The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
Imagine a world in which artificial intelligence is entrusted with the highest moral responsibilities: sentencing criminals, allocating medical resources, and even mediating conflicts between nations. This might seem like the pinnacle of human progress: an entity unburdened by emotion, prejudice or inconsistency, making ethical decisions with impeccable precision. . . .
Yet beneath this vision of an idealised moral arbiter lies a fundamental question: can a machine understand morality as humans do, or is it confined to a simulacrum of ethical reasoning? AI might replicate human decisions without improving on them, carrying forward the same biases, blind spots and cultural distortions from human moral judgment. In trying to emulate us, it might only reproduce our limitations, not transcend them. But there is a deeper concern. Moral judgment draws on intuition, historical awareness and context – qualities that resist formalisation. Ethics may be so embedded in lived experience that any attempt to encode it into formal structures risks flattening its most essential features. If so, AI would not merely reflect human shortcomings; it would strip morality of the very depth that makes ethical reflection possible in the first place.
Still, many have tried to formalise ethics, by treating certain moral claims not as conclusions, but as starting points. A classic example comes from utilitarianism, which often takes as a foundational axiom the principle that one should act to maximise overall wellbeing. From this, more specific principles can be derived, for example, that it is right to benefit the greatest number, or that actions should be judged by their consequences for total happiness. As computational resources increase, AI becomes increasingly well-suited to the task of starting from fixed ethical assumptions and reasoning through their implications in complex situations. But what, exactly, does it mean to formalise something like ethics? The question is easier to grasp by looking at fields in which formal systems have long played a central role. Physics, for instance, has relied on formalisation for centuries. There is no single physical theory that explains everything. Instead, we have many physical theories, each designed to describe specific aspects of the Universe: from the behaviour of quarks and electrons to the motion of galaxies. These theories often diverge. Aristotelian physics, for instance, explained falling objects in terms of natural motion toward Earth’s centre; Newtonian mechanics replaced this with a universal force of gravity. These explanations are not just different; they are incompatible. Yet both share a common structure: they begin with basic postulates – assumptions about motion, force or mass – and derive increasingly complex consequences. . . .
Ethical theories have a similar structure. Like physical theories, they attempt to describe a domain – in this case, the moral landscape. They aim to answer questions about which actions are right or wrong, and why. These theories also diverge and, even when they recommend similar actions, such as giving to charity, they justify them in different ways. Ethical theories also often begin with a small set of foundational principles or claims, from which they reason about more complex moral problems.
The passage weighs the appeal of an impersonal AI judge against doubts about moral grasp. It warns that codification can erode case-sensitive judgement, allow axiom-led reasoning at scale, and use a physics analogy to model structured plurality.
The passage opens with the appeal of an unbiased AI moral arbiter, then doubts whether a machine can grasp morality and warns that encoding ethics may flatten intuition and context.
It then shows how ethics can be formalised from axioms that AI can reason through at scale, and uses physics, with its many divergent theories sharing one structure, as a model for plural ethical theories.
The third summary covers all of these moves.
The first wrongly says the passage rejects formal methods outright, the second ignores the doubts, and the fourth reverses the passage by claiming nuance is retained and that theories converge.
Hence, The passage weighs the appeal of an impersonal AI judge against doubts about moral grasp. It warns that codification can erode case-sensitive judgement, allow axiom-led reasoning at scale, and use a physics analogy to model structured plurality.
with fixed moral starting points and expanding computational resources, the argument forecasts convergence on one ethical system and treats contextual judgement as unnecessary once formal reasoning scales across domains and cultures.
The passage stresses that physical theories diverge and that ethical theories likewise diverge, even when they recommend similar actions.
It also warns that moral judgement depends on intuition, history and context, which resist formalisation.
So an inference that the argument forecasts convergence on one ethical system and treats contextual judgement as unnecessary contradicts the text.
The other inferences restate the appeal of an impartial AI, the risk of flattening ethics, and the shared structure of divergent theories, all of which the passage supports.
Hence, with fixed moral starting points and expanding computational resources, the argument forecasts convergence on one ethical system and treats contextual judgement as unnecessary once formal reasoning scales across domains and cultures.
The council followed a prioritarian approach, assigning greater moral weight to improvements for the worst-off rather than to maximising total welfare across the affected population.
The passage defines utilitarianism by its axiom that one should act to maximise overall wellbeing, judging actions by their consequences for total happiness.
A position opposed to it must reject maximising total welfare as the test of right action.
The first, second and third scenarios all still judge choices by the broadest or highest total benefit, so each keeps the utilitarian core despite its label.
Only the prioritarian approach explicitly gives more weight to the worst-off rather than to maximising total welfare.
Hence, The council followed a prioritarian approach, assigning greater moral weight to improvements for the worst-off rather than to maximising total welfare across the affected population.
There is a principled way to decide which ethical framework applies to which class of cases, so the system can select the relevant starting points before deriving a recommendation.
In physics, many theories coexist, each suited to a particular range of phenomena, and one must know which theory fits a given problem.
If ethics works the same way and AI reasons from fixed starting points, the system must first be able to pick the right framework for a case; otherwise it has no starting point to reason from.
The other choices assume a single master framework, perfectly separate cases, or identical outcomes, all of which deny the plurality that the comparison relies on.
Hence, There is a principled way to decide which ethical framework applies to which class of cases, so the system can select the relevant starting points before deriving a recommendation.
Similar Questions
Zombie cells may contribute to age-related chronic inflammation: this finding could help scientists understand more about the aging process and why the immune system becomes less effective as we get older. Zombie or “senescent” cells are damaged cells that can no longer divide and grow like normal cells. Scientists think that these cells can contribute to chronic health problems when they accumulate in the body. In younger people, the immune system is more effective at clearing senescent cells from the body through a process called apoptosis, but as we age this process becomes less efficient. As a result, there is an accumulation of senescent cells in different organs in the body, either through increased production or reduced clearance by the immune system. The zombie cells continue to use energy though they do not divide, and often secrete chemicals that cause inflammation, which if persistent for longer periods of time can damage healthy cells leading to chronic diseases.
Identify the odd sentence out and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
The last paragraph of the passage refers to “middle-class, white, professional men”. Which one of the following qualities best describes the connection among them?
Study the following sets of concepts and identify the set that is conceptually closest to the concerns and arguments of the passage.
According to the passage, who or what was an “alienist”?
“Conversely, when a defendant struck officials as unlike themselves, whether by dint of disease, gender, confession, or race, the precariousness of judgments about mental state was exposed.” Which one of the following best describes the use of the word “confession” in this sentence?
According to the incentive or moral hazard argument, which one of the designs below is most consistent with the claim that some inequality can raise growth?
Which one of the options below best summarises the passage?
The primary function of the three-part case for a positive income inequality–economic growth link in the first half of the passage is to show that:
The passage refers to "democratization". Choose the one option below that comes closest to the opposite of this process.
Important Questions from Non Grammar
- In formulating Principle VI (a), the ILC clarified the term "waging of a war of aggression" because:
- The author attributes the growing public frustration with the UN primarily to which pair of continuous failures?
- A primary point of divergence between the US Conservative position and the Secretary-General's Conservative position on security matters, according to the summary is:
- According to the critique's conclusion, the immediate, insurmountable barrier preventing the implementation of any reform, major or minor, is:
- The Secretary-General's 'Agenda for Peace' proposed a specific military capability intended to address the gap between traditional peace-keeping and full military action. This proposed unit was explicitly characterized by the summary as being:
