None of the above.

19. In Dikoko, Justice Mokgoro determined that:

A. The amende honorable — which recognises an apology as an available and appropriate
remedy for certain kinds of harm — is part and parcel of South African law.
B. A court may properly order a remedy based on Ubuntu.
C. An apology in a defamation claim serves only the interests of the plaintiff, because
the defendant publicly acknowledges his wrongful conduct and the harm done.
D. Traditional laws and cultural practices that aim to restore harmonious relationships
should be promoted by the courts, at least in defamation cases.
E. A and B.
F. B and D.

20. In Prince I (2002), the Constitutional Court decided that the maxim ‘if it is in our
power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything of
comparable moral worth’ justified the following conclusion:
A. All religious practices are protected by sections 15 and 31 of the Constitution (the right to
believe in a particular religion and the right to practice its tenets in concert with others).
B. Some religious practices are protected by the Bill of Rights, but others are not.
C. While the use of dagga for Rastafarian religious practices is prima facie protected, the
needs of the commonweal to prevent the use and distribution of controlled substances that
might lead to the use and abuse of more dangerous controlled substances means that the use
of dagga cannot be justified under any circumstances.
D. The consumption of dagga is protected so long as an individual’s use of dagga is limited
to one’s home.
E. A and D
F. B and C
21. In Prince II (2018), the Constitutional Court decided that the maxim ‘if it is in our
power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything of
comparable moral worth’ justified the following conclusion:
A. All religious practices are protected by sections 15 and 31 of the Constitution (the right to
believe in a particular religion and the right to practice its tenets in concert with others).
B. Some religious practices are protected by the Bill of Rights, but others are not.
C. Consistent with Prince I (2002), while the use of dagga for Rastafarian religious practices is
prima facie protected, the needs of the commonweal to prevent the use and distribution of
controlled substances that might lead to the use and abuse of more dangerous controlled
substances means that the use of dagga cannot be justified under any circumstances.
D. The consumption of dagga is protected so long as an individual’s use of dagga is for
private purposes, and not for commercial distribution that would place the well-being of the
republic and its denizens.
E. A and D
F. B and C

22. Immanuel Kant arrived at his rule-based, non-consequentialist theory of ethics

A. In part as a response to the David Hume’s belief that reason is always slave to the
passions.
B. Because he was German, and German’s generally follow rules and orders.
C. Because it didn’t require the use of our rational faculties, but merely employed the
common-sense conventions of the community which a person inhabits.
D. Because any ethics based primarily on our passions will be primarily a function of
self-love and self-interest, while an ethics based upon a good will or pure motive, as
well as our ability to reason, will generate in an ethical theory that ultimately produces
respect and concern for others.
E. C and D.
F. A and D.

23. Kant’s categorical imperative takes a number of forms:

A. Always act in a manner the diminishes suffering, and thereby results in the greatest
good or the least amount of harm for a society.
B. Always act so that you treat your own person and others, not simply as a means, but
always as an end.
C. If treating another person as an end means breaking rules and laws, then the wellbeing
of a person with whom one has an important relationship may justify such actions.
D. Every rational person must act in light of a rule or a maxim designed to generate a
universal kingdom of ends.
E. A and C
F. B and D
24. While many theorists contend that Sen’s analysis in ‘100 Million Women are Missing’
– from 1992 – can be used to show that over 200 million women are missing now – other
theorists contend:
A. That Sen’s analysis underestimates the numbers of missing women by an order of magnitude.
B. That Sen’s methodology was completely flawed and wholly unreliable.
C. That Sen’s analysis failed to take into account different birth rates of boys and girls, as well as
the effect of different diseases upon women in different parts of the developing world, and
consequently resulted in an incorrect conclusion regarding female mortality rates.
D. One should be careful when relying upon the findings of male theorists when it comes to
conclusions about important feminist concerns.
E. A and D.
F. B and C.

25. Donald Davidson and Martha Nussbaum articulate related theories about truth
propositions about the world in which we live, because:
A. Each promotes the idea of conceptual schemes in explaining how people come to
understand the truth.
B. They each require careful listening to what others have to say if we are to advance our
common understanding of a shared world, and such a shared world may embrace a
shared ethical world.
C. They are both concerned with promoting the greatest good for the greatest number.
D. They contend that our powers of reason enable us to produce a kingdom of ends in
which we can all live by the same norms.
E. A and D.
F. B and C.

26. According to Donald Davidson, the principle of interpretative charity:

A. Eliminates all possibility for error or disagreement.
B. Assumes our interlocutors have something meaningful to say and obliges us to try as
hard as we can to ferret out the truth in what their interlocutors have to say before we
conclude that a genuine disagreement exists or that the other person to whom we are
speaking is wrong.
C. Allows for the possibility and error in our statements, even as it assumes that it is
possible to translate a word or a proposition from one language to another language.
D. Is consistent with the postmodern notion of conceptual schemes – in which the truth
of a proposition is dependent upon the conceptual scheme adopted by the speaker.
E. A and D.
F. B and C.
27. Frank Michelman, quoting Donald Davidson, writes as follows: ‘We make maximum
sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimises
agreement.’ Davidson meant ‘optimise’ as between thinking that the other must be
holding to beliefs (and, relatedly, aims) that differ drastically from our own (else he
couldn’t have said what he did), and thinking that we must not have heard him right the
first time.’ By interpreting others in a way that optimises agreement, Michelman means:
A. We will always find a way of coming to an agreement with what others believe to be true.
B. It’s just easier to get along with others if we act as if we misheard them and conclude they
believe exactly what we believe.
C. Truth is like a contract – we simply have to come to some agreement with others as to what
the truth is.
D. We have an ethical obligation to try to understand others as best as we possibly can – and
that begins with an assumption that, generally speaking, what they say is true, and that where
uncertainty exists, we should ask what others mean, seek translation where translation is
required, and not assume disagreement until we have exhausted most if not all avenues of
inquiry.

