Possible Exam Questions for Ethics Midterm

1. What is the difference between normative ethics and meta-ethics?

2. In the Republic, what does Thrasymachus mean by saying that “justice is the interest of the stronger”? Do you think Thrasymachus has a good point?

3. What are the three parts of the soul according to Socrates? How does he argue that the soul must have separate parts? What do you think of his argument?

4. In Book IV how does Socrates define justice in an individual person? What do you think of his definition?

5. What is the point of Plato’s story about the cave?

6. Briefly, what is the ‘theory of forms’?

7. What is wrong, according to Socrates, with being a ‘democratic man’?

8. Why is a tyrant, however powerful, supposed to be the “most wretched” of men, according to Socrates?

9. The Republic seems to be largely an extended reply to a claim introduced (in several variants) near the beginning. The claim: that it is better for a person to be unjust than to be just, as long as that person has the power to get away with it. If you had only a few minutes to sum up Socrates’ attempt to refute this claim, what would you say?

10. Do you think that Socrates has succeeded in refuting this claim?

11. What, according to Aristotle, is ‘the function’ of a human being?

12. How does Aristotle define happiness for a human being?

13. Briefly, what is Aristotle’s ‘doctrine of the mean’?

14. What does Aristotle mean by saying that the mean is ‘relative to us’? Does that mean that he thinks there is no objective right and wrong?

15. In what sense are virtue and vice ‘up to us’ according to Aristotle? Do you agree?

16. What, according to Aristotle are the three kinds of friendship? (Say a little about each one.)

17. Which kind of friendship is best (and why)? Do you agree?

18. Why is friendship for pleasure more like true friendship than is friendship for utility?

19. What place does Aristotle give to pleasure in the good life?

20. What reasons does Aristotle give for thinking that a life of theoretical study is the best life for a human being? What do you think about this claim?

21. What reasons does Richard Norman give for thinking that Plato and Aristotle may not have given us an adequate account of ethics?

22. Why does Aristotle think that slavery is sometimes justified?

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