HUMAN NATURE AND THE SOCIAL ORDER I

            FALL, 2004

 

 

INSTRUCTOR:           Dr. Stone (316 Lupton, 404-364-8344, bstone@facstaff.oglethorpe.edu)

 

TEXTS:                        The Politics, Aristotle (P)

Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (NE)

                                    The Second Treatise of Government, John Locke (ST)

                                    The Basic Political Writings, J. J. Rousseau (BPW)

                                    An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, David Hume (PM)

                                    Political Writings, Augustine (PW)

 

                                                                                                                                                                          

DATE              FIGURE                      TOPIC                                                 READING NO.

 

Aug 24                                                 Introduction and Overview

 

Aug 26             Aristotle                       The Good Life                                                  #1

 

Aug 31             Aristotle                       The Virtues of Character                                   #2

 

Sept 2              Aristotle                       The Virtues of Thought                                     #3

 

Sept 7              Aristotle                       The Contemplative Life                                     #4       

 

Sept 9              Aristotle                       The Household                                     #5

 

Sept 14            Aristotle                       Contra Plato                                                     #6

 

Sept 16            Aristotle                       The Polity                                                         #7

 

Sept 21            Review

 

Sept 23            EXAM #1

 

Sept 24            Augustine                     The City of God                                               #8

 

Sept 30            Augustine                     The City of God                                               #9

 

Oct 5               Hobbes                        The State of Nature                                          #10

 

Oct 7               Locke                          The State of Nature                                          #11

 

Oct 12             Locke                          Conjugal Society                                              #12

 

Oct 14             Locke                          Civil Society                                                     #13

 

Oct 19             Locke                          The Right to Revolution                        #14

 

DATE              FIGURE                      TOPIC                                                 READING NO.

 

Oct 21             Review                        

 

Oct 26             EXAM #2                   

 

Oct 28             Hume                           Benevolence/Self Love                         #15

 

Nov 2              Hume                           On Justice                                                        #16

 

Nov 4              Hume                           On Commerce                                                  #17

           

Nov 9              Madison          Social Pluralism                                                #18

 

Nov 11            Rousseau - First Discourse                                                                   #19

 

Nov 16            Rousseau - Second Discourse                                                   #20

 

Nov 18                        Papers Due

 

Nov 23            Presentations/Discussion                                                                      

 

Nov 30                        Presentations/Discussion

 

Dec 2               Review

 

Dec. 8-14        FINALS / EXAM #3

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READING and POSSIBLE EXAM QUESTIONS:

 

For your convenience, I have created reading questions on each of the reading assignments.  You are to have answered these questions before coming to class.  Many of these questions will appear on the exams.  In fact, up to ½ of each exam will be comprised of questions taken from the reading questions.

 

 

QUIZZES:

 

During the course of the semester seven pop quizzes will be given on the reading questions.  Each quiz will be worth 10 points.  The lowest quiz score will be dropped.  No make-up quizzes will be given.

 

 

EXAMS:

 

This course has three exams.  Each will be worth 90 points.  Each exam will be made up of short answer and essay questions (no multiple-choice questions).

 

 

 

PAPER/PRESENTATION:

 

A paper is due Nov 18.  It should be 8 to 10 pages and will be worth 50 points.  The paper should address the following questions.

 

How do you conceive the chief aim or purpose of government?  What role does the American polity have in fostering the virtue or excellence of its citizens?  How do you conceive the relationship between virtue and rights?  Are there liberal virtues?  If so, what are they and in what institutional context are they formed?

 

On November 23 or 30 you will give a brief summary of your paper in class.  The exact date of your presentation will be announced well in advance of the presentation.  Your presentation and participation in the class discussions on these three days will be worth 20 points.

 

TOTAL POINTS:

 

            3 Exams                       270 points

            7 Quizzes                     60 points (Remember 1 dropped)

            1 Paper                        50 points

            1 Presentation               20 points

                                                400 Total Possible Points

 

 

GRADES:

 

There are 400 total possible points in this course.  Your grade will be determined by the University's +/- grading scale, as described in the Bulletin. 

 

 

ATTENDANCE:

 

Excessive absences will result in a FA.  If you are in danger of getting a FA, I will warn you and give you an ultimatum.

