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Essay Instructions: A major focus of this course has been the examination of how a political thinker's views on human nature influence their views on legitimate political authority and freedom. Examine the two Social Contract theorists (Locke and Rousseau) and explore how their views of human nature influence their views on political right, the scope of political authority and social justice.

Sources:"Second Treatise on Government" by John Locke and "Basic Political Writings" by Jean Jacques Rousseau

Essay Instructions: There are given web sites below.
Go to the pages and write what you think about.
You answer has to be 1 or 2 short paragraphs.
#14,15, and 16 there is no web site.

1. Taj Mahal
http://www.angelfire.com/in/myindia/tajmahal.html
2. The Life and Work of Galileo
http://galileo.rice.edu/
3. Biographical Information about Jean Jacques Rousseau
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jun/rousseau.html
4. Biographical Information and Resources Related to Percy Bysshe Shelley
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRshelley.htm
5. The History of the American Abolitionist Movement
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam005.html
6. Information about Verdi
http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/verdi.php
7. The Eiffel Tower web page
http://www.endex.com/gf/buildings/eiffel/eiffel.html
8. The Vincent van Gogh gallery
http://www.vangoghgallery.com/
9. Biographical information about Franz Kafka
http://www.levity.com/corduroy/kafka.htm
10. Biographical information about Adolf Hitler
http://remember.org/guide/Facts.root.hitler.html
11. Resources related to Existentialism
http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/exist.html
12. Information on the origins of Jazz
http://www.redhotjazz.com/originsarticle.html
13. Biographical information about Octavio Paz
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/opaz.htm

14. How does the theater of the absurd reflect the quest for meaning at mid-century? How about the poetry of Eliot and other poets at mid-century?

15. How is ethnicity and ethnic identity shown in the arts?

16. How has high technology and the information explosion influenced late twentieth and early twenty-first-century culture, arts, and literature?

Essay Instructions: Answer two given questions. Your answer to each question should be approximately 375 words in length.

QUESTION 1. To be a democrat is to be committed to the following belief.

(i) There is a moral obligation to abide by any decision which is reached by democratic means.(Without this, no democrat could expect those in the minority to abide by democratically reached decisions)
Person, P, is a democrat, and an election is due. Out of two policies on offer, A and B, P is going to vote for A. This is because P holds the following belief.

(ii) A ought to be the case.

However, the majority vote for B. Because P holds belief(i) it follows that P is logically committed to yet another belief, namely

(iii) B ought to be the case.

A and B are incompatible, therefore belief (ii) is logically inconsistent with belief (iii). P must hold both. It follows that it is impossible to believe in democracy without logical self-contradiction.

Do you agree?

(This is sometimes known as 'Wollheim's Paradox': See Richard Wollheim, 1969,:"A Paradox in Democracy", in Laslett, P and Runciman, W G(eds): Philosophy, Politics, Society Second Series)


QUESTION 2. Rousseau on the English.
(From Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, chapter 15

The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during the election of Members of Parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moments of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.

Is Rousseau right? If not, why not? If so, does it matter?