Deck 11: Social Contracts and Rights

Question 1

Locke's view is that people can turn a resource from the natural world into their own property by

A) taking it from someone else.
B) claiming it for themselves.
C) working to obtain or improve it.
D) hiring a lawyer.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Hobbes says that people have rights

A) from God.
B) only in a state of nature.
C) only once the state has been formed.
D) in both the state of nature and once the state has been formed.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Social contracts typically

A) allow people to keep their rights just as they were before the state is created.
B) require people to give over all of their rights to the state.
C) require people to give over some degree of their rights to the state.
D) claim that nobody has any rights to begin with.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Rawls's equality principle guarantees everyone equal

A) authority and power in society.
B) income.
C) basic rights and responsibilities.
D) knowledge of their lives.

Question 5

Recognizing that people's abilities and interests are not the same, Rawls does all of the following, except

A) replace the equality principle with the difference principle.
B) add the difference principle to his account.
C) require that everyone have the same opportunities to any job or position.
D) offset potential economic differences by adding resources into the social system.

Question 6

Rawlsian rights include basic rights, which

A) are exactly the same as Locke's four natural rights.
B) incorporate certain important political rights.
C) incorporate a wide range of what we call human rights.
D) do not incorporate any moral rights.

Question 7

Saying that rights "trump" or overshadow other moral reasons and arguments means that

A) there is always some moral principle that supports any right.
B) moral reasons and arguments are futile.
C) moral responsibility is often ignored.
D) appealing to rights will often silence any opposition.

Question 8

Complaints about society overemphasizing rights include that

A) they encourage an exaggerated individualism.
B) they do not provide adequate protection of individuals with power and authority.
C) people never appeal to rights out of personal interest.
D) it is not within society's scope to emphasize rights at all.

Question 9

Which of the following appear(s) to be a particularly pervasive focal point of structural violence?

A) Racism
B) Class and economic inequities
C) Sexism
D) A society's history

Question 10

When an entire moral standard is established by a social contract, that contract is

A) morally-based.
B) not morally-based.
C) necessarily true.
D) necessarily false.

Question 11

Social contract theory says that leaders receive authority over other people

A) from God.
B) as established by their hiring contract.
C) from those who will be under their authority.
D) from other authority figures.

Question 12

Locke describes his theory's state of nature as

A) already under natural law.
B) an ongoing "time of war."
C) having some government already in place.
D) having no moral values or obligations.

Question 13

For Hobbes, the primary benefit of establishing a social contract is that it

A) allows people to protect their personal property.
B) allows for people's survival and safety.
C) gives the disadvantaged special rights.
D) creates a social hierarchy to better organize daily life.

Question 14

Hobbes maintains that in placing themselves under the social contract and its resulting state, people must yield up _______ in return.

A) a great deal of liberty
B) a few small rights for the sake of the greater good
C) all of their property
D) Nothing, since that would not be in their rational self-interest.

Question 15

Hobbes says that in the state of nature, people are

A) at peace, since states cause wars.
B) in an uneasy and fragile peace.
C) self-interested and at war with each other.
D) incapable of reason.

Question 16

_______ social contract theory does not appear to be morally-based.

A) Hobbes's
B) Locke's
C) Rawls's
D) All three men's social contract theories are morally-based.

Question 17

Rawls' theory creates a liberal democracy, which is

A) a democracy that requires the rich to support the poor.
B) not really a democracy.
C) a big-government democracy that controls much of what people can do.
D) a democratic society that prioritizes individual freedoms and rights.

Question 18

In Rawls's original position, people

A) know all about their place in the future society.
B) know what career they will have but not much else.
C) do not know much of anything about their place in the future society.
D) are already organized into a hierarchy based on their potential benefits to the future society.

Question 19

For Rawls, the _______ principle is established first and places limits on his second principle.

A) difference
B) rights
C) equality
D) original

Question 20

When people initially set up an actual social contract, they give

A) their consent to the contract.
B) what is called their tacit consent.
C) their consent only hypothetically.
D) all of their property to the state.

Question 21

Some rights can be given away or transferred to others. These are called

A) inalienable rights.
B) negative rights.
C) positive rights.
D) alienable rights.

Question 22

Structural violence occurs when

A) a system largely denies some groups of people the ability to act for themselves or meet their needs.
B) one individual commits brutal violence upon another individual.
C) people rally together to strip an authority figure of their power.
D) terrorists assault other groups or nations by attacking significant buildings, monuments, or other structures.

Question 23

A theoretical social contract is usually intended to justify the defining parts of a social system along with a government or state. It is also hypothetical, although some actual societies may reflect a similar system.

Question 24

Social contracts usually provide some incentive for people to follow the contract, whether they themselves are negotiators of an actual contract or as rational self-interested people in hypothetical contracts.

Question 25

One disadvantage with social contract theories is that they fail to provide any explanation of the fundamental question: why do some people have authority over others?

Question 26

Short term social contracts exist even in everyday life (e.g., students might set up such a contract to work on a project together).

Question 27

Some people have more natural rights than others.

Question 28

Locke maintains that people have no rights until they leave the state of nature and establish a society via a social contract.

Question 29

Even Rawls's theory raises worries regarding the interests and protections of those who are not among the contract's negotiators.

Question 30

Careful consideration shows that a Rawlsian liberal democracy is fairly well-equipped to avoid structural violence, although it's still important that it doesn't suffer from too much moral failure.