website title

Students Zone / Questions / Chapter 25: Politics: The Extent of Power

1. What constraints on liberty would it be reasonable for a citizen to accept?

2. Are we right to argue in the West that property rights and market freedoms are necessary for political freedom?

3. Would liberty be possible if there were no law?

4. Are people right to argue that it is an unjustifiable infringement of their personal freedom to make it a crime for them to have more than one husband or wife at the same time?

5. Can we use the same arguments for requiring people to give up smoking that we use for them to wear seat belts?

6. Is the state only a necessary evil?

7. Distinguish between positive and negative liberty.

8. Are there rights that are inalienable?

9. Are there interests that justify any degree of government intervention?

10. Does the law recognise or create rights?

11. Explain why Rousseau saw the general will as the key to man’s liberation.

12. Do Rousseau’s arguments lead to totalitarian conclusions?

13. Is John Stuart Mill successful in reconciling his utilitarian views with his arguments for liberty?

14. Why have philosophers who have looked at human nature come to such different conclusions? In your answer refer to at least two of the following: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau.

15. Can we argue that we have a right to something when no body has conferred that right?

16. Explain Mill’s principle of insulation. