Deck 5: The Quest for the Good Political Life

Question 1

According to Plato, government by people of honor and ambition is ______.

A) democracy
B) aristocracy
C) oligarchy
D) timocracy

Answer 1

timocracy

Question 2

According to Aristotle, which form of government provides the best practicable good life?

A) communism
B) polity
C) monarchy
Democracy

Answer 2

polity

Question 3

According to Aquinas, the reason of God by which the universe and all things in it are governed is ______.

A) eternal law
B) natural law
C) common law
Divine law

Answer 3

eternal law

Question 4

Which author wrote that rulers are bound by a system of law that legitimizes their authority?

A) Thomas Hobbes
B) Thomas Aquinas
C) Niccolò Machiavelli
St) Augustine

Question 5

Niccolò Machiavelli wrote in which era?

A) the Renaissance
B) ancient Greece
C) the Enlightenment
The height of the Roman Empire

Question 6

Which political philosopher believed that people in the state of nature enjoy certain natural, inalienable rights, especially the rights to life, liberty, and property?

A) Aristotle
B) Niccolò Machiavelli
C) Thomas Hobbes
D) John Locke

Question 7

Who is the author of On Liberty?

A) Edmund Burke
B) John Locke
C) John Stuart Mill
Karl Marx

Question 8

What political philosopher wrote of two cities, the City of God and the City of Man?

A) Augustine
B) Thomas Hobbes
C) Thomas Aquinas
D) John Stuart Mill

Question 9

For which of the following was Plato not criticized?

A) hostility toward democracy
B) support of censorship
C) advocating a rigid class society
D) reluctance to move from opinion to knowledge

Question 10

Which political philosopher held the greatest faith in the general public?

A) Edmund Burke
B) Thomas Hobbes
C) John Locke
D) Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Question 11

Which of the following statements best represents John Locke's view on how the political good life is achieved?

A) It is achieved when citizens unite in a social contract to foster their common purposes.
B) It is achieved when there is a balance between the people and nobility.
C) It is achieved by liberating people from oppression.
D) It is achieved when it is guided by inalienable sovereignty under the general will.

Question 12

According to Plato, government by the best is called ____________________.

Question 13

Augustine's seminal work, ____________________________, defended Christianity against the charge that it caused the fall of Rome in AD 410.

Question 14

For Thomas Aquinas, _______________________ refers to the reason of God by which the universe and all things in it are governed.

Question 15

According to Karl Marx, universal human emancipation can be achieved via ____________________________.

Question 16

It was _____________________ who characterized the life of man in the state of nature as "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

Question 17

The Greek city-state was known as the ________________.

Question 18

Niccolò Machiavelli's famous work that sought to teach leaders how to gain and hold power is titled _________________________________.

Question 19

In your judgment, which of the political philosophers examined in this chapter express(es) the soundest political philosophy? Why?

Question 20

State and then criticize the answer Thomas Hobbes provided to the problem of what must be done to obtain peace and maintain civilization in a troubled time.

Question 21

Do you see Karl Marx primarily as a humanist, a social scientist, or a revolutionary?

Question 22

Against the backdrop of the American and French Revolutions, Edmund Burke advanced four concepts: prescriptive constitution, balance of principles, political community, and prudence. Discuss Burke's definition of these concepts and how he assesses their value.

Question 23

Write an essay on the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, focusing on his understanding of the basic nature of man and what is necessary to achieve peace, law, and order.

Question 24

What value do the great thinkers considered in this chapter have to thinking about contemporary politics? Is there any? Or, is the role of political philosophy relatively useless to political scientists today?

Question 25

Take either Plato or Aristotle and compare his thought to that of any thinker from Machiavelli on. In what ways are they similar? How do they differ?

Question 26

What is the relationship between contemporary political science and the great tradition of political philosophy? Why does political science still need to read and consider the canon of political thought?

Question 27

Some argue that Thomas Hobbes is about authority and J. S. Mill is about liberty. Which political philosopher has more to teach us about today's politics?

Question 28

Which political philosopher do you find most sympathetic to democracy, and why?

Question 29

Who was Mary Wollstonecraft, what were her primary contributions to political thought, and why are they important?

Question 30

In what ways might we see Mary Wollstonecraft as an Enlightenment thinker?