Ethics - Study Guide #1
1. Define philosophy by using the meaning of its root words.
2. Socrates stood trial on what two formal charges?
3. For most of you, this class is a requirement, and thus arguably a restriction upon your freedom. We discussed this on the first day of class
in reference to Plato’s statement: “Any study pursued under compulsion does not remain rooted in the memory.” How can studying
philosophy be understood to provide a precondition for the exercise or the development of one’s freedom?
4. Socrates stated his wisdom amounted to his awareness of his own ignorance. (True/False)
5. We are the beings who have their own being given to them in the form of the question of the meaning of being. Explain.
6. Explain our moral sense, our aesthetic sense, our rational sense, and or religious sense.
7. List and explain four ways of assessing the ethical status of action.
8. Our typical understanding of justice frames it within the domain of law. Based on what you have learned in this class, formulate a critique
of this approach.
9. Pushing someone off a cliff could be an ethical action (T/F). What is the criterion of assessment you use here to determine the truth or
falsity of the statement?
10. What does harmony have to do with Justice?
12. The sophists were teachers who taught what?
13. Cephalus believes that it is not necessary to be wealthy to live a good life (T/F/)?
14. Cephalus understands justice to be what?
15. How does Socrates refute Cephalus’ definition?
16. What is Polemarchus’ definition of justice.
17. What is the underlying similarity between Cephalus’ and Polemarchus’ definitions of justice?
18. According to Socrates, justice can never be the cause of injustice (T/F/).
19. Why is Thrasymachus angry with Socrates?
20. Thrasymachus appears to hold two views on the nature of justice, conventionalism and immoralism. Define them. How are they related?
21. Who said each of the following: justice is the advantage of the stronger, justice is paying off one’s debts, justice is never lying, justice is
the virtue of a good life, justice is a lie.
22. According to Thrasymachus, people who act in any way that is other than self serving do so out of what: fear or ignorance.
23. Who is it that Thrasymachus admires? (answer:
24. Is a doctor primarily a healer of bodies or a money-maker?
25. If human life is a skill that has as its end the production of a flourishing life, what is the virtue that would allow for the skill of life to be
performed well?
26. If the unjust person who acts solely out of self-interest desires to get the better of both just people and unjust people, what can we
conclude about this unjust person?
27. What might Thrasymachus’ blush tell us about the nature of Justice?
28. Socrates places justice in which category of good things: good for their own sake and for their consequences, good for their own sake,
good for their consequences.
29. Most people would place justice into what category?
30. How does Glaucon argue that the life of the unjust man is better than that of the just man?
31. Glaucon claims that most people understand justice to arise as a compromise between my desire and fear and your desire and fear (T/F).
Explain
32. What is the purpose of the Ring of Gyges myth?
33. What is the height of injustice?
34. Discuss the assumptions regarding human nature at work in the reading for the course. How do the readings raise the issue and force us
to put our own assumptions into question? Be specific.
35. If your remove the possibility of both punishment and guilt, can you provide a reason to be moral?
36. What are the two main components of the education of the guardians?
37. Plato believes that human character can be educated such that one immediately desires what one should. (T/F)
38. What is the noble lie and why is it necessary for the existence of justice in the city?
39. Name three of the five proscriptions regarding the censorship of music/poetry in the ideal state.
40. 41. Name the three classes of citizens in Plato’s ideal state. What is the purpose of each?
42. The guardians must guard against the presence of what two things in the city? (answer: Wealth and Poverty)
43. How is the just city a model or metaphor for the human soul?
44. The just city displays what four virtues?
46. The guardians are allowed to possess a minimal amount of private property. (T/F)
47. In Plato’s ideal state, some of the philosopher kings will be women. (T/F)
48. A child born to a guardian could become a cobbler. (T/F)
49. Name the three parts of the soul, according to Plato.
50. What role does the spirit play in the operations of a just individual?