Answers at end.
True/False: "A" = True; "B" = False
1. The primary task of social or political philosophy is to describe different social or political systems, not to determine which of those systems are more justified or desirable.
2. Political philosophy is more concerned with describing different forms of government and civil relations than with explaining which of those forms or kinds of relations are justified or desirable.
3. To say that human freedom has a metaphysical as well as a political dimension means that freedom can be limited only through legislation.
4. While so-called "negative" liberty refers to the freedom to do negative or evil acts, "positive" liberty refers to the ability to do good.
5. The positive notion of freedom--or simply, positive freedom--is the ability to do something (e.g., achieve a desired goal) due to one's natural skill or through help or guidance from someone else.
6. Negative freedom is the freedom to be able to act without external interference.
7. Positive freedom is the ability to do something which is made possible by someone's (e.g., society's) doing something (rather than not doing something).
8. The fascist claim that freedom is obedience to the state emphasizes the negative notion of freedom while ignoring the positive notion of freedom.
9. Civil libertarians adopt a negative notion of freedom insofar as they emphasize the right of individuals to be free from interference by others.
10. To say that the legitimacy of a government is determined by its origins means that the government's laws should be obeyed only if they promote justice or social advances.
11. A right is a claim that places an obligation on others to respect the claim or to provide the individual whose right it is with some good or service.
12. To say that a citizen has a political obligation means that society (or its members) has a right to expect the person to perform certain tasks or to abide by certain regulations.
13. The conservative says that people are not naturally rational, but that they can become rational by adhering to traditions and social forms of exchange.
14. According to Plato, because human beings are naturally greedy and envious, they are also naturally anti-social.
15. Plato rejects democratic forms of government because most people in society lack the knowledge and emotional control to make informed and rational decisions about governmental policies.
16. According to Plato, because the rulers of a society are motivated solely by their self-less commitment to the welfare of the State, they do not have to be told the "noble lie."
17. In Plato's theory of the state, justice is ultimately achieved when the ruling class is able to do away with social inequalities by driving the military and working classes out of society.
18. According to legal positivists, there is no justice, injustice, or political legitimacy apart from what is established by those who have the power to enforce their wills.
19. Hobbes argues that in the state of nature no one has any natural rights because there is no sovereign or civil law in the state of nature.
20. According to Hobbes, the decision to give up one's natural rights to the sovereign is a rational, self-interested act.
21. In the Hobbesian state of nature, every person has the right to any thing as long as no one else makes a claim to the same thing.
22. Though Hobbes accepts the theory of a social contract, he does not believe that individuals should abide by it and follow the laws of their society when they disagree with the sovereign.
23. According to Locke, the right to own property has its basis not in any civil law established by government but in the God-given law of nature.
24. According to Locke, in societies where governments are formed by means of social contracts, individuals freely give up all of their rights (including that of revolting against the government).
25. In the state of nature, according to Locke, each person has the right to punish anyone who violates his or her rights.
26. In the state of nature Locke describes, solitary individuals live according to rational self-interest.
27. A hypothetical or tacit consent to a form of government or a system of laws is that consent which a person gives in choosing to stay in a country.
28. According to Locke, tacit consent to abide by governmental authority extends only to those laws with which the individual agrees.
29. Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau agree that individuals considered apart from or prior to their participation in society are in the "state of nature."
30. Rousseau claims that civil society perverts natural virtues by making people care more about being law-abiding and polite rather than being moral and sincere.
31. According to Rousseau, I am obligated to obey a law as an expression of the general will except if I disagree with the law.
32. In civil society, Rousseau claims, individuals become more sincere and motivated to act morally insofar as they respond to laws forcing them to act politely.
33. In civil society, Rousseau claims, individuals are more sincere and motivated to act morally when they are forced to conform their naturally evil inclinations to the general will.
34. Natural virtues like self-love or pity, Rousseau argues, are destroyed the moment we enter into a "social contract" to follow, along with others, the general will.
35. For Rousseau, moral distinctions (e.g., good-bad) emerge in societies or communities prior to the "legal-illegal" distinction established in civil society.
36. According to Rousseau, a citizen is bound by the social contract only if he or she engages in the contract freely and benefits from the arrangement.
37. Like Rousseau, Mill argues that it is the responsibility of the State to improve the moral sensibilities of its citizens through laws.
38. According to J. S. Mill, because governments have a legitimate interest in the well-being of their citizens, they are justified in passing laws forcing people to improve themselves.
39. According to J. S. Mill, limits on individual liberty are appropriate only when the majority of people in a society approve of them.
40. In contrast to the classical conservative, the modern conservative thinks of private, personal matters as public, social matters.
41. Classical liberal democratic theory (such as is developed by J. S. Mill) assumes that individuals are motivated to act in ways that they see as being in their own rational self-interest.
42. A democracy is an example of an autonomy-based approach
to government because it is based on policies and laws aimed at producing
efficiency and minimizing social discontent.
43. For the liberal, even though the desires of self-interested
individuals are not themselves rational, their use of reason to fulfill
their desires is rational.
44. Laissez-faire liberalism presumes that because individuals seldom act in rational, self-interested ways, they must be guided (in their private as well as public lives) by civil laws.
45. Civil libertarians claim that the task of government is to implement the moral beliefs of a society in laws, even if that means limiting the freedom of individuals who adopt different moral values.
46. Libertarians argue that governmental involvement in individuals' lives violates their rights to do what they want (even if what they want is to hurt themselves).
47. Libertarians argue that laws should not prevent a rational adult from hurting himself if he wants to do that.
48. A utilitarian theory of justice is called an egalitarian theory because it claims that the most just system produces the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.
49. In a utilitarian theory of justice, all persons are thought to have a right to equal treatment except when social expedience requires otherwise.
50. As a utilitarian justification for capital punishment, the reform theory recommends the reform of society at large through the elimination of threatening individuals in the community.
51. Because retribution serves a purpose--namely, giving someone what is due to him or her--it is generally considered a utilitarian justification for punishment.
52. In the retributive notion of justice, the purpose of punishment is to change the person's character so that he or she does not commit such offenses again.
53. According to the retributivist, society has a right to channel the desire for revenge and to express moral outrage concerning a crime by executing criminals.
54. Utilitarian justice respects claims of individuals (e.g., to life, liberty) when such claims are natural or God-given rights, regardless of whether the society benefits from recognizing those rights.
55. Welfare-state capitalism results when the government controls social and economic interactions that are irrational or uninformed (and thus are not guided by the "invisible hand" of the marketplace).
56. Unlike Hobbes and Locke, Marx claims that there is no natural right to private property.
57. In Marx's view, the liberal claim that every individual acts in self-interested ways is the unnatural and anti-human product of the externalization of productive labor.
58. According to Marx, since government is needed only to protect private property, the need for government will disappear when private property is communally owned.
59. According to Marx, by alienating their labor in private property, human beings regain the freedom to pursue their individual interests.
60. In capitalism, Marx notes, the reason why people obey laws and are concerned for others depends on self-interest or fear of punishment.
61. According to Marx, because individuals are naturally interested in owning private property, the social concern for others implicit in communism has to be taught to them by means of laws.
62. In a capitalist society the worker (according to Marx) is alienated from himself because he has no control over the products of his labor.
63. According to Marx, the alienation of workers from their labor and from one another is the result of their natural, human need to own private property.
64. According to Marx, the alienation of workers from their labor and from one another is the result of their natural inclination to promote their rational self-interest.
65. According to Marx, human beings are naturally sociable and like to work because they define what and who they are by means of their labor.
66. Marx claims that when people are no longer alienated from the products of their labor and from one another by the economic relations imposed in capitalism, their lives will once again have meaning.
67. As the goal of history, the communist revolution will occur (according to Marx) when all members of society recognize how people have always been free from economic influences.
68. Because the civil disobedient and the political revolutionary both challenge the laws of a country, they are identical--especially regarding the reasons they give for their actions.
69. According to anarchists, because governments have a legitimate interest in the well-being of their citizens, they are justified in passing laws forcing people to improve themselves.
70. According to anarchists, laws and governmental involvement in individuals' lives tend to undermine the internalization of personal values.
71. In Nozick's minimal state theory, the proper role for government is to protect the rights of rational, self-interested individuals who want to act without external interference.
72. According to Nozick's minimal state theory of government, taxation to finance efforts to protect private property violates an individual's right to decide how to distribute his or her property.
73. For opponents to the socialist welfare state, the right to own property is as basic as the rights to life and liberty because, without property, the other two rights are not possible.
74. Socialism assumes that people do not always act in rationally self-interested ways and therefore need to rely on social institutions for their own welfare.
75. Welfare-state capitalism results when the government manages exchanges that are irrational or uninformed (and thus are not guided by the "invisible hand" of the marketplace).
76. In a welfare state, only the very wealthy benefit from government supports (e.g., farm subsidies, tax incentives) because only the wealthy know what is in their own self-interest.
77. In Rawls' liberal theory of the state, a society cannot be considered just unless it does away with inequalities in wealth, prestige, power, or social rank.
78. In Rawls' description of the just state, government attempt to give all citizens the ability to engage equally in social interactions.
79. Theories of distributive justice describe how social benefits and responsibilities should be arranged based on what people have done rather than simply on their being members of a society.
80. By adopting a "veil of ignorance," every person in Rawls' just society claims not to know whether his or her amount of liberty is compatible with a similar liberty for others.
81. In Rawls' theory of justice as fairness, because no one knows (under the "veil of ignorance") what social position he will occupy, no one should be willing to accept social inequalities.
82. In order to implement a social system consistent with the theory of justice he outlines, Rawls indicates that a "principle of redress" must be enacted to correct undeserved inequities.
83. Because aesthetics is limited to the study of the relationship of art and reality, it cannot consider epistemological questions about how we know whether an object of art is beautiful.
84. Plato suggests that, insofar as art merely imitates what is real and draws our attention away from what is real, it fails to provide a means for knowing the truth.
85. Plato argues that, because art emphasizes the morally perfect acts of the gods, art is socially useful for inspiring human beings to imitate those acts.
86. Freud claims that irrational, antisocial drives (e.g., sexuality and aggression) can be sublimated in socially acceptable forms of creativity like science, art, religion, philosophy, or morality.
87. Because of its purgative or cathartic ability, art (for Aristotle) causes human beings to engage either in violent, antisocial behavior or neurotic attempts to deny reality.
88. According to Aristotle, art is an expression of universal ideals, not an imitation of particular things or events.
89. Neo-Platonism, classicism, and Romanticism differ from the theory of "art for art's sake" by depicting beauty as that which is intrinsically valuable (i.e., able to make all people share the same feelings).
90. Marx argues that while art--like other forms of culture (religion, morality, philosophy)--ordinarily embodies the socioeconomic values of the ruling class, great art exceeds a culture's ideology.
91. According to Marcuse, because classical art reminds us of the difference between the utopian world it expresses and our dreary, consumeristic world, art is revolutionary and subversive.
92. Existentialists point out that, because art objects are already completed products, those objects cannot make us recognize that we must decide for ourselves the meaning of existence.
93. For the existentialist, to say that the world is a work of art means that it is a work in progress that requires our continual reevaluation and creative reassessment to determine what it is and what it means.
94. In calling the world an art object, existentialists want to highlight the fact that the world in which we live is open to human (creative) definition and characterization.
95. According to the Wittgensteinian theory of art, something
is a work of art if it is designated as such within the institutions or
ways of thinking that characterize social existence.
Multiple Choice
96. Political conservatives and liberals differ on what kinds of freedom
are central in defining what it means practically to be free. Their
differences can be summed up this way:
(a) conservatives emphasize the metaphysical freedoms
to be able to choose between real (even perverse) alternatives; liberals
emphasize practical freedoms.
(b) liberals emphasize the metaphysical freedoms to be able
to choose between real (even perverse) alternatives; conservatives emphasize
practical freedoms.
(c) conservatives emphasize freedom to exercise
abilities; liberals emphasize freedom from things (e.g.,
ignorance, unemployment) that prevent getting abilities.
(d) conservatives emphasize freedom from things
(e.g., ignorance, unemployment) that prevent getting abilities; liberals
emphasize freedom to exercise abilities.
97. According to Plato, humans are naturally social beings due to our
inability to survive by ourselves. He points out, however, that without
a definite structure to guide our interactions, we cannot exist socially.
In particular we must control greed and envy by means of:
(a) making all members of society equal in power or prestige
by outlawing private property.
(b) telling people a "noble lie" that justifies class differences
in property ownership and power.
(c) prohibiting the movement of anyone from one class to another
class.
(d) allowing the guardians to have some fun and own some things,
and the workers to share some power.
98. In Plato's theory of the State, greed and the ownership of property
motivate the laborer or artisan class to produce goods and services for
the society. The ruling class and the military, however, are not
permitted to own property or to have their own spouses or families, because:
(a) the military are used to following orders, whereas the rulers
are more inclined to give orders.
(b) being concerned with private or personal matters would turn
their attention away from their public responsibilities.
(c) having a family or owning property is what gives individuals
a sense of purpose, meaning, and direction in society, thus avoiding anomie.
(d) property ownership and family relations are the foundations
on which all political and social commitments are based.
99. Plato says that only rational, self-restrained philosophers should
rule, because ordinary citizens cannot be trusted to put the interests
of the State ahead of their own. A typical response to Plato's worries
about democratic forms of government is to point out that he overlooks
the fact that:
(a) even rational, self-restrained philosopher-kings cannot
be trusted to promote the general good.
(b) citizens can develop a system of checks and balances
that prevent the majority from abusing power.
(c) no one will be willing to become a political leader
if it requires a lifetime of study and commitment.
(d) most ordinary citizens prefer democracies over philosopher-ruled
kingdoms.
100. "Where there is no coercive power erected, that is, where there
is no commonwealth, there is no propriety; all men having right to all
things: therefore, where there is no commonwealth, there is nothing unjust."
Here Hobbes notes that without the state and the contract to follow laws:
(a) any act is permissible.
(b) all acts, except immoral acts in the state of nature, are
permissible.
(c) only acts that violate the laws or that undermine the political
covenant have moral meaning.
(d) morality and legality are equally meaningless in the commonwealth:
there is only power.
101. "It is manifest that, during the time men live without a common
power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is call
war, and such a war as is of every man against every man." Here Hobbes:
(a) indicates why a just society cannot permit individuals to
pursue their own self-interests.
(b) describes the state of nature situation in which human beings
are unregulated by law.
(c) provides the justification for why a people (e.g., British
subjects) should free themselves from the tyranny of an authoritarian dictatorship.
(d) shows how threats of punishment educate citizens (like children)
on how to obey the law.
102. Which of the following IS NOT one of Hobbes' fundamental
laws of nature?
(a) Every person ought to seek peace and to defend himself or
herself in war.
(b) In order to achieve peace, individuals should give up their
rights as long as others do likewise.
(c) Anyone who disagrees with the sovereign has a moral right
to follow his or her conscience.
(d) Individuals should abide by their covenants.
103. Some critics of Hobbes ask that, if people enter into a social
contract because they acknowledge that it is the rational thing
to do, then why can't they rely on their natural rationality to relate
to one another without having to form a government or to institute laws?
Hobbes replies that:
(a) even in the state of nature, rational individuals may disagree
on what is appropriate behavior; the purpose of government and law is to
resolve such conflicts.
(b) in their natural state, human beings only appear
to be rational; they really are irrational, and that is why they need government
and laws to restraint their behavior.
(c) the formation of a government and a system of laws is imposed
by the sovereign on citizens against their will; it certainly is not the
rational act of autonomous beings.
(d) since laws are concerned only with the well-being of others,
self-interested behavior is never rational.
104. Hobbes argues that civil disobedience is never justified based
on appeals to so-called civil rights, because those very rights:
(a) require that each person follow his conscience in deciding
whether to obey the law.
(b) do not exist apart from their recognition in law.
(c) are matters of political or civil interest, and are not
matters of ethical concern.
(d) cannot be violated unless we agree to obey the law.
105. Hobbes argues that no revolt against the sovereign is ever justified--unless,
of course, the revolution succeeds, in which case it would be justfied
because:
(a) in the state of nature, every act (even an attack on the
sovereign) is morally justified.
(b) the possibility of political revolution keeps rulers from
doing things that would harm the State.
(c) political revolts destroy the social contract and allow
individuals to reclaim their natural rights.
(d) as the new rulers, the revolutionaries can designate their
previous acts as justified.
106. Because Hobbes and Locke disagree on whether the state of nature
is characterized by scarcity or plenty, they disagree on whether personal
relations in the state of nature can be considered moral. How?
(a) Hobbes says that prior to civil society there is no morality;
whereas Locke says that acting morally means acting in accord with God's
natural laws (even apart from civil society).
(b) For Hobbes, the state of nature is a war of "all against
all"; whereas for Locke, individuals in the state of nature are indifferent
to one another (and thus treat each other immorally).
(c) In Hobbes' state of nature, individuals compete for scarce
resources and often act immorally, but for Locke, humans in the state of
nature cooperate to make their personal lives better.
(d) For Hobbes, acting morally means acting simply to survive,
even if others don't; for Locke, it means overcoming aggressive instincts
in order to achieve peace in the state of nature.
107. According to Locke, human beings have a natural, God-given right
to own property insofar as they:
(a) make the products of their labor available to other people
and distribute those products to others.
(b) limit their property-claims only to what is recognized as
legitimate by civil laws.
(c) transform nature, through their labor, into something they
can use before those goods spoil.
(d) can transform what they own into money or other forms of
wealth.
108. Hobbes and Locke are referred to as classical liberals rather than
conservatives because they believe that:
(a) individuals naturally act in rational, self-interested ways.
(b) individuals need to leave the state of nature in order to
have guidance from civil laws.
(c) individuals need governmental restraint only regarding economic
(e.g., property) matters.
(d) a society or community can guide individuals' behavior without
government or civil laws.
109. According to classical liberals like Locke, "The reason why
men enter into society is the preservation of their property." Since
one's rightful claims to property are limited to one's labor, the ability
to use the property, and the needs of others, the primary role of government
is:
(a) to distribute the products of labor "each according to his
ability, each according to his need."
(b) to implement laws that educate individuals about how they
should share with others.
(c) to limit the extent to which individuals are permitted to
engage in trade in property.
(d) to arbitrate conflicts in property claims and to facilitate
the exchange of productive labor.
110. Locke argues that individuals in the state of nature recognize
the need for government and laws, because in the state of nature:
(a) the government has a God-given right to take property away
from individuals, even when those individuals have labored to make that
property their own.
(b) wealth is distributed based solely on ability or inheritance,
whereas in civil society wealth is distributed based on need.
(c) moral distinctions are themselves based on civil laws, not
on natural rights.
(d) there are no impartial judges, precise laws, or sufficient
powers to protect natural rights and to restrain excessive punishment of
violations of the moral law.
111. According to Locke, political revolution (and civil disobedience)
is permitted if the political authority is unable or unwilling to protect
private property. In such a case, authority reverts back to the people
(society). Such a reversion of power would be impossible in Hobbes'
account because, for Hobbes:
(a) each person must follow his/her conscience, regardless of
what the government or law says.
(b) disobeying the law is always justified as long as the law-breaker
thinks it is in his/her best interest.
(c) apart from the organization provided by the sovereign's
laws, there is no "people," only individuals.
(d) there is no implicit consent to accept the government, so
how the government acts does not matter.
112. In Locke's account of the state of nature, human beings have natural
rights, the violation of which would constitute a violation of justice
and the moral law. This differs from Hobbes's account of the state
of nature in that, for Hobbes:
(a) the moral law and justice do not exist until the sovereign
establishes civil law.
(b) the law of nature is violated only by those who harm others
in order to survive.
(c) individuals can administer their own "justice" only within
civil societies.
(d) only the sovereign is permitted to violate the moral law
in the state of nature.
113. According to Locke, "every man that hath any possession or enjoyment
of any part of the dominions of any government doth thereby give his tacit
consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government
during such enjoyment as any one under it." One of the major objections
against this position is that:
(a) no one in a society has to like or enjoy its laws; all that
is required is that people are informed about the laws and about the punishments
involved with violating them.
(b) through voting, citizens are able to express their tacit
consent to policies that benefit everyone in the society, even those who
vote against those policies and lose.
(c) it ignores the fact that most people do not know fully what
such tacit consent means, often cannot evaluate it impartially, and are
rarely able to leave their society even if they wanted to.
(d) it implies that only those citizens who explicitly agree
to certain laws or policies are obligated to obey them, and that does not
make any sense.
114. Locke claims that in the state of nature individuals have the right
to punish those who violate the rights of others because such violations
merit or deserve punishment. This way of thinking about punishment
is based on which theory of punishment?
(a) Social protection theory.
(b) Retributive theory.
(c) Deterrence theory.
(d) Reform theory.
115. Rousseau claims that justified civil law is actually an expression
of one's own freedom, rather than being a restraint on one's behavior,
because a just civil law:
(a) expresses the general will, which itself is an expression
of an individual will that is educated in what is required for social existence.
(b) conforms to the will of the majority, since the will of
the majority cannot create any law other than a just law.
(c) is created when the social contract defines exactly what
rights an individual has in the state of nature.
(d) allows an individual to do anything he deems appropriate,
as long as it is consistent with what his conscience dictates.
116. According to Rousseau, the social contract is the basis for all
civil or political obligations only insofar as it and all laws based on
it are self-imposed. Even people who disagree with a law are obligated
to obey it because, as members of a society, they have imposed it on
themselves, insofar as:
(a) they will all laws as expressions of what is good for the
community at large (the "common good"), even those particular laws with
which they personally disagree.
(b) their naturally virtuous and compassionate natures are perverted
in civil society through customs that encourage people to act selfishly
and insincerely.
(c) they recognize that they are naturally perverse and need
the restraints of law to control their selfish and insincere inclinations.
(d) they agree to abide by the will of the majority, even when
the will of the majority contradicts the general will to pursue non-selfishly
the common good.
117. According to Rousseau, "The constant will of all the members of
the State is the general will; it is by that they are citizens and free.
When any law is proposed in the assembly of the people, the question is
not whether they approve the proposition or reject it, but if it is conformable
or not to the general will, which is their will. When, therefore,
the motion which I opposed carries, it only proves to me that I was mistaken,
and that what I believed to be the general will was not so." Therefore,
I am obligated to abide by the law even when I disagree with the law because:
(a) the greatest happiness for greatest number of people is
decided by the general will.
(b) the general will is mistaken if it conflicts with the will
of the individual.
(c) the law expresses the general will and tells me about what
I truly want as a member of society.
(d) the general will is independent of, and always opposite
to, the expressed will of the people.
118. Though Rousseau condemns the ways that government institutionalizes
moral and political inequalities, he indicates that civil society can have
a positive influence on citizens by:
(a) letting citizens develop their own laws based not on feeling
but on philosophical theories and abstractions.
(b) showing them how to define themselves by specifying their
private property through laws.
(c) guiding people (through public education) to resist the
negative influences of society (e.g., valuing luxuries) and to develop
their natural virtues (e.g., self-love, compassion).
(d) doing away with those moral and political inequalities through
disbanding government and returning to the state of nature.
119. Rousseau claims that though human beings are naturally self-interested,
they are not naturally selfish or motivated by pride. Only the influences
of social pressure make human beings selfish. Through socializing
education, however, people can be guided to resist influences that undermine
their commitments to one another. Those commitments are grounded
in "the social contract"--which is:
(a) the set of principles upon which individuals give up their
rights to pursue what is naturally theirs and instead take pride in the
actions of others.
(b) an arrangement by which the government establishes laws
that define what is morally good or evil.
(c) the means individuals have for retaining their rights to
do what they naturally want to do, even if that means taking delight in
the suffering of others.
(d) the agreement to abide by the general will, which is what
we consciously or unconsciously will for ourselves as members of the community.
120. Though Rousseau is considered more of a libertarian than an authoritarian,
his social-political philosophy contains both classical liberal and conservative
elements, insofar as he says that human beings are:
(a) trustworthy in the state of nature only if they subordinate
their personal wills to the general will.
(b) naturally able to make good decisions about personal matters
but need guidance in society.
(c) individuals (with the right to make personal decisions)
only if they are recognized as such by civil government.
(d) able to distinguish decisions dealing with personal matters
from those that have social, economic, or political implications.
121. Which of the following IS NOT one of the objections that
David Hume raises against the social contract?
(a) No government is truly based on consent, for that would
mean that the people could changed their form of government at will (something
no government would allow to occur).
(b) Even if there were an original contract in our society,
it is no longer binding on those who were not part of the original agreement.
(c) In fact, there never was an original contract: governments
were originally formed through conquest or illegitimate use of force.
(d) The social contract is simply the means by which those in
power have the right to express the will of the people.
122. Government censorship of artistic expression and enjoyment can
be based either on conservative or authoritarian principles. What
would be the difference?
(a) The conservative does not care about the effect of art on
personal morality as much as he cares about government support of the arts;
the authoritarian says that personal morality is determined by art.
(b) For the conservative, censorship is necessary so that individuals
can develop personal moral ideals without government interference; for
the authoritarian, censorship requires government interference.
(c) The conservative thinks that art needs to be controlled
because it appeals to irrational emotions; the authoritarian thinks that
art needs to be controlled because of its social and political effects.
(d) For the conservative, censorship is another means by which
government interferes in the daily lives of citizens; for the authoritarian,
censorship provides individuals with opportunities for moral growth.
123. According to J. S. Mill, we must establish a guideline for determining
what kinds of actions can be regulated by the majority of citizens.
Otherwise, the majority might impose its will on the minority. His
guideline for restricting the intrusion of others in the affairs of individuals:
(a) allows the state to implement laws in order to improve the
characters and consciences of the individuals it is established to serve.
(b) limits the domain of law to where harm to another is involved,
and the domain of justified social pressure to matters where society is
offended though not harmed.
(c) prohibits individuals from forcing their views on anyone
else, even when those who are the objects of such force are engaged in
acts that can or do harm others.
(d) prevents the development of any individual values and restricts
any actions intended to express individuality, because guidelines by their
very nature are anti-individualistic.
124. J. S. Mill claims that civil laws (vs. social pressure
or persuasion) should apply only to actions that harm other people.
Against this, critics raise objections. Which of the following
IS NOT one of those objections?
(a) Sometimes government intervention is needed to prevent
harm to the environment (as opposed to harm to persons).
(b) In order to know how our actions affect others, we
need education--which is government's job too.
(c) Governments have always had a right to dictate matters
of conscience and personal moral beliefs.
(d) The distinction between harm to others and offensive
behavior or differences in taste is not clear.
125. In contrast to the libertarian view on free will, political or
civil libertarianism concerns:
(a) whether individuals have or should have the right to act
without governmental or legal interference.
(b) whether individuals have the right to form governments.
(c) whether the civil liberties we enjoy are shared by other
cultures.
(d) whether individuals know that they are free to choose even
when they are not physically able to act on those choices.
126. Unlike Mill, some theorists argue that civil law should be used
to enforce the moral beliefs of a community (e.g., on abortion or homosexuality).
Which of the following is NOT a justification for this view?
(a) Laws clarify and make precise exactly what the community's
moral values are.
(b) Laws promote the personal improvement and protection of
individuals, even when those individuals do not understand or agree with
such protection.
(c) Laws recognize that all of our actions, even those which
seem personal and private, ultimately have social consequences.
(d) Laws assume that individuals will make up their own minds
about how they would like to live in social contexts.
127. Critics of the "laissez-faire" liberalism of J. S. Mill's social
philosophy point out that, due to superstition, ignorance, custom, tastes,
and even product loyalities, people often act in ways that are not rationally
self-interested. As a result, government intervention--in the form
of mandatory universal education and control of the economy--is necessary
to promote Mill's aim of the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest
number of people. But this seems to contradict Mill's insistence
that civil laws should be employed only when people are being harmed.
How could Mill respond that his position does not, in fact, entail this
contradiction?
(a) By noting that laissez-faire liberalism is intended really
as a means for introducing more, not fewer political constraints on personal
and economic exchanges.
(b) By saying that there is no clear line between what is harmful,
offensive, or simply bad manners; and thus civil law is appropriate regarding
any of these.
(c) By pointing out that insisting on the rights of the individual
is itself a form of the "tyranny of the majority."
(d) By arguing that people can be educated to behave in economically
desirable ways by social pressure and persuasion, without having to appeal
to government intervention or laws.
128. Libertarians claim that individuals have natural rights that do
not depend on their being recognized by government. The communitarian,
on the other hand, believes that citizens have rights only because they
share with others the traditions or goals of the community to which they
owe allegiance: apart from that community (i.e., as outsiders to the community)
people have:
(a) no rights and are not identifiable as "persons" because
they have no social function.
(b) civil and legal rights in the community, even though they
have no social obligations.
(c) only natural rights (e.g., life, liberty, property), which
society is obligated to respect.
(d) a civil or legal obligation to respect the wishes of the
community, even though they do not share in the benefits of community membership.
129. According to Adam Smith, individuals motivated by their own self-interest
do what is necessary for the common good (even if promoting the common
good is not what they intended to do). This is what Smith calls the
"invisible hand" of a free market economy. In this regard Smith's
position is similar to Ayn Rand's ethical egoism, with one exception--namely,
for Rand:
(a) doing that which promotes the common good contradicts doing
what promotes one's self-interest.
(b) promoting one's own self-interests is an economic matter,
not an ethical matter.
(c) promoting one's own self-interests might or might not mean
promoting the common good.
(d) if one intends to promote the common good, then one's action
cannot be in one's self-interests.
130. According to classical liberals (e.g., Adam Smith), one's
own self-identity in a capitalist society is defined in terms of the modes
of subsistence or labor by which one is able to identify his/her place
in the social order. This means that in a capitalist society individuals
are assumed to be:
(a) naturally inclined toward promoting the common good of society
by subordinating their interests to those of the community.
(b) obstacles to how the invisible hand of supply and demand
controls the wealth of nations.
(c) naturally self-interested and in competition with one another.
(d) contributors to a laissez-faire economic system insofar
as they are controlled by government.
131. Classical liberals are different from libertarians insofar as:
(a) liberals think that government should tell people what to
do because they are incapable to making good choices; libertarians think
that governmental intervention is needed only when others are hurt.
(b) liberals allow people to act immorally if that is what they
want to do; libertarians say that government should control people's
actions since people cannot be trusted to act morally.
(c) liberals define all so-called private matters (e.g., drug
use, abortions, motorcycle helmet use) as public; libertarians define all
public matters (e.g., national defense, theft, murder) as private.
(d) liberals think that people generally can be trusted to make
good personal decisions; libertarians think that government has no business
telling people what to do except to maintain peace and security.
132. "Against individualism, Fascism supports the State and supports
the individual insofar as he coincides with the State. Liberalism
denies the State in the interests of the individual; Fascism reaffirms
the State as the true reality of the individual. For the Fascist,
everything is in the State; nothing human or spiritual exists, much less
has value, outside the State. It is not the nation that generates
the State; rather the nation is created by the State, which gives to the
people a will. Fascism is thus for liberty, the only liberty which
can be a real thing, the liberty of the State and of the individual within
the State." In this passage Mussolini:
(a) defends the belief that the individual can be free only if
the State does not interfere in his/her life.
(b) shows how the State can interfere in people's lives without
having much impact on their freedom.
(c) criticizes liberal individualism for its support of the communist
or socialist emphasis on the State.
(d) describes how notions of the individual and freedom themselves
depend on the State.
133. "You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property.
But in your existing society, private property is already done away with
for nine-tenths of the population. You reproach us with intending
to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence
is the nonexistence of any property for the immense majority of society.
In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property.
Precisely so; that is just what we intend." In this passage Marx
notes how:
(a) the ownership of property is necessary to maintain distinctions
of natural abilities.
(b) capitalism's support for class distinctions is based on
private property.
(c) the very existence of a classless society requires that
the majority of people have little or no property.
(d) the difference between your property and mine is something
that varies from one existing society to another.
134. "Private property is the result of the analysis of the concept
of externalized labor, i.e., externalized man, alienated work, alienated
life, alienated man." Here Marx argues that it is the privatization
of property that permits property:
(a) to be used precisely within the communist overcoming of
alienation.
(b) to serve as the basis for identifying the human (social)
significance of nature.
(c) to revolutionize the meaning of social enjoyment into an
act of mutually gratifying exploitation.
(d) to be owned and transferred, and thus divorced from the
person's labor-existence.
135. "While alienated labor alienates (1) nature from man, and
(2) man from himself, his own active function, his vital activity, it also
alienates the species from man." For Marx, alienated labor is thus
characterized by thinking of nature, our professional activity (our jobs),
and other people as:
(a) important aspects of our own self-education in resisting
the capitalistic features of communism itself.
(b) objects or activities to be mastered, overcome, and appropriated
in order to achieve individuality.
(c) means by which human productivity can fashion the world,
ourselves, and others according to communistic ideals.
(d) different stages in the evolution of a Marxist notion of
history.
136. According to Marx, capitalism causes people to be alienated from
(1) the things they make, (2) the labor that defines them personally, (3)
their natures as productive creators, and (4) other human beings--all as
a result of:
(a) natural human inclinations to be selfish.
(c) the conflict between proletariat and bourgeoisie.
(b) the economic institution of private property.
(d) the replacement of religion with secular values.
137. According to Marx, if individuals are allowed to own private property,
they will not share common goals or strive to achieve a dependable peace.
As long as there is the potential for dividing people from one another
in terms of what they own, they will never identify themselves with one
another and will always be engaged in class conflict. This diagnosis,
like his solution (communal ownership of property), assumes that:
(a) each person should give according to his/her abilities and
take according to his/her needs.
(b) everyone is defined by what he/she produces and what he/she
has control over.
(c) liberalism, socialism, and communalism (or communism) are
basically the same thing.
(d) class conflict and self-interest are innate, natural characteristics
of human beings.
138. Marx says that we should distribute goods, services, and obligations
throughout society based on the rule "each according to his abilities,
and each according to his needs." In other words:
(a) since needs and obligations are the same for everyone, everyone
should receive equal treatment.
(b) since needs and obligations vary from person to person,
no social policy is ever just.
(c) justice requires that each person feel obliged to do what
he/she can for the community and to make demands on others only when necessary.
(d) though the needs of a person are often greater than his/her
abilities, it is still up to the individual to take care of those needs
without making demands on others.
139. Which of the following IS NOT a feature that Marx describes
as giving meaning to a capitalistic lifestyle?
(a) The pursuit of pleasure, power, wealth, or success prevents
us from achieving human fulfillment.
(b) The unequal distribution of wealth and power is natural
and desirable as a means to motivate people.
(c) Competition, not cooperation, is the key to personal and
social success.
(d) Having material possessions and not having to work are what
make us happy.
140. Though Epicurean hedonism is similar in certain respects to modern
Western capitalism, it emphasizes a point that Marx says characterizes
his position as well, namely, the belief that:
(a) we should not trouble ourselves about things (e.g., economic
systems) over which we have no control.
(b) happiness should not be defined in terms of material things,
since in the afterlife they mean nothing.
(c) only the material world is real and life has meaning only
in terms of this world; there is no afterlife.
(d) work is a necessary evil one has to endure to obtain the
means to develop friendships and gain wisdom.
141. Though both communists and anarchists object to the need for government,
they differ on their reasons for rejecting government, because:
(a) communists see government only as a means to guarantee
private property; anarchists see government as an obstacle preventing individuals
from retrieving their autonomy and natural sociability.
(b) communists view government as a means for bringing
about liberal, socialist goals; anarchists object to their being any social
goals whatsoever.
(c) communists object to government because all organizations
of power take advantage of the weak and poor; anarchists reject government
because it is always inefficient and ineffective.
(d) communists think of government as the means by which
a people or nation has an identity; anarchists see government as damaging
to the identities of individuals in society.
142. Fascist (or "organicist") social philosophies portray the individual
as a function of the State: apart from the State, the individual is meaningless
and lacks all value. Marx's characterization of individualism
as a capitalist doctrine may seem to make the same point. But communism
differs from fascism because, for the communist:
(a) individuals are naturally self-interested and, therefore,
look for every opportunity to resist governmental intrusions into their
lives.
(b) the only way to overcome one's individuality is by means
of becoming "alienated" from oneself through communal labor.
(c) the State (government) is merely a means by which the ruling
class protects private property and prevents people from recognizing their
social, communal inclinations.
(d) only through State control of the means of production can
individuals finally be assured that their private property will be protected.
143. Though both the anarchist and the Marxist ultimately agree that
the ideal social arrangement would be one in which there would be no government,
they differ on why. For the anarchist, the absence of government
would allow individuals to pursue their own rational self-interest without
interference from others. The communist, on the other hand, would:
(a) argue that government is necessary to protect the rights
of the community.
(b) deny individuals who insist on their own interests (at the
expense of the interests of the group) any of the rights to private property
that communists would have.
(c) think of communal (though non-governed) activities as opportunities
for human growth, not excuses for interference.
(d) substitute for government a police network to control the
actions of individuals in order to make sure that individuals did not think
only of themselves.
144. Though both the anarchist and the Marxist ultimately agree that
the ideal social arrangement would be one in which there would be no government,
they differ on why. For the anarchist, the absence of government
would allow individuals to pursue their own rational self-interest without
interference from others. By contrast, for the communist, the elimination
of government would:
(a) remove the institutional support for private property (thus
allowing people to think of themselves communally, with common property,
values, and goals).
(b) require a redistribution of private property or wealth,
in which case those in power (i.e., communist rulers in the state) would
own all goods and services.
(c) allow the "invisible hand" of free market forces to direct
economic and social development (and thus, ultimately, human development).
(d) make us appreciate why the fascist, authoritarian forms
of communist governments are required in order to solve social problems.
145. "When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared,
and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association
of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political power.
Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one
class for oppressing another." In this passage Marx describes the
process by which:
(a) communal values replace the need for political power
and private property.
(b) political power is used to maintain class distinctions
by controlling production.
(c) class distinctions are used to determine who, after
the revolution, will rule.
(d) those in power use the means of production to exercise
political power.
146. Critics of Marx (e.g., Hospers) claim that the communistic
ideal of universal ownership would result in the gradual deterioration
and exhaustion of resources, because:
(a) some individuals would insist that the property be shared
equally or according to need.
(b) "freeloaders" would consume resources without being motivated
to contribute anything to the communal good.
(c) governmental bureaucracy would so clog up the operations
of the commune that no work would get done by anyone.
(d) government--even a Marxist government--is inherently and
necessarily corrupt.
147. If freedom is understood as freedom from other people--for
example, to "get away from it all" or to "find oneself"--that requires
a different concept of self than that assumed by thinking
of freedom as the ability to realize oneself through participating in relations
with others. The two concepts of self are different insofar as the
first (freedom from others) emphasizes how self-identity is essentially:
(a) social; whereas the second (freedom to realize oneself through
relations with others) focuses on how self-identity is essentially individual
or private.
(b) individual or private; whereas the second (freedom to realize
oneself through relations with others) focuses on how self-identity is
essentially social.
(c) neither social nor individual but rather is a function of
rational freedom; whereas the second (freedom to realize oneself
through relations with others) is based on emotional freedom.
(d) both social and individual, and therefore the idea that
there are two different concepts of self underlying the two notions of
freedom simply misunderstands the distinction.
148. According to Nozick's minimal state or "entitlement" theory, "To
maintain a pattern one must either continually interfere to stop people
from transferring resources as they wish to, or continually (or periodically)
interfere to take from some persons resources that others for some reason
chose to transfer to them." This violation of the rights of individuals
to dispose of their possessions as they see fit is based, he argues,
on a non-historical ("patterning") theory of justice, a theory of justice
that:
(a) protects individual rights by defining the individual or
self as a social function.
(b) redistributes resources so that wealthy individuals become
poor and poor people become rich.
(c) considers only how resources are distributed, not how the
actual distribution came about.
(d) acknowledges that people deserve only what they acquire
themselves, not what they inherit.
149. According to Nozick, government is justified in interfering with
the ownership of property only if the property was originally obtained
through violence, deception, or fraud. But critics point out that,
by adding this qualification, he undercuts his position that government
has no right re-distributing wealth. Why would such a qualification
open him up to this criticism?
(a) Because though some property has been obtained through
violence, deception, or fraud, not all property has been obtained in those
ways.
(b) Because no government can seize someone's property
without doing so violently or deceptively.
(c) Because any (e.g., original) distribution of property
would give some people an unfair advantage (e.g., regarding natural resources)
and would thus violate the rights of others.
(d) Because a government cannot even attempt to re-distribute
wealth.
150. Nozick claims that as long as people initially acquire property
justly (i.e., through labor or inheritance), they have a right not to have
it taken from them through taxation for distribution to others. Critics
claim, however, that this overlooks two significant points, namely:
(a) the State has the obligation to protect individuals' private
property, and only an unlimited form of capitalism can produce a just society.
(b) the legitimate use of power by the State is limited to preventing
fraud or the use of force, and the confiscation of property through taxation
is equivalent to forcing people to work for others.
(c) socialism and liberalism achieve justice through distributing
goods to all members of a society, and that patterned distribution is based
on a history of trade, labor, purchases, gifts, etc.
(d) the right to property is not an absolute right more important
than all other rights, and the original acquisition of property almost
always involves force, fraud, or some other injustice.
151. According to Nozick's entitlement theory, the State is justified
in taxing citizens to protect them from harm or loss of property.
This justification of the State is Nozick's response to the anarchist demand
for no government because (Nozick claims):
(a) even an anarchic society would have some government, civil
laws, and social policies about matters other than those dealing solely
with protection (e.g., roads, schools, social security).
(b) in an anarchic society, people would hire others to protect
their rights, and the strongest protection agency to emerge among competitors
would be the State anyway.
(c) the absence of laws in an anarchy would be a war of "all
against all" in which the sheer act of collecting taxes would involve harm.
(d) without taxes, government would be able to provide neither
protection nor goods and services such as roads, schools, or social security.
152. According to Rawls, all members of a society have a legitimate
claim to a share of the wealth of a society. When individuals are
systematically disenfranchised from their fair share (and thus not given
the opportunity to compete equally for a portion of that wealth), it is
the responsibility of government to:
(a) protect the private property of those who have worked for
what they own or who have inherited property legally.
(b) make sure that no one is allowed to have any larger portion
of that wealth than anyone else.
(c) redistribute resources based on the natural abilities of
citizens, not their needs.
(d) correct those inequities by redistributing just enough resources
from the wealthy to the poor to allow them to compete equally.
153. Rawls' liberalism attempts to avoid both the total elimination
of social differences (proposed by Marxists) and the potential for an act-utilitarian
"tyranny of the majority," by suggesting that:
(a) unequal treatment of minorities be permitted only if minority
members benefit from such systematic inequality and have access to the
benefits enjoyed by the majority.
(b) any minority member should be able to ignore or violate
the rules of the majority if the rules conflict with the minority member's
conscience.
(c) the majority can control what minorities do as long as the
happiness experienced by the majority outweighs the unhappiness experienced
by minorities.
(d) as long as the minority continues to belong to a democratic
society in which the will of the majority prevails, it must abide by the
"tyranny" of the majority.
154. In Rawls' theory, a just society could permit inequalities in wealth
or authority only if the existence of such inequalities:
(a) produces the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest
number of people.
(b) benefits everyone and everyone has equal opportunity to
any position in the society.
(c) respects the right of a person to control how his or her
children are placed in society.
(d) guarantees that everyone has exactly the same (equal) benefits
and burdens in society.
155. According to Rawls, a liberal theory of justice does not necessarily
require everyone in the society to have equal wealth and power, as long
as such inequalities:
(a) work to the advantage of all, and everyone has access to
the privileges of wealth and power.
(b) do not result in some people having more wealth or power
than other members of society.
(c) do not guarantee that government would provide everyone
with a minimum standard of living.
(d) permit people to achieve positions of wealth and power that
justify their being considered simply better than others.
156. According to Rawls, "The principles of justice for the basic structure
of society are the object of the original agreement. They are the
principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own
interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the
fundamental terms of their association." Here Rawls indicates how
in a just society social relations would be based on:
(a) natural abilities as differentiated in the state of nature.
(b) fairness.
(c) what the majority would yield to minorities.
(d) the right of rationally self-interested individuals to determine
their own standards of justice without governmental interference.
157. Both Rawls' theory of social justice and Mill's utilitarian theory
are called egalitarian theories because they insist on one essential point,
namely, that in determining the distribution of goods and services in society:
(a) some people are simply more qualified than others, and thus
deserve to receive more.
(b) there is always dissatisfaction with how benefits are distributed,
so no system is right.
(c) allocation of resources to the majority must equal the resources
available to minorities.
(d) individuals are to be treated equally unless another principle
overrides equal treatment.
158. In response to anarchists and civil libertarians, we might argue
that civil laws and legal coercion (that is, forcing someone to do something)
are necessary to protect individual rights. Such a reply, though,
would be insufficient to justify the activities of many modern states,
because these governments:
(a) provide services which are concerned more with promoting
the general good rather than protecting rights alone.
(b) seldom if ever claim to do anything except protect the rights
of their citizens.
(c) are comprised of individuals whose rights do not need to
be protected by government.
(d) are democratically elected and are therefore justified in
passing laws in regard to any area that the majority sees fit.
159. "It is manifest that, during the time men live without a
common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which
is call war, and such a war as is of every man against every man."
In this passage:
(a) Plato indicates why a just system of social existence cannot
permit individuals to pursue their own self-interests.
(b) Hobbes describes the state of nature condition of human
beings unregulated by law.
(c) Jefferson provides the justification for why a people (e.g.,
the American colonists) should free themselves from the tyranny of British
law.
(d) Rousseau recommends that threats of punishment educate children
to obey the law.
160. "The constant will of all the members of the State is the general
will; it is by that they are citizens and free. When any law is proposed
in the assembly of the people, the question is not to enquire whether they
approve the proposition or reject it, but if it is conformable or not to
the general will, which is their will. When, therefore, the motion
which I opposed carries, it only proves to me that I was mistaken, and
that what I believed to be the general will was not so." Here:
(a) Mill shows how the greatest happiness for greatest number
is decided by the general will.
(b) Marx claims that the general will is mistaken if it conflicts
with the will of the individual.
(c) Rousseau indicates how individuals learn what they truly
want for themselves as members of society by relying on laws expressing
the general will.
(d) Burke identifies the general will as the will of the State
which is independent of, and sometimes even opposite to, the will of the
people.
161. "A man is just in the same way that a state is just. When
each of the three orders in the state does its own proper work, the state
is just. Only when a man has linked the three parts of his nature
together in well-tempered harmony will he go about doing what he does honorably."
Here:
(a) Marcuse shows how under advanced capitalism no individual
can ever achieve the balance or harmony of personality needed to have the
good life.
(b) Plato indicates how balance of parts in the just state parallels
the balance of parts of the soul in the just person.
(c) Mill claims that the state is just only when it limits its
intrusion in the lives of its citizens to matters where harm to others
is involved.
(d) Mussolini suggests that the only way the state can be just
is if the individuals who make up the state are themselves just.
162. "A legitimate covenant is [based on] the social contract
because it can have no end but the common good. Individuals see the
good and reject it; the public desires the good but does not see it.
Both equally need guidance. Individuals must be obliged to subordinate
their will to their reason; the public must be taught to recognize what
it desires." In this passage:
(a) Mill defines the social good as the greatest happiness for
the greatest number.
(b) Nozick indicates how personal interests prevent us from
knowing what is good and what is not.
(c) Locke argues that individuals in the state of nature need
to be educated to form societies.
(d) Rousseau claims that individuals should submit to legitimate
social contracts because, in doing so, they obey nobody but their own will.
163. "Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular
individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual.
For the Fascist, everything is in the State, and nothing human or spiritual
exists, much less has value, outside the State, the synthesis or unity
of all values that interprets, develops, and gives strength to the whole
life of the people. It is not the nation that generates the State.
Rather the nation is created by the State, which gives to the people, conscious
of its own moral unity, a will and therefore an effective existence."
In this passage:
(a) Locke endorses liberal democratic ideals by showing how fascism
fails to provide civic values.
(b) Plato says that the ruling class must control the lower classes
in order to have a just society.
(c) Mussolini argues that the unity of values that guide social
thought/will depend on the State.
(d) Rousseau situates the value of the individual in the formation
of the general will.
164. "The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into
commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation
of their property." In this passage:
(a) Locke points out that individuals form governments because
they want to improve and protect the resources necessary for them to live
well.
(b) Plato claims that, because just and equitable systems of
government are formed from behind the veil of ignorance, no one can know
how much property he will have.
(c) Hobbes shows why concentrating on this-worldly possessions
(property) forces men to turn away from God and toward civil authority.
(d) Rousseau warns against either relying for our happiness
on the things we own or depending on government to protect our property.
165. "I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells
him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to
arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality
expressing the very highest respect for law." In this passage:
(a) Mill suggests that the individual's right to conscientious
objection challenges any claim that the government makes to rule his/her
life.
(b) Marx recommends that the conscience of the community is
the ultimate basis for the legitimacy of the law.
(c) M. L. King says that civil disobedience is not only morally
permissible in regard to bad laws; it is morally required.
(d) Nozick points out how obedience to laws actually encourages
injustice by promoting inequalities that can be overcome only by violating
the law.
166. In saying that art is an imitation of that which is real,
Plato attacks art on the basis of its failure to direct us to the truth.
Art (he says) draws us away from truth insofar as its purpose is to entertain
us by showing or telling us:
(a) how the appeal to the emotions results in antisocial and
personally destructive behavior.
(b) what the realm of the Forms is really like, understood in
primarily mathematical terms.
(c) how the morally good life is based on correct ontological
and epistemological principles.
(d) deceptions, things that are simply fictions (even when they
describe the sensible world).
167. Plato argues that art threatens both personal integrity and social
stability by emphasizing:
(a) the behavior of the gods rather than events in the lives
of ordinary people.
(b) the logos or meaning of artistic expressions (e.g., in poetry,
drama, dance, or music) rather than the actual performance itself.
(c) differences between socially beneficial emotions and socially
destructive emotions.
(d) emotional appeals rather than reason.
168. Both Plato and Freud think that art is not a rational response
to the demands of reality. But they differ on how art is connected
with violence. How?
(a) Plato thinks that art enflames the passions (including tendencies
toward violence); Freud says that art channels potentially violent drives
into socially acceptable behavior.
(b) For Plato, art appeals only to those who understand it (the
rulers who control violence through the military-police class); for Freud,
art expresses aggression, not violence.
(c) The irrationality of art (for Plato) has nothing to do with
how it might influence violent behavior; but for Freud anything irrational
like art is antisocial (a violent threat).
(d) Plato's condemnation of art distinguishes between art that
is violent and art that is sexual; Freud claims that all art expresses
those two drives indiscriminately.
169. According to Freud, art is a means by which the irrational and
anti-social drives of infantile sexuality and aggression are sublimated
in socially acceptable forms of creativity. In this regard, art is:
(a) a means by which one can distinguish between those who deny
reality (neurotics) and those who try to replace reality with something
else (psychotics, the insane).
(b) the way in which unresolved and repressed drives displace
the pleasure principle with the reality principle.
(c) like other aspects of "higher culture" such as religion,
philosophy, law, science, and morality.
(d) simply a form of reasoning that attempts to destroy the
emotions rather than to express them.
170. Both Plato and Freud characterize art in similar ways insofar as
they agree that art:
(a) is an acceptable expression of repressed instincts and drives.
(b) prevents people from recognizing reality for what it is.
(c) promotes violence and other anti-social forms of behavior.
(d) dissolves the distinction between ontological, epistemological,
and moral ways of thinking.
171. In contrast to Plato, Aristotle suggests that great art focuses
our attention on universal truths and values, not on the individual events
or objects that are the sensual or immediate art objects themselves.
In this sense, Aristotle argues, art can have a socially desirable effect,
insofar as:
(a) art, like philosophy, liberates unconscious memories of past
events or objects.
(b) great art makes the viewer or listener feel the immediacy
of sensuality, not ideal forms.
(c) art appeals to the highest part of the soul in a way even
better than does philosophy.
(d) art indicates what human beings can aspire to and try to
imitate.
172. In response to Plato, Aristotle claims that art does not disrupt
the harmony of the soul by letting the passions overrule reason.
Rather, Aristotle argues, art functions in a socially beneficial way by:
(a) providing opportunities for a controlled release of erotic
and aggressive passions.
(b) bringing people together through their shared feelings of
unity as all children of God.
(c) dissolving all feelings and passions and replacing them
with philosophic reasoning.
(d) alienating human beings from their passions, and thus alienating
human beings from one another.
173. To say that art has "intrinsic" value and gives meaning to nature
and life means that art:
(a) needs no other justification than itself, and that even nature
and life depend on art.
(b) is valuable insofar as it expresses the feelings of artists
who describe nature and life.
(c) is valuable insofar as it imitates or reproduces the way
that nature, life, or the world is.
(d) undermines the possibility that there is any ultimate meaning
in nature and life.
174. According to Romanticism, art expresses the ultimate truth of reality
in terms of imagination rather than reason, feeling and energy rather than
order and proportion. Such expression permits the artist to point
beyond the ordinary world to show the truth of existence, because:
(a) the mundane, daily world is what is truly real, and the role
of the artist is to "spruce it up."
(b) the truth about existence is embodied in creativity, not
in the repetition of the ordinary.
(c) truth in art is subjective: one person might equate art with
feeling, another with reason.
(d) the order of daily existence counteracts, balances, and harmonizes
the irrationality of art.
175. According to Tolstoy, art cannot be great unless it evokes a sense
of religious understanding and harmony. In other words, in order
for a work of art to be great, it must inspire people to feel sincerely
for the plight of one another and it must have appeal for and be intelligible
to:
(a) people with aesthetic sensibilities or training in the arts.
(b) people who share the values of the artist.
(c) people associated with organized religions.
(d) people from all backgrounds and walks of life.
176. According to Marx, even though artistic expression and aesthetic
enjoyment are essential human characteristics, the ways in which human
beings express themselves artistically are always ideological.
In regard to art this means that in a capitalistic economic system, creative
or artistic productions of human labor are always treated as commodities
and are thus understood as expressions of:
(a) exactly how the capitalist emphasis on private property
and profit makes art impossible.
(b) the natural, human need to contribute to the good of one's
economic community.
(c) the alienation of the art work from the artist, since the
capitalist owns the products of the artist's labor, not the artist.
(d) the artist's inner nature, feelings, or emotions.
177. According to Marx, the creative and artistic productions of human
labor define human beings as what they are. In this way, artistic
expression and aesthetic enjoyment are essential human characteristics.
But (Marx argues) in capitalist societies, art is no longer considered
as an inalienable expression of the artist's self, because in capitalist
societies art is:
(a) a subversive challenge to the socioeconomic values of the
ruling class.
(b) merely a means for tricking the laboring masses into thinking
that their repressed condition is itself a result of their sexual and aggressive
drives.
(c) the productive and creative result of the conflict between
social classes.
(d) alienated from the artist's labor and transformed into a
commodity to be bought and sold.
178. In agreement with Freud, Marcuse recognizes that repression of
certain drives is necessary for society. But (Marcuse adds) in capitalist
societies this repression is not directed toward fulfilling only basic
human needs; rather there is a "surplus repression" whose only purpose
is to guarantee the privileged position of the elite classes. In
capitalism, this surplus repression is directed toward:
(a) persuading workers to become consumers of commodities they
basically do not need.
(b) the mass production of works of art that challenge the legitimacy
of capitalism.
(c) transforming the class structure unintentionally to produce
the ultimate revolution.
(d) extending the opportunity for artistic expression to all
workers, regardless of talent.
179. Marcuse recognizes that repression of certain drives is necessary
for society. But in capitalist societies this repression is not directed
to fulfilling only basic human needs; rather there is a "surplus repression"
whose only purpose is to guarantee the privileged position of the elite
classes. The "negative power" of art lies in its ability to tap into
this surplus repression by:
(a) eliminating even the necessary repression required for social
existence.
(b) allowing us to imagine the fantastic, to be liberated from
a capitalist or commodity mentality.
(c) showing how the negation of the commodity world entails the
rejection of classical art.
(d) extending the opportunity for artistic expression to all
workers, regardless of talent.
180. According to Marcuse, the capitalist attempt to undermine the possibility
of revolutionary or counter-cultural artistic expression is frustrated
by fantasy's negation of the commodity world. Through this "power
of the negative," art escapes being co-opted in capitalism, because fantasy
cannot be dominated by repression. In other words, for Marcuse, art:
(a) undermines the legitimacy of the elite classes by portraying
their existence as fantasy.
(b) embodies the reality principle--thus generating surplus
repression--rather than the pleasure principle.
(c) displays the values of the elite classes in ways that legitimate
their superiority.
(d) creates a fantasy world that serves as a critique of experienced
reality.
181. According to Marcuse, art allows the mind to be guided (through
fantasy) by the pleasure principle and, as such, is revolutionary and subversive,
capturing "the power of the negative." In other words, art:
(a) combines the creative energies of necessary repression and
surplus repression to generate a third form of anti-capitalist repression,
namely, counter-cultural parodies of classical art.
(b) contradicts or "negates" the need for creative expression
and thus does away with the erotic and aggressive impulses that need to
be channelled into socially acceptable forms of expression.
(c) puts us in touch with higher truths about beauty and sensuality--truths
that constitute a realm of super-knowledge of objects like Platonic Forms.
(d) describes a liberating kind of existence in which we need
not accept as inevitable lives of endless consumption and collection of
dreary (mere) things.
182. Sartre claims that, as far as human beings alone are concerned,
"existence precedes essence"; that is, what we are is a product of our
own choices or decisions. In his view, a work of art is that which
expresses or reveals the fundamental condition of human existence by highlighting
how the world in which we live is:
(a) a work in progress, a place whose meaning depends on our
intentional, creative decisions.
(b) a creation of God in which everything (including us) has
a certain nature, place, or function.
(c) something that art can copy or imitate but cannot ultimately
change or affect.
(d) meaningful only in terms of that which transcends human
existence (e.g., an afterlife).
183. In characterizing the concept of art as an "open concept," Wittgensteinians
claim that what makes something an object of art depends less on the thing
itself than on how the thing functions in a "form of life." In other
words, for Wittgensteinians art is defined as:
(a) something that any individual acting on his or her own wants
to call art.
(b) a designation by a group of language users, not a discovery
of some nature or essence.
(c) a specific kind of thing having a particular "aesthetic"
nature or essence.
(d) a representation of the world or an expression of the artist's
feelings.
184. Both existentialist and Wittgensteinian aesthetics assume that
"art" is a concept that is open to expansion and creative application.
But that does not mean that these two views agree that just any object
should be considered art because, for the existentialist, art has at least
one necessary function--namely:
(a) it produces the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest
number of people in society.
(b) it prompts us to consider what makes events or things in
our ordinary lives have meaning.
(c) it puts individuals in touch with the transcendent, imaginative
power inherent in life and nature.
(d) it consolidates social values and encourages us to protect
those traditional ("classical") values.
Short Essays
185. How is the contrast between liberal and conservative not
the same as the contrast between libertarian and authoritarian? and
how would each understand the social/political role of art?
The contrast between the liberal and conservative deals with whether individuals can be trusted to act rationally in regard to private matters. For them, the social impact of art is an issue concerning personal or moral improvement. The contrast between libertarian and authoritarian deals with whether the individual or the State should decide whether a particular issue is a public or private matter. They would deal with art in terms of its impact on social interactions and governance--libertarians claiming that art is a personal matter, authoritarians claiming that art is a political concern.186. How would answers to "What is the purpose of government?" be different if we were to think of citizens as (1) independent individuals vs. (2) people who need others for human development?
Independent citizens would want a minimum of governmental interference in their lives (limited mainly to protection from attacks from others); social citizens would expect more support from government in order to develop opportunities for interpersonal growth.
Answers:
| 1. B
2. B 3. B 4. B 5. A 6. A 7. A 8. A 9. A 10. B 11. A 12. A 13. A 14. B 15. A 16. B 17. B 18. A 19. B 20. A 21. B 22. B 23. A 24. B 25. A 26. A 27. A |
28. B
29. A 30. A 31. B 32. B 33. B 34. B 35. A 36. A 37. B 38. B 39. B 40. A 41. A 42. B 43. B 44. B 45. B 46. A 47. A 48. B 49. A 50. B 51. B 52. B 53. A 54. B |
55. A
56. A 57. A 58. A 59. B 60. A 61. B 62. A 63. B 64. B 65. A 66. A 67. B 68. B 69. B 70. A 71. A 72. B 73. A 74. A 75. A 76. B 77. B 78. A 79. B 80. B 81. B |
82. A
83. B 84. A 85. B 86. A 87. B 88. A 89. B 90. A 91. A 92. B 93. A 94. A 95. B 96. C 97. B 98. B 99. B 100. B 101. B 102. C 103. A 104. B 105. D 106. A 107. C 108. A 109. D |
110. D
111. C 112. A 113. C 114. B 115. A 116. A 117. C 118. C 119. D 120. B 121. D 122. C 123. B 124. C 125. A 126. D 127. D 128. A 129. C 130. C 131. D 132. D 133. B 134. D 135. B 136. B |
137. B
138. C 139. A 140. C 141. A 142. C 143. C 144. A 145. A 146. B 147. B 148. D 149. C 150. D 151. B 152. D 153. A 154. B 155. A 156. B 157. D 158. A 159. B 160. C 161. B 162. D 163. C |
164. A
165. C 166. D 167. D 168. A 169. C 170. B 171. D 172. A 173. A 174. B 175. D 176. C 177. D 178. A 179. B 180. D 181. D 182. A 183. B 184. B |