SECOND
ASSIGNMENT
DUE
3 AUGUST, 11:55PM
·
Submitted through turnitin via iLearn. See
the link in the assessment page.
Write a 1500 word essay on ONE of the following topics.
1. Augustine claims that we should treat people according to the proper order of love. What does he mean by this? Is this a reasonable requirement? What effect would it have in the modern world if we did so.
2. Is the Doctrine of Double Effect a valid moral principle? Use the version set out by Joseph Mangan. Defend your answer by examining various applications of the doctrine. (Use at least some examples of your own.)
3. Is there such a thing as a just war? In your answer critically examine the standard criteria for a just war as set out in the Lecture Notes. (You are encouraged to test these criteria against real life examples.)
4. Machiavelli says that it's OK for you to lie and kill innocents if you're the Prince. Why does he think this? Do you think the modern governments do or should behave according to Machiavelli's principles?
5. Why does Hobbes believe that political revolution and rebellion are always unjustified? Describe how this belief relates to Hobbes’s account of the state of nature and the creation of a commonwealth. Is Hobbes’s position plausible?
6. Compare and contrast Hobbes’s and Locke’s views of the state of nature and the fundamental purpose of political society. Whose view is the more plausible? Why?
7. Describe and critically assess Locke’s theory of original acquisition.
8. Locke’s view of natural rights is based on his religious convictions. Can the idea of natural rights survive outside of this religious viewpoint? If natural rights are not based upon the authority of God, what can they be based upon?
9.
Kant claims that we must always “Act
in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in
the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as
an end.” (Groundwork 4: 429; see Lecture Notes)
Explain what Kant means by this claim.
Use examples of your own to illustrate it.
Critically access Kant’s claim.
10. Describe and critically assess John Stuart Mill’s harm principle.
11. Compare and contrast Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill’s versions of utilitarianism. Whose version is the more plausible? Why?
12. Describe and critically assess John Rawls account of what makes a society just.