SECTION A Plato, Meno
1 Is Socrates’ demand for a definition of virtue reasonable?
2 Is the discussion of a geometrical example really relevant to a basically
ethical enquiry?
3 Is Socrates right to think that virtue can be taught only if it is a form of
knowledge?
4 Can one really account for the slave boy’s knowledge of a geometrical
proposition by asserting that he has ‘remembered’ something he
learned before?
SECTION B Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
5 In Section XII Philo urges that the difference between theism and
atheism is merely verbal. What did he mean, and is he right?
6 The argument to design is often described as an argument by analogy.
What does this mean, and is it a problem for Cleanthes?
7 Is the problem of evil the same for Demea and Cleanthes — or different
in what ways? Does either have an adequate response to it?
8 Can Hume’s doctrine of ‘natural belief’ be used to rescue the theist’s
position?
SECTION C Mill, On Liberty and The Subjection of Women
9 ‘The principle which regulates the existing social relations between the
two sexes — the legal subordination of one sex to the other — is wrong
itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement.’
Discuss.
10 ‘It is good to have laws requiring the use of seat belts and forbidding
the use of dangerous drugs. Therefore Mill’s harm principle is wrong.’
Discuss.
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11 Either (a) Is Mill right to place so high a value on individuality?
Or (b) Is Mill right to be so suspicious of custom?
12 What is the most fundamental value in Mill’s work: liberty, utility,
progress, equality, or something else?