 

 

MAKE-UP EXAMS: 

 

No make-up exams will be given without a note from an appropriate official.  Learning responsibility, and paying the consequences for irresponsibility, are important parts of a college education.

 

            READING QUESTIONS

 

#1        NE,  Book I, Chapters 1-5, 7, 13

 

 1.        What are the apparent differences among the ends aimed at?  How do these different aims relate?

 

 2.        Summarize Aristotle's initial characterization of the highest good.  Which science is concerned with it?  Given what has been said about the subordination of activities within a particular science, and what is said about the highest good, what relationship would this science have with all other sciences?

 

 3.        How precise is the method of political inquiry?  What is the mark of an educated person?  What do you imagine leads Aristotle to suggest that young people are not good students of political studies/ethics?

 

 4.        By what name is the highest good commonly known?  What is implied by the term?  Respond.  Respond also to Aristotle's comments concerning upbringing.

 

 5.        Why is pleasure not the highest good?  Why not the life of political activity?  Why not money-making?  Why, do you imagine, does Aristotle defer his discussion of the life of study or contemplation?

 

 6.        What is the criterion for completeness or self-sufficiency?  What meets this criterion?  Why does self-sufficiency not imply being alone?

 

 7.        What is described as the human function?  Why are nutrition/growth and the life of sense perception not considered part of the human function?

 

 8.        What is Aristotle's analogy between the harpist's function and the human function?  What conclusion does he draw?  Respond.

 

 9.        Why does a discussion of virtue require an account of the soul or psyche?

 

10.       How does Aristotle's discussion of the parts of the soul relate to his distinction between the two types of virtue?

 

#2        NE,  Book 2 

 

 1.        By what different means are virtues of thought and virtues of character acquired?

 

 2.        What is the relationship of nature and virtues of character?  Elaborate on how the virtues of character are acquired.

 

 3.        Respond to Aristotle's assertions concerning the legislator's role in creating good citizens.  Should this be an aim of our government?

 

 4.        How important is youth to the formation of virtue?

 

 5.        In what ways is virtue concerned with pleasure and pain?

 

 6.        What three conditions must be met for a good act to be truly virtuous?  Are these conditions present in the crafts or productive arts?

 

 7.        Why is virtue not a feeling or passion?  What is meant by the term capacity or faculty?

 

 8.        What does Aristotle mean when he says the intermediate or mean is not a numerical/arithmetic, but an intermediate relative to us?  What are the extremes relative to the mean called?

 

 9.        Respond to the comment "for we are noble in only one way, but bad in all sorts of ways."

 

10.       Does every action admit to a mean?

 

11.       Identify and describe the vices of excess and deficiency relative to bravery, temperance, generosity, magnificence, and honor.

 

12.       How does the brave man appear to a coward?  To a rash person?  How do the vices relate to one another?

 

13.       Can Aristotle be said to speak of the lesser of two evils?  For what two reasons is this true?

 

#3        NE,  Book VI, Chapter 1-7

 

 1.        What role does reason play in the virtues of character?

 

 2.        Distinguish between the two parts of reason.  How does each relate to truth?

 

 3.        Taken as five states of the soul, name each of the five states in which the soul grasps truth.

 

 4.        With what is scientific knowledge concerned?  Although this will be elaborated upon in class, merely name the two modes of teaching/logic through which scientific knowledge is made teachable or demonstrable.  How does this conception of scientific knowledge fit with our contemporary view of science?

 

 5.        How does production or productive reason differ from scientific reason?  How does it differ from action?  How are production and action similar?

 

 6.        What is prudence?  What are prudent people like?

 

 7.        What is the relationship between temperance and prudence?

 

 8         What is understanding?  What is its relationship to scientific knowledge and wisdom?

 

 9.        Are human beings the best or highest things in the universe?  Given this is wisdom a higher or lesser virtue than prudence.  Can one have wisdom but lack prudence?  When answering this bear in mind that for Aristotle to say something is "useless" is not derogatory.

 

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#4        NE,   Book X, Chapters 6-9

 

 1.        Review the qualities of happiness.

 

 2.        Why is happiness often taken to be amusement?  Why is happiness not amusement?

 

 3.        What is the supreme virtue of happiness?  What are its features?  Why does it require leisure?  Why is it called divine while other virtues are human?  Respond to what is stated about external goods.

