SECTION A: Plato’s Republic
1 Either (a) Does Socrates provide a convincing account of justice in
opposition to Thrasymachus’ position?
Or (b) Is there any justice in Plato’s ideal city?
2 ‘Socrates’ analogy between the individual and the state is misguided.’ Discuss.
3 Either (a) Does Plato argue successfully that psychic harmony is necessary
and sufficient for happiness?
Or (b) Explain and assess the role of Plato’s spirited part of the soul
(thumoeides) in his account of moral psychology.
4 Does Plato have good arguments for thinking that women should be among the
rulers?
5 Is literature always corrupting?
SECTION B: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
6 Either (a) ‘The human good is an activity of soul in accordance with virtue,
and if there are several virtues, in accordance with the best and most complete
(teleiotatên)’ (1098a16–18). How ought we to understand the last words of this
sentence?
Or (b) ‘The position Aristotle puts forward in his Nicomachean Ethics
Book X chs. 6–8 is inconsistent with the rest of the work.’ Discuss.
7 Either (a) What, if anything, is wrong with Aristotle’s doctrine of the
mean?
Or (b) Does Aristotle satisfactorily explain how justice can be a virtue
of character?
8 Either (a) Assess Aristotle’s insistence that each person is responsible for
the state of her character.
Or (b) Is decision (prohairesis) too central to Aristotle’s account of
moral virtue?
9 Either (a) Is the person with practical wisdom an impossible ideal? If so,
what use are Aristotle’s writings on ethics?
Or (b) Explain and assess Aristotle’s distinction between natural and
full virtue in Nicomachean Ethics Book VI.
10 Why does the virtuous man need friends, according to Aristotle?