Philosophy 320Social and Political PhilosophyFall 2011Final Exam Review Questions

1. What is Bentham’s view on natural rights? What theory of rights does Bentham advocate? Whatproblems arise from this view?

2. What is Marx’s critique of the rights of man as set out in the French Declaration of the Rights ofMan and the Citizen?

3. Upon what basis is the right to private property acquired according to Locke? Does Lockerecognize any limits to the acquisition of private property?

4. What is the practical benefit of the division of labor according to Adam Smith in The Wealth ofNations? Why does Smith warn against government interference in the marketplace? How is it,according to Smith, that the public interest can be served if everyone were left free to pursue theirprivate interests?

5. How does Marx’s theory of the alienation of labor, as laid out in the Economic and PhilosophicManuscripts of 1844, advance Rousseau’s criticism of Locke’s theory of the social contract? Whatis Marx’s response to Adam Smith’s conclusions regarding the division of labor and the role ofgovernment in the marketplace?

6. How does John Rawls, in A Theory of Justice, attempt to reconcile the formerly opposed positionsof liberalism and egalitarianism? What does Rawls mean by the “veil of ignorance” and what twoprinciples does he think would follow if a system of distributive justice were determined frombehind such a veil?

7. What is “war realism” and how is this view connected with the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes? What did Kant advocate, in the essay Toward Perpetual Peace, as a means of achieving a lastingpeace between nations? What does Kant have to say that might apply to the war realists today?

8. What are the six principles of jus ad bellum in Just War Theory? According to Michael Walzer,what is the only real just cause for war and what two kinds of military action does he argue arejustified in response? Does Walzer’s view allow for a preemptive strike?

9. In considering the problem of famine in poor countries what conclusion does Peter Singer come towhich he acknowledges upsets our traditional moral categories? How does Singer arrive at thisconclusion?

10. In After Virtue, how does Alasdair Macintyre challenge the fundamental assumption of modernindividualism which underlies modern political theory? Why does Macintyre caution against theattempt which guided much of modern political theory to arrive at universal principles?