INSTRUCTIONS:
Write an 8-10 page paper on ONE of the following topics. Outside sources are permitted, but not required, for this assignment. Be sure to reference all sources (primary and secondary) according to accepted academic standards, and to include a bibliography at the end of your paper.
TOPICS:
1. Like Machiavelli, Rousseau admires such ancient city-states as Rome and Sparta for their civic virtues, the austere and disciplined lifestyles of their citizens, and their high level of community integration. Yet Rousseau's ideal community is thoroughly modern; it is an artificial association premised on individual freedom and equality and established through the social contract. How does his integration of ancient political examples differ from that of Machiavelli's? In your answer, attend to both the practical and the moral dimensions of the two arguments for republicanism.
2. For Locke, it is a violation of natural law and of the right of self-preservation to take away another's liberty or to sell one's freedom to another. This action also defeats the whole purpose of government, which is to defend the property, understood as "life, liberty, and estates," of individuals. Yet he argues that there are times when it is justifiable to enslave other people, and even to take their "estates" from them. Given his overall emphasis on limited sovereign power, the need of express consent, and the natural freedom and equality of all individuals, why does Locke justify slavery? On what grounds does Locke make this argument? Is Locke's defense of slavery an anomaly, or is it consistent with his account of human nature and civil society?
3. Like Hobbes, Rousseau argues that through the social contract, citizens freely turn over their rights to a "common power" or sovereign and thereby "authorize" the sovereign's acts. For both, freedom can only really be enjoyed once the individual is (willingly) absorbed into the body politic in this way. Yet this relation of freedom and citizenship has very different implications in each theory. Explain these similarities and differences.
4. Both Hobbes and Locke base their accounts of politics and political obligation in science rather than religion or ideology. Yet both draw on the tradition of natural law to make their arguments. Discuss the ways in which each theorist uses the concept of natural law. What does this tell you about their respective approaches? Which theorist is more consistent and/or successful in this regard?
5. Locke, Rousseau and Hobbes all observe that women are "by nature" free and equal to men. Yet none of them use this observation to argue for women's political equality in civil society. Why not? Considering one of these authors, discuss what this omission tells you about the purpose of and the tensions within their respective approaches
6. Both Rousseau and Marx identify a kind of (moral and material) "reversal" in contemporary society, whereby human beings are increasingly degraded, enchained and alienated even as civil society advances in technological, scientific and economic terms. But Marx would find a major flaw in the Rousseau's account of (and solution to) this situation. Discuss.
7. Both Hobbes and Locke use the radical notions of natural freedom and equality to argue that political obligation and authority must be based on consent. However, each uses these concepts to draw very different conclusions than the radical movements of the time. Since neither is interested in advocating for any kind of democratic inclusion into the affairs of governance, why do they choose such radical premises to make their arguments? Who is more successful in making his claims?
8. Marx argues that his approach to historical progress and change is materialist rather than idealist. He is in agreement with the (liberal) political economists that we must begin with the "actual economic facts" before us rather than with metaphysical principles or abstract laws. Why then are his conclusions about the operations (and the fate) of "modern bourgeois society" so different than those of the liberals? How does Marx come to these conclusions?
9. Like Aristotle and Machiavelli, Marx stresses the importance of class relations and the inevitability of class conflict. Like them, moreover, Marx rejects the idea that a good and harmonious society can be created out of an ideal, beginning instead with "actually existing facts." For Marx, however, the purpose of this "empirical" or materialist approach is not to stabilize the existing order, but to bear witness to the necessity of revolution (precisely what his predecessors wished to avoid). Explain these similarities and differences.