Sample Test Questions
(c) 2006 Marcello Guarini
1) With respect to the separability thesis, Hart has the most in common with
a) Aquinas and Bentham.
b) Mill and Aquinas.
c) Austin and Bentham.
d) Austin, Bentham, and Aquinas.
2) According to Aristotle, which of the following is the most important part of living a good or happy life?
a) the pursuit of pleasure.
b) the pursuit of wealth.
c) the pursuit of honour.
d) none of the above.
3) According to Ronald Dworkin, which of the following is true of the process of legal judgment making?
a) It must fit as well as possible with past cases.
b) It requires that we endorse the separability thesis.
c) Both (a) and (b).
d) It requires that we interpret statutes using utilitarian principles.
e) It requires that we only use deduction.
4) According to Aristotle, virtue aims at
a) the mean.
b) excess.
c) deficit.
d) none of the above.
5) Which of the following are most likely to agree that a morally unjust law seems like no law at all?
a) Fuller, Austin, and Aquinas.
b) Austin and Holmes.
c) Aquinas, Hart, Ronald Dworkin.
d) Aquinas.
6) In the first article by Wyzanski on the Nuremburg trials, it is stated that
a) low ranking soldiers should be entitled to defend themselves against criminal charges by claiming that they were ordered to kill.
b) the high ranking military officials on trial at Nuremburg were wrongly denied the right to defend themselves since they could not claim they were following orders.
c) both (a) and (b).
d) the trials were a legitimate prosecution of some war criminals.
7) Who among the following defended the harm principle?
a) Mill.
b) Devlin.
c) Stephen.
d) All the above.
8) James Rachels claims that
a) Mill thought animals had moral status.
b) Bentham thought animals had moral status.
c) All Utilitarians think animals have moral status.
d) Both (a) and (b).
9) Who encouraged us to (i) look at the law from the perspective of the “bad man,” and (ii) understand law in terms of how future courts will rule?
a) Austin.
b) Holmes.
c) Aquinas.
d) Bentham.
10) The principle of stare decisis requires that
a) we follow precedents so far as possible.
b) legislatures stay decided on the statutes they pass and never change them.
c) legislatures not be afraid to change existing statues.
d) Both (a) and (b).
11) In class, the instructor discussed a case where Canada’s Supreme Court ruled that the government could not extradite someone to a country that has the death penalty unless that country agreed not to seek the death penalty against the person they want extradited. The instructor suggested that when the court referred to the values of Canadians in making its ruling, it was acting in a way that is in
a) agreement with Ronald Dworkin’s view of judging.
b) agreement with Hart’s view of judging.
c) agreement with Austin’s view of judging.
d) agreement with Bentham’s view of judging.
e) all the above.
12) A statute defining murder is an example of:
a) Constitutional law
b) Judicial law
c) Legislative law
d) Administrative law
13) According to Hart, _____________ defends a moderate paternalism and __________ defends an extreme paternalism.
a) Devlin (1st blank); Gerald Dworkin (2nd blank).
b) Stephen (1st blank); Devlin (2nd blank).
c) Gerald Dworkin (1st blank); Devlin (2nd blank).
d) Devlin (1st blank); Stephen (2nd blank).
14) The Charter for the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg specified three categories of criminal activity. The following definition, “namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds…whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated,” corresponds to which of the following categories?
a) War Crimes
b) Crimes Against Peace
c) Ethnic Cleansing
d) Crimes Against Humanity
15) A necessary condition of a rule being a law is that the rule is seen as a kind of command backed by a threat. Which of the following theorists would be most inclined to accept the preceding statement?
a) Austin.
b) Hart.
c) Aquinas.
d) Fuller.
16) In his second article on the Nuremberg trials, Wyzanski claims that Robert Jackson and the rest of the prosecution
a) demonstrated that justice could be done at the Nuremberg trials.
b) demonstrated that the allies are hypocrites.
c) demonstrated forensic irresponsibility.
d) both (b) and (c).
e) demonstrated that ex post facto law is never acceptable.
17) According to Hart, which two utilitarians insisted on the need to distinguish law as it is from law as it ought to be?
a) Austin and Maritain.
b) Maritain and Bentham.
c) Bentham and Mill.
d) Austin and Bentham.
18) For Kant, which of the following has no moral worth?
a) Visiting someone in the hospital not because you want to, but because it is the right thing to do.
b) Doing something because you want to get into heaven.
c) Both (a) and (b).
d) None of the above.
19) According to Aquinas, the four kinds of law are
a) formal, final, material, and efficient.
b) human, natural, divine, and eternal.
c) formal, natural, divine, and human.
d) human, natural, formal, and final.
20) For Aristotle, which of the following can be said to answer the question, “What is the good for human beings?”
a) Pleasure.
b) Eudaimonia.
c) Eumonics.
d) Honour.
e) Both (a) and (d).
21) According to Aquinas, understanding law requires that we refer to
a) promulgation.
b) the common good.
c) the care of the community.
d) ordinances of reason.
e) all the above.
