Political Ideas             Possible Second Exam Questions                   Exam Date: Oct. 27
The exam will consist of several questions chosen from this list.  It will take place during the second half of the class period, so that we can discuss next week’s topic (human rights) before the exam.  You will have about a one page of space for each question.  Good answers will display an understanding of the arguments and ideas we have read and discussed.

1. Supporters of free market capitalist democracy (like Nozick, Hayek, and Freidman) say that it is the political system that provides its citizens with the maximum feasible amount of liberty or freedom.  But modern liberals and socialists (like Rawls and G.A. Cohen) say that real freedom is undermined by poverty, ignorance, and disease.  Therefore, they say, to create a genuinely free society, government must ‘interfere’ in the marketplace (for example, by regulating workplace health and safety) and provide various supports and services to make people’s opportunities more equal.  Explain and critically evaluate this argument.
2. What sort of equality is required by justice?  Some possibilities: equal rights, equal incomes, equal opportunities, equal political power, equal voice, equal respect, equal consideration, equal treatment by the government, equal resources, equal happiness or satisfaction, equal rewards for equal effort, equal rewards for equal output, equal punishment for equally serious crimes.
3. Why does Rawls think that we should imagine that people are choosing principles of justice behind a ‘veil of ignorance’?  Do you think he is right to argue that a decision made ‘behind the veil’ is more fair than one made with full knowledge?
4. Why does Rawls think that people in the ‘original position’ would choose his two principles of justice instead of libertarian (free market) principles?  What do you think of these principles?
5. How does Nozick use his Wilt Chamberlain example to argue for his entitlement theory of justice?  What do you think of his view?
6. What’s the difference between ‘option luck’ and ‘brute luck’?  Why does Dworkin think it is reasonable to allow people to benefit (or suffer) from option luck but not (or not so much) from brute luck?  Is he right?
7. Do you think that people should be regarded as having positive rights (examples: a right to an adequate diet, or to a job, or to a decent education)?  Or should we limit our list of rights to negative rights (examples:  rights not to be killed or assaulted, not to be unjustly imprisoned, not to be tortured, not to be subject to government censorship)?  Explain and defend your answer.  (Explain how you would reply to those who have argued for either a more extensive or a less extensive conception of rights than your own.)  You might find it helpful to focus on one positive right -- a right to food or to education or to health care, for example -- and explain why you do (or do not) think that society should recognize such a right.
8. Why might someone think that it is a good idea to outlaw ‘hate speech’?  Why might someone think that this is a bad idea?  What do you think?