Final exam review

Philosophy 202
Final Exam Review Questions - April 2008

The final exam is scheduled for Wednesday, April 16, @ 9am

The exam has three parts:

• PART A (multiple choice questions)
• PART B (short answer questions)
• PART C (essay questions)

Below are suggestions for your preparation. The first section contains concepts & definitions. The second contains short-answer type questions. The last section contains a examples of essay questions.

Questions on the test are drawn from all course readings and lectures. Some questions on the test are not covered in the material below.

The following readings ARE covered on the exam…

From the P&CC package:
Walzer, “Nonviolence and the Theory of War”
Lackey, "Pacifism"
Jesus of Nazareth, "The Sermon on the Mount/The Good Samaritan"
Cheyney Ryan, “The Morality of Pacifism”
Gandhi, “The Practice of Satyagraha”
Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
Kant, "Perpetual Peace”
Walzer, “Just and Unjust War”
Narveson, "Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis"
Brunk, "Is Pacifism Morally Coherent? A Reply to Narveson”
Anscombe, "War and Murder"
Boonin & Oddie, "Is Killing in War Wrong?"
Fullwinder, “War and Innocence”
Alexander, “Self-Defence and the Killing of Non-combatants: A Reply to Fullwinder”
Wasserstrom, “On the Morality of War”
Ruddick, “Mothers and Men's Wars”
Ruddick, “A Women's Politics of Resistance"
Bethke Elshtain, “Is There a Feminist Tradition on War and Peace?” (P&CC)
Tobias, “Toward a Feminist Ethic of War and Peace”
Orend, “What Justifies Human Rights?”
Orend, “Can Human Rights Withstand Criticism?”

From Orend’s Morality of War:
Chapter 1: “A Sweeping history of Just War Theory”
Chapter 2: “Jus ad Bellum #1: Resisting Aggression”
Chapter 3: “Jus ad Bellum #2: Non-Classical Wars”
Chapter 4: “Jus in Bello #1: Just Conduct in War”
Chapter 5: “Jus in Bello #2: Supreme Emergencies”
Chapter 8: “Evaluating the Realist Alternative”
Chapter 9: “Evaluating the Pacifist Alternative”

The following readings IS NOT covered on the exam…
Sterba, Reconciling Pacifists and Just War Theorists”

Concepts & definitions:

Mohandas Gandhi
Leo Tolstoy
Jesus of Nazareth
Michael Walzer
St. Augustine
St. Thomas Aquinas
The war convention
International realism
Non-combatant immunity
Just cause
Carl von Clausewitz
Civil disobedience
Satyagraha
Universal pacifism
Anti-killing pacifism
Anti-coercion pacifism
Private pacifism
Anti-war pacifism
The Biblical prohibition
The sacredness of life view
The right to life argument
Christian pacifism
Intention
Self-defense
The moral exemplar argument
St. Augustine’s limited pacifism
The ancient ethic
The Jewish law
The early Christian ethic of nonviolence
Adequate justification
Thrasymachus
Militarism
The Theory of Aggression
The domestic analogy
Just war theory
Deontological pacifism
Prescriptive realism
Descriptive realism
Vitoria
Grotius
Vattel
Wolff
Universal community of humankind
Universal human rights
Laws of nature

Legal positivism
Moral convention
Human dignity
Prudence
Consequentialism
Rawls’s argument
Vital needs
Inference
Holy war
Just cause
Right intention
Proportionality
Last resort
Legitimate authority
The ‘forced to fight’ argument
The self-determination argument
Different species of human rights
Minimal justice
Security
Subsistence
Liberty
Equality
Recognition
‘Calling your shot’
Discrimination
Non-combatant immunity
Human rights inflation
Benevolent quarantine
Minimum moral standards
Ultimate moral ideals
‘Due care’ for civilians
The doctrine of double effect (DDE)
Walzer’s ‘due care’ principle
The moral reality of war
Reprisals
The moral equality of soldiers
Supreme emergency
Three components of universal human rights
‘War rights’ of soldiers
Consequentialist pacifism
Teleological pacifism
All’s fair in love and war
Thomas Hobbes
inter arma silent leges
Thucydides
realpolitik
The popular dichotomy
The ethic of care
Essentialism (as in debates on feminist ethics of war and peace)
Churchill’s consequentialism
The East Asian critique
The Feminist critique
The Marxist critique

