PHIL 111: Ethics
Professor Daniel Franks
Purdue University
Final Examination
Instructions:
1. Answer three (3), and no more than three, questions
2. Use a pen and write legibly
3. Turn in this sheet with your eam
Questions:
1. What is the basis of our obligation (and allegiance) to the state? Make specific reference to at least two of the following philosophers: Plato, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume.
2. What are the limits to authority which the state, or a majority of our fellow citizens, may exercise over each of us? Make reference to either Rousseau or Mill.
3. Is electing you political representative like picking chocolate over strawberry, or vice versa at the ice cream shop? Defend you view.
4. For Rawls, “[t]he principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.” Why so? What are we ignorant of, and why is such ignorance key to Rawls’s theory of “justice as fairness”?
5. 5.. What is MacIntyre’s critique of “modern individualism”? Can his critique avoid the charge that it commits him to support of the status quo?
(Preferably I would like the answers for all of them. They are essays so each question must be a short essay)
