Wk 8 Outline: Applied Ethics Essay Instructions This assignment is designed to help you begin work on your Applied Ethics Essay due in Week 9. In this assignment, you will create an outline of what you will be writing in your essay. An outline is a tool used to organize your thoughts. You do not need to flesh out all your ideas, but briefly state your ideas along with supporting details that you will use in your final essay. Begin by reading through the following cases. Choose one that interests you, and select one of the moral questions to respond to. Then, develop an outline that you will use to structure your final essay. Your outline must include the following: Briefly state a clear position on the moral question presented. List relevant facts of the case. Identify clarifying concepts you will use to analyze the case. Describe an ethical standard pertinent to the case. Include at least four references with proper SWS citation and explain how the information in that reference is relevant to your position. At least two of these sources will be from your textbook and other course materials. See Sample Outline [DOCX] for an example of how this might look. Strayer Writing Standards This course requires the use of Strayer Writing Standards. For assistance and information, please refer to the Strayer Writing Standards link in the left-hand menu of your course. Learning Outcomes The specific course learning outcome associated with this assignment is: Analyze how ethical standards impact moral decision making. Case Study: Criminal Justice USA PATRIOT Act and Academic Freedom (Boss, 1, p. 488) A senior at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, was visited at his parent’s home by federal agents after he requested a copy of The Little Red Book, Mao Tse-Tung’s book on communism. The student who requested the book through the university library’s inter-library loan was doing a research paper on communism for a class on totalitarianism and fascism. The two agents who came to his home said the book was on a “watch list” and that the student’s background, which included “significant time abroad,” prompted them to investigate. His professor told reporters that he suspected that there is a lot more monitoring of student and faculty activities by federal agents than most people realize. The professor also reconsidered a class that he was going to teach on terrorism because he feared it might put the students at risk. “I shudder to think of all the students I’ve had monitoring al-Qaeda websites, what the government must think of that,” he said. “Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless."  The USA PATRIOT Act overrides library confidentiality laws. The Department of Homeland Security has the authority to monitor college students’ and professors’ library borrowing records, Internet records, and e-mails, as well as international travel and phone calls. In addition, librarians are bound by a gag order. Once records are requested, librarians a.

1. Wk 8
Outline: Applied Ethics Essay
Instructions
This assignment is designed to help you begin work on your
Applied Ethics Essay due in Week 9. In this assignment, you
will create an outline of what you will be writing in your essay.
An outline is a tool used to organize your thoughts. You do not
need to flesh out all your ideas, but briefly state your ideas
along with supporting details that you will use in your final
essay.
Begin by reading through the following cases. Choose one that
interests you, and select one of the moral questions to respond
to. Then, develop an outline that you will use to structure your
final essay.
Your outline must include the following:
Briefly state a clear position on the moral question presented.
List relevant facts of the case.
Identify clarifying concepts you will use to analyze the case.
Describe an ethical standard pertinent to the case.
Include at least four references with proper SWS citation and
explain how the information in that reference is relevant to your
position. At least two of these sources will be from your
textbook and other course materials.
See Sample Outline [DOCX] for an example of how this might

2. look.
Strayer Writing Standards
This course requires the use of Strayer Writing Standards. For
assistance and information, please refer to the Strayer Writing
Standards link in the left-hand menu of your course.
Learning Outcomes
The specific course learning outcome associated with this
assignment is:
Analyze how ethical standards impact moral decision making.
Case Study: Criminal Justice
USA PATRIOT Act and Academic Freedom (Boss, 1, p. 488)
A senior at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, was
visited at his parent’s home by federal agents after he requested
a copy of The Little Red Book, Mao Tse-Tung’s book on
communism. The student who requested the book through the
university library’s inter-library loan was doing a research
paper on communism for a class on totalitarianism and fascism.
The two agents who came to his home said the book was on a
“watch list” and that the student’s background, which included
“significant time abroad,” prompted them to investigate.
His professor told reporters that he suspected that there is a lot
more monitoring of student and faculty activities by federal
agents than most people realize. The professor also reconsidered
a class that he was going to teach on terrorism because he
feared it might put the students at risk. “I shudder to think of all
the students I’ve had monitoring al-Qaeda websites, what the
government must think of that,” he said. “Mao Tse-Tung is

3. completely harmless."
The USA PATRIOT Act overrides library confidentiality laws.
The Department of Homeland Security has the authority to
monitor college students’ and professors’ library borrowing
records, Internet records, and e-mails, as well as international
travel and phone calls. In addition, librarians are bound by a
gag order. Once records are requested, librarians are not
allowed to tell the person who is under investigation.
Several libraries have protested the PATRIOT Act. Librarians in
Santa Cruz, California, for example, are shredding library
records daily. Libraries in some other states are posting warning
signs and passing out leaflets. The American Library
Association passed a resolution calling sections of the
PATRIOT Act a danger to constitutional rights.
Question:Should the PATRIOT Act infringe on people’s
freedom of speech?
Case Study: Health Care Ethics
Jennifer Johnson: Maternal Drug Use and Fetal Rights (Boss, 2,
p. 104)
When 23-year-old Jennifer Johnson arrived to give birth to her
fourth child, hospital drug tests found traces of cocaine in her
blood. It was later revealed that her other children had all been
cocaine-affected babies. A Florida judge found her guilty of
delivery (through the umbilical cord) of a controlled substance
to a child. Johnson was sentenced to 15 years of probation, drug
treatment, random drug testing, and educational and vocational
training. She was ordered to participate in an intensive pre-natal
care program if she should ever become pregnant again.
According to the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible

