PHH 3700 – American Philosophy – Review for Final Exam on 4/18/02

Your final exam on 4/18/02 will be composed of 9 short-medium essay questions that will be based on the questions below (5 questions will be short answer/identification/definitional, 4 others will be longer essays).  Test questions may be identical in format to, or be presented in part, combined, or derived from, the questions below.  You do not need a blue book for this exam.  COMPUTERS WILL BE OFF DURING THE EXAM.  Academic honesty and integrity are expected and required.

 

  1. What is Thomas Paine’s distinction between government and society?  Do you agree with what he says regarding this distinction?  Why?  Briefly defend your answer.
  2. What does Paine mean by the claim that society exists to satisfy our wants, but government exists as a result of our wickedness?
  3. What is Paine’s distinction between natural rights and civil rights?
  4. How does Paine justify the claim that government does not exist by a contract between the people and government, but is instead the product of a constitution, which is antecedent to government?
  5. What is the meaning of Emerson’s claim that the state or government must follow, not lead, its citizens?  How is this position relevant to the notion that less government is better than more?
  6. In your considered view, are the views of Emerson and Thoreau regarding the function or necessity of government the same?  Explain.
  7. Against what was Thoreau protesting when he refused to pay his taxes?  Why did he claim to be more free in prison than others were outside of it?  Was Thoreau an anarchist?  Defend your claim.
  8. What is Sarah Grimke’s argument against the claim that men are morally superior to women?  Even if man were woman’s moral superior, what is her argument against continuing to subjugate women?  What claims of Elizabeth Cady Stanton are similar to, or justify, Grimke’s position?
  9. In your considered view, what is Sojourner Truth’s message regarding the notion of the “special status” of a woman in her speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?”  Justify your claim.
  10. In “Solitude of Self,” what is the meaning of the term “self-sovereignty,” especially as it relates to moral responsibility and the development of individual human character?  Explain, in your view, the way in which “Solitude of Self” has affinities to Emersonian “Self-Reliance”.  What is the solitude of self?
  11. What was Angelina Grimke’s reply to those who said that they could not fight against slavery because of the personal costs that it would incur?  How does she show that slavery is contrary to the Declaration of Independence, that it is contrary to the law of God, and that it reduces a human being to a thing?
  12. What was Garrison’s argument in “Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society” that the grievances of America’s founders were trifling compared to the hardships of slaves? 
  13. In Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” in Grimke’s “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South,” and in “The Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society,” there is a clear development of the notion that it is NOT unjust to break an unjust law.  This notion is also found very clearly in the “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”  Explain in your own words the ways in which this form of “civil disobedience” is at once moral, legal, and obligatory in all four of these works.
  14. Why does Frederick Douglass hold the position that there is no need to ARGUE for the notion that every human being has a right to property in his own body?  Why does he claim that there is no need to ARGUE that slaves ought to be free?  What, in your considered view, is the status of the “ironies” of American belief in the meaning and value of the 4th of July while at the same time allowing for the enslavement of other human beings?
  15. In your view, is the position of Martin Luther King, Jr. or Malcolm X more powerful in making positive changes in the civil rights movement?  What, in your view, are the two most significant ways in which King’s position is similar to that of Thoreau regarding the necessity for civil disobedience? How does King respond to his critics who claim that his actions precipitate violence? Explain.
  16. Given William James’s statement that there will be no final truth in ethics until the last human being has lived his life and had his say, do you think that James’s conception of pragmatism is tantamount to moral/ethical relativism?  How about his claim in “What Makes a Life Significant” that “ideals” are relative to the individual? Explain.
  17. Briefly describe William James’s conception of the notion of what it is that makes a life significant.  What does he mean by the notion that ideals by themselves give no reality and virtues by themselves give no novelty? Do you agree with him?  Why?  Defend your answer.
  18. What is John Dewey’s “scientific” conception of morality?  That is, how does his view incorporate the ideals of scientific method in ethics?  Do you agree with Dewey that the traditional notion of a fixed truth in ethics is both impractical and unreasonable?  Explain why you think (or don’t think) that Dewey is right that his view of ethics would do away with intolerance and fanaticism.
  19. John Rawls presents two principles of justice, and one is prior to the other.  What are they?  Why is one prior to the other? How are they formulated?  In your view, are his proposals conducive to “fairness”?  Why?
  20. Robert Nozick argues that “liberty upsets patterns” and he argues for an “entitlement theory.”  How does the example of the basketball player serve to show that the first is the case, and what does the second concept mean?
  21. Annette Baier and Virginia Held argue that traditional ethico-political concepts do not include the experience of women, and thus traditional moral and political theories are flawed.  In what way do they attempt to show that this is the case?  Which of their arguments do you find most convincing?  Why?  Defend your claim.