CORE11-120 CULTURAL AND ETHICAL VALUES

SECOND ASSIGNMENT                DUE APRIL 4^th, 4PM

• A hard copy of this assignment must be handed into the HSS Faculty Services Office after 9.00am and before 4.00pm. Any late assignment will not be accepted until the next working day.
• You must obtain permission for any late assignments prior to the due date.
• Please complete an Assignment Coversheet and attach it to your assignment.
• An electronic copy of this assignment must also be submitted through turnitin. See the link in the assessment page.

Write a essay (1000 – 1300 words) on ONE of the following topics.

1. Is the Doctrine of Double Effect a valid moral principle? Use the version set out by Joseph Mangan (see Lecture Notes Week 6).  Defend your answer by examining various applications of the doctrine.  (Use at least some examples of your own.)
2. Is there such a thing as a just war? In your answer critically examine the standard criteria for a just war as set out in Week 6 Lecture Notes.  (You are encouraged to test these criteria against real life examples.)
3. Why does Hobbes believe that political revolution and rebellion are always unjustified? Describe how this belief relates to Hobbes’s account of the state of nature and the creation of a commonwealth.  Is Hobbes’s position plausible?
4. Compare and contrast Hobbes’s and Locke’s views of the state of nature and the fundamental purpose of political society. Whose view is the more plausible?  Why?
5. Describe and critically assess Locke’s theory of original acquisition.
6. Locke’s view of natural rights is based on his religious convictions. Can the idea of natural rights survive outside of this religious viewpoint?  If natural rights are not based upon the authority of God, what can they be based upon?
7. Kant claims that we must always “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.” (Groundwork 4: 429; see Lecture Notes Week 9) Explain what Kant means by this claim.  Use examples of your own to illustrate it.  Critically access Kant’s claim.
8. Describe and critically assess John Stuart Mill’s harm principle.
9. Compare and contrast Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill’s versions of utilitarianism. Whose version is the more plausible?  Why?
10. Describe and critically assess John Rawls account of what makes a society just.