SECTION A Plato, Meno
1 What kind of answer is Socrates after when he asks ‘What is virtue?’? Why does
he conceive the quest as he does?
2 What is Meno’s paradox, and how is the theory of recollection meant to solve it?
3 ‘Can virtue be taught?’ Critically discuss Socrates’s answer.
4 How is Plato’s use of the dialogue form in the Meno related to the philosophical
content of the work?
SECTION B Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
5 Why do you think Philo sounds so concessive to the argument to a designer in the
final part of the Dialogues?
6 What response is made to Cleanthes’s comparison of the order and design in the
world to the existence of a library in part 3? Is the response adequate?
7 ‘Our experience, so imperfect in itself, and so limited both in extent and duration,
can afford us no probable conjecture concerning the whole of things.’ Discuss.
8 Either (a) What is Philo’s account of the source of evils in the world? Is it
defensible?
Or (b) Why does ‘the problem of evil’ take a more pointed form for
Cleanthes than for Demea?
SECTION C Mill, On Liberty and The Subjection of Women
9 Is Mill right that freedom of speech is necessary for truth?
10 Either (a) Does Mill’s harm principle exclude legitimate paternalism?
Or (b) How, according to Mill, is the family relevant to sex equality?
Are his arguments convincing?
11 ‘There are no means of finding what one person or many can do, but by trying.’
Discuss with reference to either On Liberty or The Subjection of Women, or both.
12 Critically assess Mill’s attitude to custom and opinion. Answer with reference to
either On Liberty or The Subjection of Women, or both.