28. In hindsight, we can say that roughly 70% of the class adopted a utilitarian approach
to pulling a switch that resulted in the runaway train killing only a workman on the side-
track and saving the lives of five members of the Ngoma family whose car was stuck on
the tracks. Similarly, when we switched pulling the switch with pushing our friend Sipho
in front of the train to prevent it from killing the Ngoma family, we can now say a similar
majority of the class shifted position and justified NOT pushing Sipho based upon the
following approach or approaches. Choose the best answer from those below.
A. Developmental Ethics and Relational Ethics.
B. Deontological Ethics.
C. Deontological Ethics, Relational Ethics and Religious Ethics.
D. Relational Ethics and Feminist Ethics.
F. Neo-Aristotelian and Relational Ethics.
F. Utilitarian Ethics.

29. Justice Yvonne Mokgoro in ‘Ubuntu and the Law in South Africa’ and in Dikoko
v Mokhatla [2006] ZACC21, 2006 contends that:
A. The use of Ubuntu in South African lawmaking and in decisions rendered by our
courts is absolutely necessary for the legitimization of our legal system.
B. The core content of Ubuntu as an ethical school of thought is reflected by the
Constitutional Court’s statement in Dikoko that: “The goal should be to knit
together shattered relationships in the community and encourage across the
board respect for the basic norms of human and social inter-dependence”
C. The amende honourable — which recognises an apology as an available and
appropriate remedy for certain kinds of harm — is part and parcel of South
African law.
D. A and B
E. B and C
F. A, B and C.
30. Magobe Ramose, in African Philosophy through Ubuntu (1999), describes Ubuntu
as:
A. A highly concrete practice that embraces a clearly articulated body of
rules by which most sub-Saharan African communities live.
B. A manifestation of being and becoming, in which you reflect, through
action, both who you are and the degree of humanness with which you
live your life in relation to others and the community in which you are
situated (over time –past, present and future).
C. As an approach to African philosophy that largely mirrors many of the
dominant schools thought in both western and eastern philosophy.
D. A and B

31. How are uBuntu and Kantian deontology similar and different?
a. i.Both schools of thought make an ethical demand require individuals to build a
more humane world, though they are based upon different conceptions of
personhood, and the relation of the individual to the community of which they
are a part.
b. Both schools of thought depend on a notion of dignity that flows from a social
contract but rely on different philosophical traditions to define dignity.
c. Both schools of thought embrace the exercise of imagination to construct a
comprehensive account a more just and fair society.
d. Both b and c.

32. A candidate attorney, Siphesihle Immanuel Kant, holds the same beliefs as the
philosopher with whom he shares a name. He is discussing the duty of loyalty to
a client with a colleague, who tells him, “Well, what you say is true in theory, but
it’s no use in practice.” Which one of the following would be Siphesihle’s most
likely response?
A. “The duty of loyalty means one thing on paper, like gravity. Any capable engineer will
tell you gravity works differently in reality. Theories don’t build buildings.”
B. “The duty of loyalty could only really be a called a duty if it flows from pure motives
and determines our actions, irrespective of the outcome. Otherwise, what’s the point of
calling it a duty?”
C. “Loyalty to the client is just one of many duties. A good attorney would weight them
up and see which duties are in favour of his action and which duties are against. Majority
wins.”
D. A and C.

33. According to Donald Davidson, the proposition “Snow is white”

A. Is true because the truth of a sentence is relative to the language to which the
statement belongs, and in English, snow is white.
B. Is true irrespective of the language one uses: In German, ‘“Schnee ist Weiss” is true in
the mouth of a German speaker if, and only if, “snow is white” has to be taken not
merely as true, but as capable of supporting counterfactual claims. It is the whiteness of
snow that makes “Schnee ist Weiss” true.’
C. Cannot be translated from English into any other language.
D. Is true only in those places that have snow.
34. The difference between Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism is that
A. The former is consequentialist and the latter is non-consequentialist.
B. A rule utilitarian thinks about the consequences of people following a rule, so that if the
outcomes from following the rule are generally positive in utilitarian terms, she’ll decide that it's
good to follow that rule in general, and will apply it in future; an act utilitarian focuses solely on
the consequences of the individual act.
C. Act utilitarians and rule utilitarians both employ rules – but their approach to the rules that
they employ are different: the act utilitarian considers the desirability of the rule each and every time
she acts.
D. The former concentrates only on momentary and passing instances happiness, while the latter
thinks that different levels or kinds of happiness exist – lower and higher – and chooses to
maximize only the latter.

35. Like Sen, Nussbaum’s interest lies in the ability of individuals to convert primary
goods such as income or civil liberties into the capability ‘to choose a life one has reason
to value’. Nussbaum has been less agnostic than Sen in her willingness to identify a ‘core
set’ of primary goods that can be converted into capabilities. In a number of texts,
Nussbaum offers a Decalogue of primary goods and capabilities that must obtain in
order for most individuals to flourish. Her list of capabilities includes:
A. A Heathy Diet of Chicken, Fish, Vegetables and Fruit.
B. Employment, Dignity, and a Variety of Socio-Economic Rights.
C. Play, Senses, Imagination, Thought, Emotions, Affiliation
D. Freedom of Speech