22) For Aristotle, which of the following identifies a type of virtue?
a) intellectual.
b) spiritual.
c) moral or practical.
d) both (a) and (b)
e) both (a) and (c).
23) Who defines paternalism as, “…the interference with a person’s liberty of action justified by reasons referring exclusively to the welfare, good, happiness, needs, interests or values of the person being coerced?”
a) Gerald Dworkin.
b) Fuller.
c) Aquinas.
d) Austin.
24) Robert Jackson compares the development of International Law with the development of
a) national law.
b) common law.
c) constitutional law.
d) administrative law.
e) none of the above.
25) According to Hart, the penumbra region of the law deals with cases that are
a) legally obvious and straightforward but not always a matter of deduction.
b) legally straightforward but morally difficult.
c) outside of the law, so a judge does not have to make any rulings in such cases; the case may be dismissed or sent back to the legislature
d) none of the above.
26) According to Kant, moral commands are
a) hypothetical imperatives.
b) categorical imperatives.
c) both (a) and (b).
d) none of the above.
27) In the Fuller reading discussed in class, Fuller refers to Rex. Who was Rex?
a) A fictional dog that bit a lawyer.
b) A fictional lawyer who did not know the law.
c) A fictional monarch who made good laws.
d) A fictional monarch who failed to make law.
28) What is the difference between substantive law and procedural law?
a) Procedural law forms a part of constitutional law, and substantive law forms a part of civil law.
b) Substantive law involves only criminal cases whereas procedural law just involves civil lawsuits.
c) Substantive law deals with the actual rights and wrongs of life, and procedural law acts as the legal referee.
d) All the above.
e) Procedural law is about content, and substantive law is about form.
29) Which of the following would agree that deciding whether a judge's decision is good is not always a matter of deducing judgments from the rules of law?
a) Holmes.
b) Hart.
c) Both (a) and (b).
d) None of the above.
30) Normative ethics is
a) the study of what people in different places actually believe is morally right or wrong.
b) the study of the nature and purpose of moral discourse.
c) both (a) and (b)
d) none of the above.
31) Which school of legal theorists became well known for arguing that there is more to the law than deducing judgments from rules?
a) Formalists.
b) Realists.
c) Inductionists.
d) Possibilists.
32) Which of the following types of theories would be most inclined to say that Robin Hood did nothing wrong if on one occasion he stole from the rich to give to the poor in the name of promoting overall happiness?
a) Rule Utilitarianism.
b) Act Utilitarianism.
c) Mercantilism.
d) All the above.
33) Who among the following makes use of the distinction between positive and critical morality?
a) Devlin.
b) Gerald Dworkin.
c) Hart.
d) Stephen.
34) The two basic types of substantive law are
a) civil and constitutional.
b) constitutional and criminal.
c) legislative and criminal.
d) criminal and civil.
35) According to Hart, what did the utilitarians mean by their insistence on the separation of laws and morals?
(a) As a matter of historical fact, the development of legal systems has never been influenced by moral opinions; also as a matter of historical fact, moral standards were never influenced by law.
b) As a matter of historical fact, expressed legal provisions have never been made for the inclusion of the use of substantive moral views in the making of legal judgments in those cases that are in the penumbra region.
c) In the absence of expressed legal provision, it does not follow from the fact that if a rule violates the standards of morality that it is not a rule of law, and it does not follow that if a rule is morally desirable that it is a rule of law.
d) None of the above.
36) A law that is made ex post facto is a law that is:
a) made after the fact, making it retroactive.
b) extremely factual, making it easy to apply.
c) both pure and factual, making it morally justified and easy to apply.
d) sometimes expressed before the fact, and sometimes expressed after the fact.
e) is always made prior to the fact.
37) Which of the following does Ronald Dworkin say is true of “adjudication”?
a) It involves judges making decisions using the political morality of the community involved.
b) It is committed to Aquinas’ Natural Law.
c) Both (a) and (b).
d) None of the above.
38) According to Luper’s interpretation of Kant, the consequences of an action
a) are completely irrelevant in determining the morality of an action.
b) are relevant since we need to determine how much pleasure the action brings about for the person doing the act.
c) are relevant since we need to determine how much happiness the action brings about for everyone affected by the act.
d) both (b) and (c).
e) are relevant for moral evaluation for reasons not mentioned above.
39) How does Austin react to the following view?
“. . . human laws are of no validity if contrary to [God’s law]; and that all valid laws derive their force from that divine original.”
a) If this means that all human laws ought to conform to the divine law, then Austin agrees.
b) If this means that a human law that does not conform to divine law is no law at all, then Austin agrees.
c) If this means that separability thesis is sometimes valid but not always valid, then Austin agrees.
d) All of the above.
40) According to Bentham, which of the following questions matters with respect to whether a being has moral status?
a) Can it think?
b) Can it suffer?
c) Both (a) and (b).
d) Can it use language?