PHIL 1010 Social and Political Issues

According to Aristotle the ruler -- that is, the person who exercises political authority -- should learn to rule by...

being subject to political authority exercised by others.

For Socrates the important thing about justice of a city, as opposed to justice of a person, is that the former is...

more easily seen.

One of Aristotle's criticisms of the Spartan constitution is that...

by setting up the state for conquest and war, it encourages the same kind of action by individual citizens within the city.

According to Aristotle, the duty you have as a citizen is to work to preserve...

your own excellence.

What is remarkable about dogs, according to Socrates?

They like those they know but who've done them no good.

Adeimantus argues that even if there are gods who care about what we do, the unjust needn't worry about receiving punishment from them. The reason, he says, is that...

the gods can be influenced.

According to Socrates, the city's warriors ("guardians" in the first sense in the book) are to be...

selected on the basis of their natural aptitude.

The problem with there being wealth and poverty in the city, according to Socrates, is that it...

causes deterioration of people's skill at their tasks.

Socrates' argument in the Republic relies on an analogy between...

soul and city

Aristotle writes:
the active life is not necessarily active in relation to other men, as some people think, nor are only those processes of thought active that are pursued for the sake of the objects that result from action, but far more those speculations and thoughts that have their end in themselves and are pursued for their own sake...
Against which of the following thoughts is this remark directed?

Since the best life is an active life, it involves participation in politics.

Aristotle claims that an important difference between external goods (wealth, power etc.) and goods of the soul (courage, wisdom etc.) is that...

we choose external goods for the sake of our soul, not the other way around.

What feature of unjust cities makes them vulnerable in war, according to Socrates?

The divisions between poor and rich.

Which of the following can happen in a valid argument? (You can choose more than one option.)

The conclusion is true no matter what. (That is, in every state of affairs it is true, e.g. 3+2=5.)

The premises are all true and the conclusion is false.

The premises and conclusion are all true.

Which of the following is not part of the "noble lie" told to youngsters in Socrates' city?

You have an equal mix of the metals that are in your parents.

Socrates uses the example of dogs to show that...

it's possible for the warriors to have the right qualities.

According to Aristotle, what makes you a citizen is that you...

take part in the administration of the state.

The "noble lie" that is to be told to the people of the just city includes the idea that...

peoples' childhoods took place underground.

At one point Socrates has described a city of people who live in peace and health to a good old age. Glaucon angrily intervenes, saying that this is...

a city of pigs.

One might ask, Has the "state of war" ever existed? Hobbes's answer would be that...

probably it has, here and there, but what's more important is what it would be like.

An unequal distribution of primary goods is justified according to the difference principle (as defined by Rawls) if...

the least well-off are better off in that distribution, than they would be under an equal distribution.

What claim about human psychology does Moller Okin invoke in her criticism of Rawls's conception of the original position?

In our society, women reason differently from men about morality.

Hobbes's solution to the "state of war" is that people should...

give someone the power to protect them from each other.

Concerning ideal theory and non-ideal theory, Shelby argues that...

you can't have the latter without the former.

Shelby thinks that we can use Rawls's idea of "fair equality of opportunity" to justify...

mitigation of the effects of historical racist injustice.

According to Hobbes, the reason that the sovereign cannot break the covenant (that made them sovereign) is that...

it wasn't an agreement with the sovereign.

By "the gender system," Moller Okin means...

sex-based differences in rights and opportunities.

A distribution of primary goods is "efficient" (in the specific sense that Rawls explains) if...

no exchange between two people can improve both their situations.

Moller Okin argues that because Rawls assumes that the people in the original position are "heads of households," he...

does not apply his theory to the question of justice within families.

When Charles Mills says that Rawls's theory is "ideological," he means that...

it reflects the interests and privileges of its author.

Which of these is something that the people in the original position, as explained by Rawls, do know?

general facts about how various social institutions have effects on peoples' life prospects.

In reflective equilibrium, as Rawls explains it, two things are balanced:

our confidence in general principles of justice, and our confidence in judgments that we make about particular features of some societies.