Philosophy - Two Parts Short Assignment

PART A

Pick one question below and write a substantive post with >100 words. Please try to provide evidence(s) to support your idea(s). Questions: • What is life like in the ‘state of nature’, according to

Hobbes? Is Hobbes right that people are in their nature egotistical?

• What is the social contractthat Hobbes sets out, and how it supposed to help us avoid the terrible fate of living in a state of nature?

• Why does Hobbes hold that we have tacitly consented to the social contract? Is he right? (Is it even possible to tacitlyconsent to a contract?)

• How is social contract theory meant to provide a rational foundation for morality, even while granting that morality is a social construction? Is it successful in this regard?

• What is the Leviathanthat Hobbes describes, and why does he think that it is necessary?

• What is the free-rider problem, and how does it affect the Hobbesian view? Does it pose a seriously difficulty for the position?

• What does Rawls mean by the veil of ignorance, and how is this notion meant to help us identify what a just society looks like?

• Why does a Rawlsian account of a just society struggle to capture the way in which we are often partialin our moral judgements (e.g., in how we are more concerned to help those in need who are closest to us)? Is this a problem for the view?

• Is it psychologically possible to reason under a veil of ignorance as Rawls maintains?

• How plausible is it that if we do reason under a veil of ignorance that we will converge on a particular conception of a just society? How might we end up with competing conceptions of a just society?