Choose one of the question to answer

ESSAY QUESTIONS:

Rousseau

• In Rousseau’s view, how has the process of socialisation diminished man’s natural capacities?

• What, according to Rousseau, were the worst effects of socialization?

• What, in Rousseau’s view, did the ‘origin’ of inequality teach us about its moral ‘foundations’?

• Explain the role of amour propre in Rousseau’s “Second Discourse”.

• What role does property play in “Second Discourse”?

Smith

• What is the role of unintended consequences in Adam Smith’s vision of commercial society?

• How did Adam Smith explain the evolution of morals?

• In what ways did Adam Smith challenge Rousseau’s vision of commercial society?

• Describe the relationship between commerce and liberty in Smith’s political thought?

Burke

• How and why does Burke defend natural inequalities?

• What is the importance of custom, prejudice and tradition in Burke’s philosophy?

• Is it possible to reconcile Burke’s defence of the 1688 Glorious revolution with his attack on the events in France in 1789?

• To what extent was Burke’s political thought a ‘revolt against the eighteenth century’?

• ‘To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely’(Reflections on the Revolution in France). What does Burke mean by this?

Wollstonecraft

• Which ‘rights’ of women did Mary Wollstonecraft intend to vindicate?

• How are gender inequality and social inequality connected in Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman?

• Was Wollstonecraft’s Vindication a repudiation of Enlightenment thought or a logical extension of it?

• What did Wollstonecraft mean when she called for a revolution in female manners?

J. S. Mill

• In what ways, if any, did Mill remain a utilitarian?

• Did Mill place any limits on his notion of liberty?

• What was the place of equality in Mill’s utilitarianism?

• How does the historical context of J. S. Mill’s On Liberty help us to understand its meaning?

Hegel

• Why did Hegel admire the principles of the French revolution, and the Napoleonic system?

• Was Hegel a reactionary political philosopher?

• How does Hegel justify his view that individual freedom is only achieved in the state?

• What did Hegel mean by ‘civil society’, and what did he consider to be its most appropriate form of government?

Marx

• ‘Communism … is the genuine resolution of the antagonism between man and nature and between man and man.’ Why did Marx believe this was so?

• Why did Marx and Engels distinguish between ‘scientific’ and ‘utopian’ socialism?

• Why did Marx argue that class struggle was inevitable?

• Why, according to Marx and Engels in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, was capitalism doomed to perish?

Nietzsche

• How, according to Nietzsche, had Christianity shaped European morality?

• What did Nietzsche believe was wrong with modern man?

• What, according to Nietzsche in his Genealogy of Morals, was the origin of the ascetic ideal?

• Why did Nietzsche think morality could be critiqued through genealogy?

Du Bois

• How central is the concept of ‘double consciousness’ to Du Bois’s political thought?

• What are the political consequences of race and racism, according to Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk?

• ‘The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line’. What did Du Bois mean by this and how did his thought relate domestic to international politics?

• What is the role of education in The Souls of Black Folk?

• How important is the American South for understandingDu Bois’s political thought?

Arendt

• How important is historical context for understanding Hannah Arendt’s On Violence?

• What is the relationship between power and violence according to Arendt?

• What does Arendt believe are the implications of violence for the modern age?

• How does Arendt distinguish between violence and power?

• What are the specifically modern features of political violence, for Arendt, and what problems does this pose for politics?