UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA

School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies

May/June UG Examination 2014-15

WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT

PPLX5064A

Time allowed: 2 hours

Answer FOUR questions from Section A, and ONE from Section B.

HALF OF THE MARKS FOR THIS PAPER ARE AWARDED FOR SECTION A, AND
HALF FOR SECTION B.

Notes are not permitted in this examination.

Do not turn over until you are told to do so by the Invigilator.

Module Number: PPLX5064A Module Contact: Dr Michael Gough

Copyright of the University of East Anglia Version 1
 Page 2

SECTION A

Comment critically on FOUR of the following quotations.

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)

6. “Communism deprives no man of his power to appropriate the products of society;

all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by
means of such appropriation.” (Marx, The Communist Manifesto)

PPLX5064A Version 1.
 Page 3

SECTION B

Write an essay on ONE of the following questions.

7. How persuasive are Hume’s criticisms of social contract theory?

8. Does Plato succeed in showing that justice is superior to injustice?

9. What, if anything, does Burke have to offer the modern liberal tradition?

10. How just are Rawls’s two principles of justice?

11. How convincing is Montesquieu’s defence of the principle of the separation of

powers?

12. “Whether plausible or not, Locke’s theory of religious toleration is a reaction to

17th century political issues. As such, it can be of little use to contemporary debates
on toleration.” Discuss.

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?

14. Critically evaluate Bentham’s version of utilitarianism.

15. How successful is Skinner’s attempt to find a compromise between textualism

and contextualism?

END OF PAPER

PPLX5064A Version 1.