Ethics Integrity and Aptitude Mixed Practice — MCQs with Answers (Set 8)

The correct answer is abortion and the doctrine of double effect. Her paper was “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect”, in the Oxford Review. The doctrine says a harm you foresee differs from a harm you intend. Bentham’s seven-feature method measured pleasure and pain. Nozick wrote of rights as side constraints.

The correct answer is Utilitarianism: For and Against. Williams wrote the “Against” half. Anarchy, State, and Utopia is Nozick’s 1974 book. Ideal Code, Real World is Brad Hooker’s 2000 defence of rule consequentialism. Bentham’s Introduction came out in 1789.

The correct answer is work to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. Rawls feared that average utilitarianism could cut a weak minority’s liberties for the majority’s gain. So raising average utility is the view he opposed. Majority choice and local consent are not his test.

The correct answer is that a person act against their own deepest moral commitments if it produces a better outcome. Williams said this cuts a person off from his own projects. He called it an attack on integrity in the most literal sense. Equal dignity is a Kantian theme. Strict rule-following and the measurement problem are separate ideas.

The correct answer is all resources should go to this one being. Strict utilitarianism aims for the largest total of well-being. A being that turns resources into far more well-being would then get everything. Critics say this is repugnant to justice. The other options would lower the total, so strict utilitarianism rejects them.

The correct answer is the justice objection. It says utilitarianism can excuse unfair treatment of an innocent person if enough total benefit follows. The transplant case is a standard test. The is-ought problem is about deriving values from facts. The Euthyphro dilemma asks whether God commands things because they are good. Bad faith means self-deception.

The correct answer is New Public Management. It treats citizens mainly as customers receiving a service. A public service ethos treats them as members of a democratic community with a right to be served well. Care ethics, Confucian ethics and existentialism are moral theories, not public management models.

The correct answer is daridra narayana seva, serving the poor as a way of serving God. Vivekananda coined the word daridra-narayana for the poor. His Master’s teaching was “Shiva Jnane Jiva Seva”, to serve every living being as Shiva. Nishkama karma is action without desire for its fruits. Ahimsa means non-violence.

The correct answer is public-service motivation. It is the deeper drive to serve the public good, apart from career ambition or job security. Perry and Wise’s 1990 paper is a key starting point for this research. Red-tapism means too many rules and delays. Ethical fading and groupthink are about poor decisions.

The correct answer is an official can follow every rule while still being unhelpful. Spirit of service is about the attitude behind the action. An officer who stamps every form but never explains a rejection has followed procedure only. Rules still matter, and the value applies at every rank, not only to senior officials.

The correct answer is empathy, efficiency, impartiality and incorruptibility. Patel called these the four cardinal requirements of the civil service. He also asked the probationers to be guided by the spirit of public service. Transparency, accountability, fairness and justice, and courage of conviction are among the five values in the 2017 UPSC question.

The correct answer is National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB). It is delivered through the iGOT-Karmayogi platform, so iGOT is the platform, not the programme. A core principle is the shift from rules-based to roles-based HR management. CPGRAMS handles grievances, and the PM’s Awards honour good work.

The correct answer is Viksit Bharat: Citizen-Centric Governance and Development at the Last Mile. “Spirit of service” was not the theme. The Vice President used the phrase about Patel, and he said character and integrity are the foundations of public service. Those were speech lines, not the theme.

The correct answer is spirit of service. It is a real attitude of helpfulness that treats citizens as the reason the job exists. Groupthink is a group’s pressure to agree. Presentism judges the past by today’s values. Bad faith means acting dishonestly. None of these describes helpfulness.

T.N. Seshan is remembered for institutional integrity. He enforced election rules strictly and fearlessly, transforming the Election Commission into an independent watchdog.

Medha Patkar is remembered for environmental and social activism. She has led the Narmada Bachao Andolan, a decades-long movement for the rights of people displaced by large dam projects.

Kailash Satyarthi is remembered for his lifelong fight for children’s rights, leading thousands of raids to rescue children from forced labour and trafficking in India.

The correct answer is Leakage of welfare funds. DBT pays benefits into a bank account linked through Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and mobile. An official assessment puts the savings from plugging leakages at Rs 3.48 lakh crore.

Camus’s ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ uses the myth of a man condemned to forever push a boulder up a hill as a symbol for a meaningless-seeming life. Camus concludes that we must imagine Sisyphus finding purpose in the act of pushing itself, not in ever finally succeeding.

The correct answer is the absurd. Camus meant the clash between our wish for meaning and a silent universe. His answer was to live fully and with integrity anyway, not to despair. The categorical imperative is Kant’s test, and the other two options come from different debates in moral philosophy.

The correct answer is bad faith. It means pretending you have no real choice, to escape the weight of your freedom. Sartre’s example is a café waiter who treats his role as a fixed identity. Groupthink, ethical fading and rationalization are terms from other studies of ethics and behaviour, not Sartre’s.

The correct answer is condemned to be free. Sartre said no outside rule makes our choices for us. We did not create ourselves, yet we are responsible for everything we do. The other options all hand the choice to something else: virtue, instinct or God.

The correct answer is Jean-Paul Sartre. His phrase “existence precedes essence” means we exist first. We define ourselves later, through our choices. Albert Camus wrote about the absurd and denied being an existentialist. Descartes and Foucault are not linked with this phrase.

The correct answer is Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Of the movement’s main thinkers, only these two took the label. Camus denied being an existentialist. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were nineteenth-century pioneers. Heidegger and Jaspers carried the ideas forward in the twentieth century.

The correct answer is “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” The line before it says the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. The other three lines are all Sartre’s, not Camus’s. Memory hook: Camus’s word for Sisyphus is “happy”, not “purpose”.