 

            Is knowledge enough?  What roles do nature, teaching and habit play?  Why are correct laws important?  What power does law have? If a community lacks proper laws, where does responsibility fall?  How does one learn the legislative science?

 

#5        P,   Book 1

 

1.         What are the four types of rule?  Are they distinguished merely by the number of people ruled?

 

 

2.         For the sake of what do males and females come together?  On account of what do the naturally ruling and ruled come together?  What is the naturally mastering element?  Are females natural slaves?

 

3.         How does the village arise?  What is the partnership of villages called?  Why does it come into being and for what does it exist?

 

4.         Why is it clear that man is much more by nature a political animal than any other animal?  If the city is comprised of pre-existing households, why does Aristotle say that the city is prior to the household?  What makes man the best animal and what makes him the worst?

 

5.         What three relationships are central to the household?  Who is by nature a slave?  Among the depraved, what rules what?  Is slavery by law, conquest, and force just or natural?  How do those who merit slavery respond to it?  What of those who do not merit it?

 

6.         What distinguishes household mastery from political rule?

 

7.         What is just war?  What part of acquisitive expertise is natural?  Is expertise in business of this sort?  Distinguish between possession for use and possession for exchange.

 

8.         Is bartering natural?  What is the origin of money?  With what is business expertise concerned?  Is it natural?  Is there a natural limit upon money?  What sort of business is most contrary to nature?

 

9.         How does marital and parental rule differ from mastery of slaves?  Does the male always rule the female?

 

10.       How do the parts of the soul differ among slaves, women and children?  Are women “free persons”?

 

#6        P,   Book 2,  Chapters 1-7

 

1.         How does Aristotle respond to Socrates’ suggestion, as described in Plato’s Republic, that it is best for the city to be as far as possible entirely one?  Of what is the city comprised?  What would happen to the city if unity or oneness were sought?

 

2.         What is the double sense of “all”?  Which sense applies in the circumstance where wives and children are common?

 

3.         What is accorded the least care?  Would common children be cared for?  Is it natural to confirm paternity for common children?

 

4.         If people do not know who their relatives are what would happen to homicide, assaults and verbal abuse?  What makes two people become one?  Is this possible in Socrates’ scheme?

 

5.         Are people who hold property in common or separately most at odds?

 

6.         What would the relationship be between the multitudes and the guardians, according to Aristotle?

 

7.         What features do The Republic and The Laws have in common?  How large would a regime need to be in order to sustain 5,000 people in idleness?

 

8.         What is the best regime, according to The Laws?  How does Aristotle respond?

 

9.         What did Phaleas see as the source of faction and how did he conceive the solution?  How much inequality did Plato allow for in The Laws?  Beyond property what other source of factional conflict exists?  For whom would this be most significant?  Is it merely in regard to necessary things that people are unjust?

 

10.       On balance, does Aristotle see equality as practical?

 

#7        P,   Book 4, Chapters 1-11

 

1.         Beyond the best regime, what should one study?  Why is reforming a regime as difficult a task as starting one?  What is a regime?

 

2.         What are the three correct and three deviant regimes?  Which of the deviations is worst?  Second worst?

 

3.         Why are there a number of regimes?

 

4.         When does rule of the people exist and when does oligarchy exist?  What are the necessary parts or elements of the city?  Are all of these elements exclusive?  What two categories are exclusive?

 

5.         What accounts for the different kinds of democracy and oligarchy?  Among the variety of democracy, would you prefer rule by the multitude or by the law?  Which does Aristotle deem most dangerous?  Which form of oligarchy is analogous to the latter?

 

6.         Which element when in power is most likely to rule by law?  What circumstance in oligarchy fosters the rule of law?

 

7.         Who rules in aristocracy?  Simply speaking, what is a polity?  Why are most so-called aristocracies, not aristocracies?

 

8.         Characterize the Lacedaemonian (Spartan) regime as a polity.

 

9.         What is characteristics of tyrannical rule?

 

10.       In terms of social class, what is the best regime?  Relate this to Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean as discussed in the Ethics.

