Posted: September 18th, 2017

Philosophy

SECTION 1

1. Write a 750-word paper about Thucydides versus Plato on the nature of the Good Life. Some have claimed that Thucydides is making empirical claims, whereas Plato is making normative claims. Is that true? Support your answer in your paper.
2. Write a 750-word paper on the biblical view of science, technology, and the business world. Back up your conclusions with examples from your reading. How do you think the eighteenth-century world that gave rise to the Utilitarians reacted to the biblical view?

SECTION 2 – Answer the following essay questions. Each response should be approximately 750 words in length (about three typed pages, double-spaced) and should reflect your reading of the assigned materials and your listening to the audiotape or viewing of the video program (as applicable). Mastery of the principles on which your response is based must be evident by your indication of which principle you are using and why you have selected this principle to support your response.

Essay Questions

1. Is there a contradiction between our demand that our children be honest and moral persons and our demand that they be successful? Present the argument that there is a contradiction, and see if you can answer it.
2. Does one who kills another “deserve” to die? Why or why not? Are there circumstances that would change your answer? Make two lists (perhaps using a table with two columns). In one column, list the circumstances in which a killer would deserve to die; in the other, list circumstances in which a killer would NOT deserve to die. Now analyze factors that set the two lists apart, such as:
   • Qualities of the killer?
   • Previous circumstances or actions of the victim?
   • Qualities of the victim?
   • Qualities of the intention behind the act?
   • Features of the society in which the killing takes place?
   • Calculations of the likely consequences of assigning that particular penalty to that kind of act?
   • What does the exercise tell you about your tendency to rely on deontological or utilitarian reasoning? What does it tell you about your sense of the sacredness of human life?

SECTION 3 – Answer the following essay questions. Each response should be approximately 750 words in length (about three typed pages, double-spaced) and should reflect your reading of the assigned materials and your listening to the audiotape or viewing of the video program (as applicable). Mastery of the principles on which your response is based must be evident by your indication of which principle you are using and why you have selected this principle to support your response.

Essay Questions

1. Can you show how Jefferson’s theory of revolution (found in its shortest form in the Declaration of Independence) follows from John Locke’s theory of government? Could it follow from Hobbes’s theory of government? Under what circumstances?
2. Where does patient autonomy leave off and professional expertise begin in the practice of medicine? In the video presentation “Does Doctor Know Best?” (Program 4), one physician is delighted to encourage the patient to question physician judgment, to make her (the patient’s) own decision, to take treatment into her own hands. Another physician argues that such deference is just “catering” or “pandering” to the patient and will delay treatment. What do you think?

SECTION 4 – Answer the following essay questions. Each response should be approximately 750 words in length (about three typed pages, double-spaced) and should reflect your reading of the assigned materials and your listening to the audiotape or viewing of the video program (as applicable). Mastery of the principles on which your response is based must be evident by your indication of which principle you are using and why you have selected this principle to support your response.

Essay Questions

1. Where, in general, does the responsibility of the corporate executive lie? Is he or she primarily accountable to the shareholders, to the local community, or to the polity at large? State what the law is, but state also what it should be; then tell why, and give some examples of implementation.
2. Discuss the idea of loyalty presented in the biblical selection from Genesis, chapter 22 (pp. 49–50 of the Source Reader) and in Josiah Royce’s “Philosophy of Loyalty” (pp. 133–137 of the Source Reader). Do you think there should be limits to loyalty, either to God or country, especially for the professional soldier? Explain and defend your position.

SECTION 5- Answer the following essay questions. Each response should be approximately 750 words in length (about three typed pages, double-spaced) and should reflect your reading of the assigned materials and your listening to the audiotape or viewing of the video program (as applicable). Mastery of the principles on which your response is based must be evident by your indication of which principle you are using and why you have selected this principle to support your response.

Essay Questions

1. Epictetus (see Source Reader, p. 88) asserts that the keeping of a secret is the most obvious exercise of free choice, since the choice of whether to reveal the secret is clearly within your power. Another person can imprison you, of course, if you will not tell, and even kill you, but no one can make you reveal the secret. What do you think are the limits of human freedom? What might make it IMPOSSIBLE for a person to keep a secret? (You may consider historical examples in your answer to this question.)
2. You are an assistant in a storefront legal office, a summer employee planning to enter law school in the fall. You are assigned to do the initial interview of a new walk-in client. The client wants to sue her landlord for negligence in connection with severe injuries she sustained on the staircase in her apartment house. However, you quickly find out that the injuries are fictional. You know that the tendency in these cases is for the client to collect a small amount anyway (it’s cheaper for the landlord to pay off than to fight). One way that your office stays in business is on its share of just such suits. What do you tell the client? What do you tell the attorneys.

SECTION 6 – Answer the following essay questions. Each response should be approximately 750 words in length (about three typed pages, double-spaced) and should reflect your reading of the assigned materials and your listening to the audiotape or viewing of the video program (as applicable). Mastery of the principles on which your response is based must be evident by your indication of which principle you are using and why you have selected this principle to support your response.

Essay Questions

1. Chapter 11 in the Study Guide focuses only on the ethical dilemmas in testing drugs on human beings. How are those dilemmas changed—made easier or made more difficult—when the issue shifts to testing drugs on animals? Focus your answer by addressing the major ethical dilemmas presented in this lesson.
2. What legal invasions of privacy would you be willing to justify in the name of public policy? Would you be able to defend surveillance for the purpose of:
   • Making sure that people stay within the law?
   • Making sure that people are behaving themselves morally?
   • Making sure that people are healthy?
   • Making sure that people are happy?

Support your answers. Note that some defenses are easier than others.