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SAN DIEGO MESA COLLEGE
PHIL 109
SPRING 2013
INSTRUCTOR: PROF. NINA ROSENSTAND
ISSUES IN SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
STUDY GUIDE, FINAL EXAM MAY 20
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 FINAL
Objective test. Use a (new) 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 60 % of your final exam. Total possible points: 60. (Your quiz score and your final score will be added
up: Max.100 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 15 True/False questions; each correct answer is worth 2 points.
There will be 15 Multiple Choice questions; each correct answer is worth 2 points.
FINAL EXAMINATION:
Monday May 20, 9:35: final exam
Wednesday May 22, 9:35: final meeting. Finals and 2nd papers returned. Attendance is mandatory. No-shows
lose 3 points off their final exam.
READINGS:
Wolff: Ch.2, “Justifying the State” pp.34-46, 48-55
Wolff: Ch.4, “The Place of Liberty” pp.104-114
SPP: John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty” pp. 310-315
SPP: Karl Marx pp.379-380
Course Reader: Ch.7 pp.19-29 (to “Is Anger Ever Appropriate?”). Skip pp.24-25, Wolgast and Friedman
Course Reader: Ch. 7, pp.26-30, “Criminal Justice”
Course Reader: Ch.13 pp.60-63, “Animal Welfare and Animal Rights”
Course Reader: Ch.13, pp.63-66, “Ethics of the Environment”
Course Reader: Ch.13, pp.66-71, “The Death Penalty”
KEY CONCEPTS:
Wolff: Ch.2, “Justifying the State” pp.34-46, 48-55
Social Contract theories: Individual consent
(voluntaristic obligation). Problem: Can’t be
historically proven.
Utilitarianism: Happiness for the majority. Problem:
injustice for the minority.
Wolff: Ch.4, “The Place of Liberty” pp.104-114
Mill’s Liberty (Harm) Principle: Individuals should
only be interfered with by the state or others if they
do harm to others. Problem: Mill has not clearly
identified “harm.”
SPP: John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty” pp. 310-315
Concern for the tyranny of the majority.
The Harm/Liberty Principle: Harm to oneself is
one’s own business, provided one is a mature,
consenting adult.
Children and “backwards nations” are excluded
from the liberty principle
3 regions of human liberty: (1) Liberty of
conscience, expression and speech, (2) liberty of
tastes and pursuits, and (3) liberty of assembly.
Argues against the moral repression of the
Victorian era, and lack of right to privacy
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From your notes:
Mill was homeschooled; had nervous
breakdown at 20, met Harriet Taylor with whom
he worked on moral and social theories.
Champion of women’s rights in British
Parliament
Chief administrator of East India Company;
devastated by the Indian Mutiny in 1957 and
Harriet’s death in 1958
SPP: Karl Marx pp.379-380
The basic dynamic of history: dialectic materialism
[from your notes]
The sum of the relations of production constitute
the real foundation of society: the economic
foundation
The material reality determines the social and
cultural processes.
The superstructure changes when the economic
foundation changes.
Consciousness must be explained through the
economic foundation and its contradictions
Each economic state (ancient, feudal, capitalist)
must play out before it changes into the next state.
The bourgeois world is the final world of
antagonism before the change into socialism
From your notes:
Marx: learned from Hegel’s theory of spiritual
dialectics.
Developed dialectic materialism: economy
moving, pendulum-style, between opposites
until final stage: Communism
Critique of capitalism: alienation from the
product of one’s labor
Critique of profit concept: surplus value is
stealing workers’ time
In communist society, human nature will
change, no more greed; to each according to
need, from each according to ability.
Communist Manifesto: the Proletariat has no
nationality; internationalist, anti-patriotic ideal.
Abolition of property rights, redistribution of
wealth and populations
Critique of Marx (from Rand and others):
communism has failed; who will do the dirty
work? Why work harder without reward? Why
would human nature change?
Course Reader
Ch.7: Dworkin: two models for weighing rights vs.
benefits;
Model #1 =“Rights traded for benefits”
(individual rights balanced with social
benefits)
Model #2 = rights should only be traded for
benefits in rare emergencies, if at all
Dworkin prefers Model #2
Dworkin’s example: freedom of speech
Negative rights, same as Locke’s natural rights:
Rand & Hospers: Life, liberty, property
Positive rights = entitlements: food, shelter,
clothing, work, health care, education, etc.
Marxism: Exclusively positive rights. “From each
acc. to ability, to each acc. to need.”
Liberal view: negative and positive rights.
Rawls: (liberal view) The original position: imagine
you don’t know who you’ll be when the social rule
takes effect; a modern social contract theory.
The veil of ignorance.
Distributive justice:
Backward- and forward-looking justice
Forward-looking justice is utilitarian, backwardlooking justice is rights-oriented
Affirmative action and backward/forward-looking
justice
Criminal justice: restorative (forward-looking) vs.
retributive (backward-looking)
Reasons for punishment:
Forward-looking: Deterrence (specific and
general), rehabilitation, incapacitation,
Backward-looking: retribution, vengeance.
3 differences between retribution and
vengeance.
Ch.13 Animal Rights and Animal Welfare:
Utilitarian approach: No “rights,” only welfare
based on capacity for suffering
Peter Singer, advocating rights for Great Apes
Kantian/dentological approach: Since animals can’t
understand responsibilities, they shouldn’t have
rights. Carl Cohen advocates contractarianism.
Current animal intelligence research reveals animal
capacity for planning and limited rational thinking.
Neokantian concept: Partial rights for animals based
on capacity for intelligence.
Ch.13 “Ethics of the Environment”
Environmentalism: Saving the planet (1) for
humans and (2) for the planet itself
Aldo Leopold: “Land Ethic” demands respect for
the natural environment and its inhabitants
Deep ecology: nature has a right to exist in itself
Climate change: Human-caused or natural cycle?
Christopher Stone: Even trees should have rights
Ch.13: “Death Penalty”:
Locke: Rationales for death penalty (DP) are
deterrence and retribution
Kant: Rationale for DP is retribution
Abolitionist arguments: cruel and unusual; stooping
to the level of a murderer; discriminates against
minorities; driven by political ambition; innocents
have been executed;
Retentionist arguments: Only DP fits the crime of
murder; only way to keep community safe;
deterrent
The DNA issue has changed the death penalty