Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
PPLX5064A
HALF OF THE MARKS FOR THIS PAPER ARE AWARDED FOR SECTION A, AND
HALF FOR SECTION B.
SECTION A
You are expected to explain what the quotation means, describe how it relates to the
rest of the author’s political theory and critically evaluate its strengths and
weaknesses.
1. “The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that
the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore he is like a part in
relation to the whole.” (Aristotle, Politics)
2. “There is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for its own
good. There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own
individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses him and
benefits the others. Nothing more.” (Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia)
3. “So long as government and law provide for the security and well-being of men in
their common life, the arts, literature and the sciences, less despotic though perhaps
more powerful, fling garlands of flowers over the chains which weigh them down.
They stifle in men’s breasts that sense of original liberty, for which they seem to have
been born; cause them to love their own slavery, and so make of them what is called
a civilised people.” (Rousseau, Discourse on the Arts and Sciences)
4. “The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is
that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his
independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign.” (J.S. Mill, On Liberty)
5. “The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself
from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognise traps, and a lion to frighten
wolves.” (Machiavelli, The Prince)
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SECTION B
9. What, if anything, does Burke have to offer the modern liberal tradition?
13. “Hobbes’ description of the state of nature is inaccurate – but if it were accurate,
those inhabiting it would indeed authorise Leviathan as sovereign.” Is this a fair
statement?
END OF PAPER
PPLX5064A Version 1.