POL 200Y1Y (LEC5101), 2023-2024

POLITICAL THEORY: VISIONS OF THE JUST/GOOD SOCIETY

Professor Orwin

STUDY QUESTIONS FOR THE FINAL EXAMINATION

The final examination for this course will consist of four of the eight questions that
follow. Of the four questions that do appear on the exam you will be required to answer two,
and your answers will count equally. You will have some choice as to which questions to
answer, but it will be limited, as you will be required to choose them so as to discuss four
different thinkers (including both Plato and Aristotle). It would therefore be prudent for you to
prepare as many of the following questions as possible -- and, where alternatives are offered
within a question, to prepare both or all of them, thus insuring maximum flexibility in your
choice of questions at the exam.
Most of the questions on the list have previously appeared as questions on the course’s
final exam. Most have appeared many times over. All have an equal chance of being chosen for
this year’s version. Don't waste your time deciding which questions to study; spend it studying
the questions. The examination will be No Aids Allowed, so you won’t be able to bring notes.
In answering questions about the books we have read you won’t be required to provide exact
quotations from them, but the more precise your references the more persuasive your
interpretation of a given text will be. (For example, “Plato argues that” is much less effective
than “as Socrates claims near the end of Book Three.”)
Lastly, try to keep your answers at the exam concise, thereby sparing your T.A.: it’s not
the case that the longer an answer is the better it is.
IN THE INTERESTS OF FAIRNESS TO ALL STUDENTS, NEITHER THE LECTURER NOR THE
TEACHING ASSISTANTS WILL DISCUSS THESE QUESTIONS WITH ANY STUDENTS. STUDENTS
ARE ENCOURAGED TO DISCUSS THEM AMONG THEMSELVES.

1. "The philosophers have only interpreted the world ...; the point, however, is to
change it." (Marx, Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach). How adequate is Marx's characterization
of "the philosophers" to Plato? To Machiavelli, Hobbes, or Locke? (Discuss Plato and any
ONE of these three modern thinkers.)

2. Compare and contrast Machiavelli’s critique of the Christian god in the name of
virtù with Socrates’ critique of the Homeric gods in the name of justice.

3. Both Socrates, in Book 4 of the Republic, and Hobbes, in the Preface to Leviathan,
establish parallels between the structure of the best or legitimate society and that of the
individuals who compose it. Yet these parallels are very different, as are the roles they play in
the arguments of the respective works. Discuss.

4. Plato and Hobbes present very different teachings on the human concern with the good.
How are their respective understandings of the ends of political life related to this difference?

5. Liberty is front and centre in Locke’s portrayal of society; in Socrates’ city in speech,
not so much. Why, and why not?

6. Both Aristotle in Book Three of the Politics and Machiavelli cast political life as
marked by a struggle between the few and the many. They treat this struggle very
differently, however. Explain the differences between their respective presentations of class
struggle and the best way of managing it.

7. In Book 3, Chapter 9 of the Politics, Aristotle criticizes one Lycophron the sophist for
asserting that law is a compact and a guarantor among the citizens of the just things.
According to Hobbes, Lycophron was correct, and the law is exactly what he said it was, no
more, no less. Focusing on Aristotle’s reasons for rejecting understanding society in terms of
a social compact, and Hobbes’s reasons for endorsing this notion, discuss their fundamental
differences concerning the origin and purposes of civil society.

8. Contrast Aristotle’s treatment of slavery in Book One of the Politics with Locke’s
treatment of it in Chapter Four of the Second Treatise. How do their differences in framing
this issue reflect their broader political outlooks?