 

#8        PW,   Book II, 21; Book IV, 4,6,15,20; Book V, 9,19,24; Book VIII, 3,5,6,8,10; Book XIV,            4,5,6,7; Book XV, 2,4,7,22; Book XVI, 8

 

1.         According to Cicero’s interlocutor Scipio, what was the condition of the Roman republic in Cicero’s time?  What must exist if the republic is to exist?  How did Cicero’s Scipio define the republic?

 

2.         Is the American republic standing firm on the morals of men of yesteryear?  Where might “true justice” exist?

 

3.         What are kingdoms without justice?  Without war, what would kingdoms have been like?  How are war and the extension of empire justified by the wicked and by the good?

4.         In what sense is the goddess “Virtue” comparable to the Christian God?

 

5.         According to Cicero, if the stoic conception of fate were correct, what could not exist? 

 

6.         Why among philosophers are Socrates and the Platonists closest to Christians?  To what did the Epicureans and the Stoics attend?

 

7.         What is the highest good for Platonists (and Aristotle)?  What is the potential defect of this conception in Augustine’s view?

 

8.         Why have the two cities sprung up?  What is in all the soul’s acts?  Are we evil by nature?  What do the holy scriptures call good will?  What is a twisted will?

 

9.         Describe the relationship of the two cities by describing Hagar and Sarah.

 

10.       By what is the earthly city divided?  How does it strive for peace?  If Cain is the first citizen of the earthly city, how important is envy?  If the good of bodily beauty is a gift of God, how does it become an evil?

 

11.       Is humanity made up of a multitude or a single race?

 

 

#9        PW,  Book XIX, 1,2,4,7,11,12,13,15,16,17,19,21,23,24

 

1.         In what dispute have philosophers engaged in most?  Where have the final good and final evil been placed by philosophers?

 

2.         What are the three kinds of life?    Do these necessarily make one happy?  For the city of God, what is the supreme good and what is the supreme evil?  Why can’t the primary goods of body and mind be the supreme good?

 

3.         What does virtue do?  Do each of the virtues bear witness to human evils?  What did the stoic view of suicide suggest according to Augustine?  What makes us happy?

 

4.         What does the diversity of languages do to man?  What evils accompany the efforts of an empire to impose a common language?  To what sorts of wars have large empires led?

 

5.         Stated most completely, what is the highest good of the city of God?

 

6.         What is the desired end of war?  What do the robber and the man at home who is a tyrant desire?

 

7.         What would make one semi-human rather than human?  Would such a being desire peace?  What of savage animals?

 

8.         What is peace between mortal man and God?  What is the peace between human beings?  What is the peace of the heavenly city?

 

9.         Characterize the tranquility of order.  What makes the devil evil?

 

10.       Did God give dominion of man over man?  Is anyone by nature a slave?  What is the first cause of slavery?  What is the worst sort of enslavement?

11.       What is the nature of “true fathers of their families”?  What justifies discipline?  To what ultimate end is domestic peace directed?  What ends direct the earthly household?

 

12.       In what sense are citizens of the city of God like a traveler?  Does the heavenly city require a particular language, style of dress or manner of living?

 

13.       Review why Rome was not a republic.  Justice as a virtue does what?  Where would it exist?

 

14.       Instead of “advantage” what should define a republic?  Assess the American regime in light of this definition.  What do we love?

 

#10      Selections from Hobbes's Leviathan,   pp. 183-193,  223-228

 

 1.        What proofs does Hobbes offer concerning the natural equality of body and mind?

 

 2.        What arises from the equality of ability?  With what result?

 

 3.        In addition to diffidence or distrust, what two other features cause men to quarrel?  In what condition do humans find themselves without a power to overawe them?  What is constant about this condition?

 

 4.        What is the state of what you and I might call "civilization" in the state of nature?

 

 5.        How do you and I accuse mankind with our actions as Hobbes does by his words?

 

 6.        Where does a state of nature exist?  Be sure to note where it exists within "civilized" society.

 

 7.        What is the status of justice in the state of nature?  Does private property exist?

 

 8.        What passions incline men to peace?

 

 9.        What is the right of nature?  What is liberty?  By what means are the laws of nature found out?  What is the relationship between right and law?  To what do people have a right in the state of nature?