4. Medicine, an estimated one in five women use illegal drugs. The
cost of caring for a cocaine-exposed infant can run into the
millions of dollars. In response, several states have passed civil
child abuse and neglect laws, which state that taking illicit
drugs or alcohol during pregnancy constitutes child abuse. As a
result of these laws, thousands of women have lost custody of
their children and some have even been jailed or placed in
mandatory drug treatment programs. As in the case of Jennifer
Johnson, addicted women can avoid prison by agreeing to
undergo drug treatment.
Choose one of the following questions:
Question 1: Are hospitals that routinely perform drug tests on
any pregnant woman “suspected of being a drug user” violating
the privacy rights of the woman?
Question 2: Does a pregnant woman who plans to carry her
fetus to term have a moral obligation to refrain from using
substances that are harmful to the fetus? If so, does the
obligation necessarily depend upon the personhood or moral
status of the fetus? Can we have a duty to refrain from behavior
that might harm persons who do not yet exist?
Case Study: Environmental Ethics
Animal Liberation in the Science Lab (Boss, 2, p. 447)
The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is a loose organization of
radical animal-rights activists in more than 40 countries, ALF
activists target science laboratories, slaughterhouses, and the
fur and lumber industries. Since its founding in England in
1976, the ALF engaged in hundreds, if not thousands of
reported direct actions. One of the most publicized actions in
the United States took place in 1984, when five members of the
ALF broke into the Experimental Head Injury Lab at the

5. University of Pennsylvania and stole files and videotapes of
experiments. The videotapes showed gruesome scenes of
terrified baboons in vises with their heads being smashed by
pistons while the researchers joked around. The tapes showed
operations being performed on primates without regard for their
pain or for standard research procedures. After taking the
videotapes, the ALF ransacked the lab.
In the controversy that followed the release of the tapes to the
public, Dr. Thomas Gennarelli, the director of the lab, defended
the research, claiming that the animals had been properly
treated. He also accused the ALF of setting back medical
research. Both the university and the National Institutes of
Health (NIH), which gave the lab a new grant to repair the
damage, supported Dr. Gennarelli. The ALF responded to the
accusation by comparing the lab experiments to those conducted
by Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele on Jews in concentration camps.
Protesters supported the ALF by staging demonstrations on
campuses and at the NIH offices. In 1985, the secretary of
Health and Human Services stopped federal funding for the
head injury program, and the university agreed to pay a fine for
violating the Animal Welfare Act. The members of the ALF
were not prosecuted for their actions.
Although the ALF defines itself as nonviolent, the FBI regards
groups such as the ALF and its sister organization the Earth
Liberation Front (ELF) as “violent animal rights extremists and
eco-terrorists [who] now pose one of the most serious terrorist
threats to the nation.” In 2006, the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security designated the ALF a “terrorist threat.” The
ALF has a policy of nonviolence toward living things, including
people engaged in animal experimentation.
Choose one of the following questions:
Question 1: Were stealing the tapes and ransacking the lab

6. morally justified?
Question 2: Is animal experimentation morally justified if the
Animal Welfare Act is not violated?
Case Study: Business Ethics/CSR
Patenting Genetically Engineered Life Forms (Boss, 1, p. 169)
In 1873, Louis Pasteur received a U.S. patent for the
manufacture of a yeast that was free of disease. The first patent
in the United States for a genetically engineered life form was
granted in 1980 when the Supreme Court, in Diamond vs
Chakrabarty, held that a human-created micro-organism was a
new and useful “manufacture,” and hence patentable. Since
then, more than three million genome-related patents have been
filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), some
of which cover genetically engineered humans. The year 2007
marked the first application for a patent for an artificial,
human-created life-form—a microbe.
Despite the legal status of biopatents, there is still considerable
controversy about the morality of the practice. Canada does not
permit patents for “higher life forms,” such as the oncomouse.
China, India, and Thailand prohibit the patenting of any animal.
The European Union only permits such patents “provided the
potential benefits of the ‘invention’ outweigh the ethical and
moral considerations, in particular the suffering of animals."
People who favor biopatents argue that researchers should be
rewarded for their discoveries. People would not put the money
and years into genetic research unless they had some mechanism
for protecting their inventions and investment through patents.
Those who are opposed question the assumption that science
will advance faster if researchers can have exclusive rights to
their inventions. They also point out that the monopoly on

7. certain products and the high royalty costs owed to patent
holders may discourage product development,