SAN DIEGO MESA COLLEGE
PHIL 109
SPRING 2013
INSTRUCTOR: PROF. NINA ROSENSTAND
ISSUES IN SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
STUDY GUIDE, QUIZ APRIL 22, LAST 30 MINUTES.
OFFICE HOURS: MTWR: 11:15-12:30
Office: MV2404. Phone: (619) 388-2407. E-mail: nrosenst@sdccd.edu (e-mails will be answered during the
instructor’s office hours.)
Website: http://classroom.sdmesa.edu/nrosenst
STAY INFORMED ABOUT POSSIBLE CHANGES TO THE READINGS AND TEST DATES. CHANGES, IF ANY, WILL BE
POSTED ON THE WEBSITE.
FORMAT OF QUIZ
Objective test. Use a scantron Form #882. Please use pencil #2. Make sure your scantron answers are clear and
unambiguous; otherwise the scantron machine can’t read them. Read the question carefully. You may write on the
test. This quiz is worth 40 % of your final exam. Total possible points: 40. (The final exam will be worth 60 points.)
Plagiarism policy: Using open books, notes or electronic devices during the test, or consulting with other students,
will result in an F on the test, and will be reported.
There will be 10 True/False questions; each correct answer is worth 2 points.
There will be 10 Multiple Choice questions; each correct answer is worth 2 points.
READINGS
Course Reader: “Maester Hobbes goes to King’s Landing” pp.97-104
Wolff: Ch.1: Locke pp.17-23
SPP: Locke pp.169-175
Wolff: Ch.1, Rousseau pp.24-29
SPP: Rousseau pp.205-217, pp.223-225
SPP: Jefferson pp.239-245
KEY CONCEPTS:
Course Reader: Greg Littmann, “Maester Hobbes goes to King’s Landing”
Game of Thrones (books/TV series) as illustration of Hobbes’ political philosophy
Hobbes: Social contract should lead to absolute monarchy
GoT: The royal families battle for power. No democracy, except initial election of king (Rob Stark)
Hobbes: Anything is better than civil war, except if the ruler can’t protect you. Then you elect someone who can.
Hobbes: Everyone is selfish
Game of Thrones: Almost everyone is selfish incl. the eunuch Varys, Lord Littlefinger, King Joffrey, his mother
Queen Cersei, but not nobleman Eddard Stark or his son Jon Snow.
Littman: If we didn’t understand Eddard and Jon, the story would make no sense: so we are not all selfish.
Littman: Hobbes is right that peace should outweigh principles of succession.
Wolff: The State of Nature/Locke
Locke: Life can be lived without government. (1) Perfect freedom, (2) equality, (3) bound by Law of Nature.
Equality entails rights (is normative contrary to Hobbes) to life, liberty, property = law of nature, sets boundaries for
individual liberty. But since people can’t be wholly trusted, it is easier to enforce the rights with a social contract.
In SoN individuals can punish each other, but it is easier within a society.
Hobbes assumes there will be scarcity of goods (so: competition), but Locke sees nature as abundant.
SPP: Locke
The Western Enlightenment/Age of Reason, 17th-18th centuries: Focus on science, education, democracy [from your
notes]
Influence on leaders of American Revolution [from your notes]
Natural law: the law humans would conform to in the state of nature [from your notes]
Three natural(negative) rights to non-interference: life, liberty, property [from your notes, and Course Reader]
State of Nature is perfect freedom within a Law of Nature, among equals.
State of nature has laws: self-preservation; law against harm to others’ life, liberty, health, and property
Everyone can punish transgressors in the state of nature, and protect themselves and others from perpetrators
To what degree? Enough to make the perpetrator repent, and deter others from doing the same.
Easiest to conduct within a social contract (civil government).
Who lives in state of nature? Princes, governors, everyone who hasn’t agreed to a political society
State of Nature: any situation where people have not expressly decided on becoming a body politic, or petitioned to
become part of the existing body politic
From your notes:
Locke’s social contract: giving up right to perfect freedom in exchange for protection of property and legislation.
Social contract: to facilitate punishment, and protection of three natural rights
Giving up power to majority of community [not monarch!] for the sake of common good
Agreeing to the social contract means agreeing to majority rule
Social contract is “signed” by everyone by staying in a society
If you disagree with terms of contract, you can leave, if you’ve only given tacit consent
Express consent: You are bound by the social contract as long as your rights are respected
Wolff: Rousseau
In the state of nature: natural compassion for others, aversion to doing harm
The savage in the SoN leads a solitary life
The path to civilization begins with self-improvement, but leads to corruption of needs, then to private property,
and then to war
From your notes:
“Discourse”: state of nature was happy and peaceful; people are good and compassionate by nature, corrupted by
civilization.
Consequences of Rousseau’s State of Nature theory:
Nature is good = human nature is good
People living in the State of Nature are morally superior to people in civilization
People living close to nature are superior to urban populations
Children are morally superior to adults
Compassion is original, and predates rational thinking
Raising children naturally: inventing “childhood”
Respect for indigenous peoples (the “Noble Savage”)
Environmentalism
SPP: Rousseau
“The Social Contract”
Humans are “born free, but in chains”
First societies are families
social contract: giving up all personal power to the community: general will
the state is each individual working for the common good
The Sovereign is the people working for the common interest; inalienable and indivisible
Natural liberty in state of nature is replaced by civil liberty after the contract
The general will can’t be wrong, and is indestructible
“Will of all” is self-serving; the general will is unselfish
Rousseau advocates fundamental equality principle [from your notes]
Criticism: tyranny of majority; no loophole like in Hobbes’s social contract [from your notes]
From your notes:
Why no more social contract theories after 18th century? (1) Revolutions brought realism, (2) science and historic
research advanced
Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
Self-evident truths: men are created equal, having inalienable rights, such as life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness
When these rights are cast aside by a government, the people have a right and a duty to throw off the government
Inspired by Locke: three natural rights: life, liberty, property [from your notes]
U.S. Constitution is a social contract [from your notes]