 

10.       What is the fundamental law of nature? 

 

11.       What right is inalienable?

 

12.       What is the mutual transferring of right called?

 

13.       What is needed to maintain the laws of nature against the pull of our natural passions?

 

14.       How does Hobbes respond to the assertion that we are naturally social?

 

15.       By what means is a commonwealth generated?  In what two ways is sovereign power attained?

 

#11      ST,   Chapters 1-4

 

 1.        How is political power defined?

 

 2.        What is the state of nature, and what features does Locke attribute to it?  What is the law of nature, and what rights exist in a state of nature?

 

Who has executive power in the state of nature?  What dangers are there in this?  What conclusion does Locke make concerning absolute monarchies?

 

 4.        Where are, or ever were there, any men in such a state of nature?  Given Locke's answer to this question, that is given his examples, what specific definition of a "state of nature" must Locke have in mind?

 

 5.        What is a state of war?  Can it exist in the state of nature?  Within civil society?

 

 6.        How should a thief be treated in the state of nature?  Within civil society?

 

 7.        Why do men quit the state of nature and put themselves in society?

 

 8.        What is natural liberty, and what is the liberty of man in society?

 

#12      ST,   Chapters 5, 6, 7 through paragraph 86

 

 1.        If God gave the world to mankind in common, how is it that men come to have a private right over property?

 

 2.        In what ways does the law of nature place limits on the amount of property?

 

 3.        What value does the ground possess without labor?  What percentage of value in cultivated property is attributable to labor?

 

 4.        What is the origin of money?  What effect does money have upon industry?

 

 5.        Do fathers have more power over children than mothers?  What conclusion does Locke draw for those who conceive no difference between political and paternal power?

 

 6.        Does equality of rights imply other sorts of equality?

 

 7.        Are children born into a full state of equality?  Is the rule of parents’ permanent?  From what does the power of parents arise?

 

 8.        How do natural freedom and subjection to parents consist together?  Is parental power an absolute right of nature?

 

 9.        What do children owe their parents?  Upon what does it depend?  What terminates with the minority of the child?

 

10.       What additional power do parents, especially fathers, have beyond the power of submission?  What effect does this power have upon the obedience of children?

 

11.       What inclines man to society?  What is the first society?  Is it a political society?

 

12.       What is "conjugal society"?  How is it created?  What is its end or purpose?  What accounts for longer conjunctions among humans than among other creatures?

 

13.       Does Locke allow for divorce?

 

14.       How do conjugal and political societies differ?

 

#13      ST,   Chapter 7, paragraphs 87-94; Chapter 8, paragraphs 95-102; Chapters 9-13

 

 1.        What is a civil or political society?  What is its purpose or end?

 

 2.        Is absolute monarchy a civil society?  Why?  Why do men leave the state of nature?

 

 3.        Why can people hope for nothing more than majority rule?

 

 4.        How does Locke respond to the first possible objection to his account of the beginnings of civil society?  What is the second objection?

 

 5.        What things are wanting in a state of nature?  What two powers do men give up when entering civil society?

 

 6.        What forms may a commonwealth take?  How do they differ?  What is the supreme power?

 

 

 7.        What is the first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths?  What are the limitations upon the legislative?

 

 8.        Why should the legislative not always be in session?  How is the legislative composed in "well ordered" commonwealths?

 

 9.        Why is an executive necessary?  What is federative power and why is it called natural?  How do federative power and executive power relate?

 

10.       What is the relationship of executive and legislative power?

 

#14      ST,   Chapters 14,  17-19,  through 228

 

 1.        What is the discretion of the executive called?  What creates this discretion?  What happens to prerogative over time?  Who judges whether prerogative has been used well?

 

 2.        What is usurpation?  Is it necessarily tyranny?  How is tyranny defined?

 

 3.        How should one respond to the transgression of the law by the chief magistrate and/or his subordinates?

 

 4.        By what means may society be dissolved?  Is it the same as the dissolution of government?

 

 5.        By what four means can a prince dissolve the government?  By what additional way can the supreme executive dissolve the government?

 

 6.        By what means can the legislative dissolve the government?

 

 7.        How does Locke respond to the suggestion that his hypothesis would lay a ferment for frequent rebellion?

 

 

#15      PM, Sections I and II, Appendices I and II

 

What two types of irksome disputants does one encounter in discussions of morals?  What are their respective motives?  How are they similar?  How should one respond to those who deny the reality of moral distinctions?

 

What is the nature of the controversy “started” of late concerning the origins or foundations of morals?  Respond to Hume’s positioning of the ancients on this issue.  What does each side say?

 

What is the end of moral speculation?  What most influences our conduct?  What is the role of reason?

 

What very simple method does Hume employ to discover the truth of the origin of morals?  Compare what Hume says concerning this method, when it is called “the experimental method,” with Aristotle’s approach in ethics.

 

What sorts of qualities engage the approbation and good will of mankind whenever they appear?  What role might utility play in the social virtues?  Respond to Hume’s suggestions concurring what is “useful”.  Pay particular attention to the remarks concerning charity and liberality.

 

What accounts for the different responses to luxury historically?

 

How does reason relate to usefulness?  Is usefulness all that is involved?

 

Reconstruct Hume’s argument that it is evident that the ultimate ends of human action cannot be accounted for by reason. 

 

Respond to the assertion that “all benevolence is mere hypocrisy . . . all of us at bottom pursue only our private interest.”  What objections does Hume raise concerning the “selfish hypothesis”?

 

Ponder the implications of Hume’s comments about vengeance.

 

#16      PM,  Sections III and IV and Appendix III

 

What would happen to justice in a state of abundance of all external conveniences?  What does this suggest regarding the usefulness or utility of justice?

 

What is the relationship between benevolence and property?  How does Hume feel concerning those who have frequently attempted the community of goods?

 

What would the status of justice be in a state of extreme misery wherein the common necessities could not be supplied?  Why?  Why is virtue lost among warring parties?  Does Hume believe that a “state of nature” ever existed?  If such a state were to exist, would justice exist?

 

Can justice be said to exist between humans and lesser creatures?  Respond.  What do you glean concerning Hume’s conception of equality from what he says concerning Indians and women?  What enlarges the sphere of justice?

 

What would be the fate of systems of justice based on virtue or perfect equality?  Respond to the latter in light of recent world events.

 

How does Hume respond to the writers on the law of nature?

 

Is justice an instinct?  Do we possess innate ideas of chancellors and juries?  If we do not have innate ideas of justice or laws, how is it that their chief outlines pretty regularly concur from place to place?

 

What allurements prevent man from the observance of justice and equity?  What is the origin of governments?  Why is justice more important among individuals within a nation than between nations?

 

To what do chastity and fidelity owe their origins?  Why are women beyond their childbearing years so bound?  Respond to Hume’s comments on incest.  What is the origin of manners?

 

How do the social virtues differ from justice?  How might they be at odds?  How is benevolence at odds with civil law?

 

In what sense is justice a convention?  What is Hume’s conception of “natural”?

 

#17      On Commerce Etc.

 

Why are “abstruse” thinkers valuable?  Is there something reminiscent of Aristotle’s views on the vicious in their conception of the virtuous in Hume’s comments concerning the conception of solid thinkers the shallow have?

 

How does deliberation about particular affairs and speculation about general subjects differ?  Why do you think Hume begins his essay on commerce with these distinctions?

 

In what does the greatness of a state and the happiness of its subjects reside?  Are there exceptions?

 

What is the historical relationship between husbandmen and manufacturers?  What is the relationship of luxury to the happiness and the “greatness” of the state?

 

To what did Sparta, Rome and Athens owe their power?  Can modern sovereigns return to ancient ways?  In light of “human nature,” how exceptional was Sparta?  What leads to the love of fatherland (amor patrie)?

 

What is the best policy with regard to the seeming opposition between luxury and power?  By what standard?

 

What limit exists upon agriculture without commerce?  What happens when this limit is removed?  What does it maintain?  How can a sovereign still raise armies?

 

By what passions should men be governed?

 

What is the effect of foreign commerce upon domestic luxury?  Summarize Hume’s comments on equality.  How does the equality of England differ from ancient equality?  How does liberty effect commerce?  How might rich lands contribute to poverty?

 

What is the effect of rich land upon the wealth of nations?

 

When is luxury a vice?  When is it innocent?