Short answer questions

How does ‘pacifism’ enter into the current debate about the morality of war?
Do you think that human rights are universal?
Is Orend correct to say his arguments ‘defeat’ pacifism as a philosophical alternative to just war theory?
Which of the arguments for universal human rights do you find most convincing?
Describe some of the variants of pacifism we’ve examined in class, and explain in your own words which of the variants you consider most compelling.
In your own words, outline Walzer’s argument against non-violence.
In your own words, clearly describe your understanding of Walzer’s concept of the “war convention”.
What are the three components of Ruddick’s Women’s Politics of Resistance?
What are the three major positions in the ethics of war and peace?
Does the idea of a feminist ethic of war and peace necessarily “essentialize” the nature of women?
Explain the ‘inference’ argument for universal human rights by looking at the views of Henry Shue or H.L.A. Hart.
What are the main virtues and drawbacks of: i) Orend’s human rights-based framework; and ii) Walzer’s noninterventionist framework?
In your own words, state the basic moral proposition of the idea of universal human rights.
Are ‘reprisals’ morally justifiable?
Explain the role played by Argentina’s Madres (the mothers of the disappeared) in Ruddick’s arguments.
What does Anscombe mean in saying that certain views of pacifism lead to a ‘universal forgetfulness of the law against killing the innocent’?
How would you argue for the proposition that soldiers have a right to kill?
Provide a few real-world examples of international realism ‘in action’, e.g. the Truman & Acheson comments we looked at in class.
What view was being espoused by the Athenian Generals in the Melian Dialogue?
Do you think Satyagraha is an effective method of challenging political injustice?
Does Kant support the idea of a “world republic”? What are his arguments?
Do you think Satyagraha provides a convincing moral argument? What kind of moral argument do you think it establishes?
Do you think “human rights inflation” is a problem?
What are the differences between Rawls’s and Martin Luther King’s accounts of ‘civil disobedience’?
Is non-violence unique to Christianity?
How does Walzer defend just war theory against international realism?
Does the Christian idea of non-violence get beyond the “ancient ethic”?
In your own words, explain Martin Luther King’s moral argument for civil disobedience.
Are women essentially peaceful? Are men essentially warlike?
In your own words, trace out the commonplace argument that connects women, maternal practice, and anti-war points of view.
Clearly explain why you think Gandhi’s Satyagraha either does or does not establish non-violence as an absolute moral principle.
Is it justifiable to break the law for political reasons?
What is the foundation of Kant’s perpetual peace idea?
What are the major problems with Kant’s idea of pacifism?
Has Orend successfully ‘defeated’ the ‘pacifist alternative’ to just war theory?
Locate and the following quotation and put it into context: ‘The primary obligation of a national government is to the interests of the national society it represents’.
In your own words, explain Ruddick’s vision of a ‘feminist material peace politics’, and explain how it represents a strong feminist contribution to the morality of war debate.
Evaluate the claim that there is no such thing as a supreme emergency.
Explain some of the major differences between the two major just war frameworks.
Are consequences all that matter in considering just war issues?
What are Orend’s jus in bello constraints? What additional constraints has Orend added to the traditional conception?
Does Ruddick agree with the assertion that women ‘exemplify the commitment to non-violence’? What reasons does she give?
Is there a significant difference between Britain’s bombing of German cities and use of the atom bomb on Japanese cities?
Explain the ‘central dichotomy’ that Ruddick sees in the commonplace connection between masculinity and violence.
Explain how Cheyney Ryan makes use of Orwell’s famous allegory of the vulnerable fascist.
Is the issue of international realism important? What arguments support realism?

Example essay questions

What is ‘the domestic analogy’ and how does it relate to Walzer’s Theory of Aggression?
Is non-violent resistance to aggression likely to succeed?
Do you agree with the way Orend categorizes the human rights arguments?
Explain ONE of Lackey’s variants of pacifism, and give your own argument explaining his challenge against this variant is successful.
Explain the major steps and issues at stake in the Narveson/Brunk debate on the morality of pacifism.