Deck 8: Social and Political Philosophy

Question 1

Who said that the state was "prior to the individual"?

A) Rawls
B) Aristotle
C) Plato
D) Bentham

Answer 1

B

Question 2

What, according to Hobbes, is the "chief end" of men uniting into a commonwealth?

A) Survival
B) Preservation of property
C) Peace
D) Survival of the fittest

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Conditional pacifists hold that war is always wrong.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Which two needs does Hobbes believes drive human action?

A) Personal gain and love of others
B) Personal gain and survival
C) Love of others and survival
D) Love of others and desire for peace

Question 5

John Locke rejected the view that consent could be tacit.

Question 6

The view that in a just society everyone will be given equal shares of burdens and benefits is

A) Strict egalitarianism
B) Substantive egalitarianism
C) Formal equality
D) Rawlsian equality

Question 7

Hobbes believed that nothing could be unjust in the war of all against all.

Question 8

Hegel is an early communitarian thinker.

Question 9

Nozick was a welfare liberal.

Question 10

Hume endorsed social contract theory.

Question 11

Who held that justice consisted of each person doing the job appropriate to their class?

A) Rawls
B) Sandel
C) Aristotle
D) Plato

Question 12

The view that the wealth that is produced in society belongs to everyone in society is

A) Formal Egalitarianism
B) Substantive egalitarianism
C) Libertarianism
D) Socialism

Question 13

Hobbes and Locke were both social contract theorists.

Question 14

Hobbes believed that individuals were naturally equal in their bodies and minds.

Question 15

Communitarians argue that the state is natural.

Question 16

According to Nozick, what sort of theory of justice does Rawls develop?

A) Formal
B) Patterned
C) Historical
D) Socialist

Question 17

Who most explicitly stated the view that justice is what promotes the general welfare?

A) J. S. Mill
B) G. E. Moore
C) Plato
D) Hobbes

Question 18

Negative rights are rights that protect freedoms of various kinds.

Question 19

Thomas Jefferson was a disciple of

A) Locke
B) Rosseau
C) Hobbes
D) Plato

Question 20

Hobbes believed that the authority of the state was justified.

Question 21

David Hume argued that

A) the government must have absolute power in order to avoid chaos.
B) the government derives its authority from God.
C) there is no legitimate authority for government.
D) governments are formed by conquest or succession.

Question 22

Leviathan was written by__________.

Question 23

What philosopher argues that the just society is the one that distributes benefits and burdens in whatever way will produce the greatest social benefits or inflict the lowest social harms?

A) Karl Marx
B) John Rawls
C) John Stuart Mill
D) Michael Sandel

Question 24

In this chapter, the philosopher who defined a right as a justified entitlement or claim on others was

A) Thomas Jefferson
B) Martin Luther King, Jr.
C) H. J. McCloskey
D) Michael Sandel

Question 25

The claims that there are no relevant differences among
people when it comes to justice.

Question 26

What philosopher argues that in a just society work burdens should be distributed according to people's abilities, and benefits should be distributed according to people's needs?

A) Georg W. F. Hegel
B) Karl Marx
C) Plato
D) John Rawls

Question 27

Which of the following is a concept in John Rawl's philosophy that is similar to the concept of the "state of nature"?

A) the original position
B) the natural law
C) social utility
D) natural rights

Question 28

What philosopher associated justice with merit, in the sense that individuals are treated and given a station in life according to their talents and accomplishments?

A) Plato
B) Aristotle
C) Thomas Hobbes
D) Karl Marx

Question 29

In his defense of civil disobedience, Martin Luther King, Jr. argued that

A) violent resistance to an unjust law is morally justified.
B) the law cannot be used to enforce morality.
C) instead of trying to change people's hearts, we should kill the people who uphold unjust laws.
D) an unjust law is no law at all.

Question 30

is the philosophical study of society and its problems.

Question 31

Hegel believed that the state was more than the individual.

Question 32

Which of the following philosophers argued that a law is nothing more than a command issued by a ruler, backed by threats of punishment and maintained by a habit of obedience?

A) Martin Luther King, Jr.
B) John Austin
C) Thomas Aquinas
D) John Stuart Mill

Question 33

says that individuals give up certain rights and liberties to the state, which guarantees other rights.

Question 34

Rawls' "difference principle" states that

A) there should be no differences in people's e economic rewards.
B) society should not control the distribution of wealth.
C) social and economic inequalities should be arranged to result in the greatest benefit to the least advantaged.
D) social and economic differences are acceptable as long as they result from differences in people's natural abilities.

Question 35

Who is being quoted in this passage? "Benefits and burdens are distributed justly when society allows every individual the freedom to do what he chooses to do for himself or for others, the freedom to keep what he makes for himself or what others choose to give him, and the freedom to keep what he has or give it to whomever he chooses."

A) John Rawls
B) Karl Marx
C) John Stuart Mill
D) Robert Nozick

Question 36

What philosopher wrote that life without government would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"?

A) John Locke
B) John Rawls
C) Thomas Hobbes
D) John Stuart Mill

Question 37

What did Hobbes believe rulers should use to form the wills of the people subject to them?

A) Terror.
B) Bribery.
C) Reason.
D) Safety.

Question 38

Which of the following philosophers argued that the individual will develop fully only if he embraces the cultural practices of the state of which he is a member?

A) John Rawls
B) Karl Marx
C) George W. F. Hegel
D) Charles Taylor

Question 39

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke agree that

A) the government must have absolute power in order to avoid chaos.
B) a government derives its authority from God.
C) rationality enables humans to perceive the necessity of entering a social contract to create the state.
D) prior to the formation of government we do not have any rights.

Question 40

Who believed that justice was the appropriate name for certain important social utilities?

A) Mill
B) Jefferson
C) Locke
D) Nozick

Question 41

God's decrees for the governance of the universe was termed by Aquinas divine or law.

Question 42

argues that people should realize their human potential through productive work that exercises their capacities.

Question 43

What assumptions about human nature does Rawls make in developing his theory of justice using the artifice of the original position? Do you think that these assumptions are justified, or not? If so, do you think that the principles of justice that Rawls develops are binding on persons who were not in the original position (i.e., us)? Why, or why not? If not, do you think that the inadequacy of these assumptions undercut Rawls' views? Explain and justify your answer.

Question 44

Mill's central concern in On Liberty is the freedom of the _.

Question 45

Do you believe that the state should provide "public goods"--goods that can be used by as many people as wish to use them without any diminution in their availability, and which you cannot exclude people from using? (One example of such a good is the light from lighthouses.) If yes, would you force people to pay for these goods through taxation, even if they did not want them? If no, how else could such goods ever be provided, given their nature?

Question 46

Do you believe that liberty is always a good thing for people to have, or not? Explain your answer, and outline what sort of a state it might lead you to endorse.

Question 47

Feuerbach held that philosophy is the science of .

Question 48

Drawing from the Crito dialogue (discussed in Chapter 1) do you believe that you have any obligation to obey the state? Support your answer by reference to the theories of at least two of the following: Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau.

Question 49

Should there be any limits on what the state can do? Would you answer depend on the circumstances in which the state was acting, with it varying between times of peace, and times of war, for example?