 

Of what three ingredients is human happiness made?  How does industry relate to each ingredient?  What is the relationship between the mechanical and liberal arts?  What is their effect upon socialibility or humanity?

 

What is the effect of industry upon pleasures?  Upon public life, including laws, order, police and discipline?  How does it ultimately contribute to mildness and moderation?

 

Why is liberty not threatened by these occupations?

 

To what does Hume attribute Italian “effeminacy”?  Upon what example do moralists focus in their criticism of refinement in the arts?  How does Hume respond?

 

What is the effect of industry upon liberty?  Be sure to mention the significance of social class.

 

How can even vicious luxury be an antidote for other defects in human nature?  Why would Hume oppose the banishing of vicious luxury?

 

#18      James Madison Federalist  #10 / #51

 

 1.        What has been the typical cause of popular governments perishing?

 

 2.        What is a faction?

 

 3.        What are the two methods of removing the causes of faction?  Why is each not an option?  What are the different kinds of factions?

 

 4.        How is relief supplied when the faction is less than a majority?  By what two means can the effects of majority factions be controlled?  Can moral or religious motives be adequate controls?

 

 5.        Are pure democracies good at controlling factions?  What does Madison mean by "republic?"

 

 6.        What are the two great points of difference between democracies and republics?  What effects do these differences have?

 

 7.        Describe Madison's conception of the partition of power.  Why is it necessary?  Respond to the assertion that "if men were angels, no government would be necessary."

 

#19      BPW,   pp. 1-21

 

 1.        What question from the Academy of Dijon inspired the discourse on the sciences and arts?

 

 2.        What are "happy slaves" missing?  What retinue of vice attends the advances in science and art?

 

 3.        What fate followed from the advance of science and art in Egypt, Greece, Rome and Constantinople?  What city in Greece was blessed by "happy ignorance" and wise laws?  What did the wisest Athenian praise?

 

 4.        What is lost when men turn to the study of virtue?

 

 5.        What did Prometheus, the inventor of science, represent for the Greeks?  Which passions are at the origins of astronomy, eloquence (rhetoric), geometry, physics and moral philosophy?

 

 6.        Respond to Rousseau's suggestion that without refinement of knowledge, we would be as numerous, as well governed and as formidable?

 

 7.        What is the relationship of luxury and good mores?

 

 8.        As the arts are perfected and luxury spreads, what happens to honesty, courage and the military virtues?  What moral qualities are lost?

 

 9.        What is the "most dangerous" of all the consequences of the arts and sciences?  While we have physicists, geometers, chemists, etc., what do we no longer have?

 

10.       What or who has made it such that "evil is not as great as it could have become"?

 

11.       What did Verulam (Bacon), Descartes and Newton have in common?  Is it good that the obstacles to knowledge have been removed?

 

12.       With whom should we commune if we are to know virtue?

 

#20      BPW,   pp.  37-67, 101-104

 

 1.        What two kinds of inequality does Rousseau identify?  With which is he concerned?

 

 2.        What have others who have spoken of the state of nature failed to do?  What does Rousseau think of these other accounts?  Of whom were they speaking when they spoke of "savage man"?

 

 3.        If he does not consult books to write the history of our species, what does Rousseau consult?

 

 4.        When stripped of the gifts of the artificial faculties, what does man look like for Rousseau?  Did he fear animals or illness more?  Did he live a shorter or longer life, for Rousseau?

 

 5.        What makes humans weak, fearful and servile?

 

 6.        What does Rousseau mean by "perfectibility" and is it the source of human misery for Rousseau?  Was savage man skilled at thinking?  What was his first language?  Did one man need another in the state of nature?

 

 7.        According to Rousseau, what does Hobbes's concern for self-preservation represent?  What is, for Rousseau, the one natural virtue? What does it replace in the state of nature?

 

 8.        Which of the two aspects of love existed in the state of nature?  To what does the other owe its origins?  Do bonds of servitude exist in the state of nature?

 

 9.        Who is the true founder of civil society?  Characterize the happiest and most durable epoch of civil society.  The invention of what two arts removed men from this happy condition?  What is the relationship of these two arts?

 

10.       What are Rousseau's arguments against the Lockean belief that durable marriages would exist in the state of nature?