SECTION A
1. ‘But leave virtue whole and intact, and say what it is. I’ve given you the
models, after all.’ (PLATO) How useful are Socrates’ models in explaining
what he expects from a definition of virtue?
2. ‘If a little humour is in order, what you comprehensively remind me of, both
in appearance and in other respects, is that marine creature, the electric ray.’
(PLATO) How apt is Meno’s comparison?
3. ‘People can come to appreciate geometrical facts without having been told
them.’ How does Socrates explain this fact in the Meno? Should we accept
his explanation?
4. How much progress is made in the Meno towards finding out if virtue can
be taught?
SECTION B
5. ‘Indeed, that these hands themselves, and this whole body are mine—what
reason could there be for doubting this?’ (DESCARTES) Does Descartes
present any good reasons for doubting this in the First Meditation?
6. Is Descartes best understood in the Second Meditation as inferring ‘I exist’
from ‘I am thinking’?
7. Can Descartes explain how, if God exists and is not a deceiver, anyone can
ever make mistakes?
8. ‘I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it’ (DESCARTES).
Am I? Can I?
SECTION C
9. A person ‘cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be
better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the
opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good
reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him,
or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in
case he do otherwise.’ (MILL) Discuss.
10. Does Mill succeed in showing that speech should be treated as a selfregarding action?
11. Is Mill right to describe the condition of women in his time as ‘the primitive
state of slavery lasting on’?
TURN OVER
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12. EITHER (a) ‘The moral regeneration of mankind will only really
commence, when the most fundamental of the social relations is placed under
the rule of equal justice, and when human beings learn to cultivate their
strongest sympathy with an equal in rights and in cultivation.’ (MILL) Does Mill
give good reasons to think this true?
OR (b) What role does the idea of progress play in the argument of On Liberty
and/or The Subjection of Women?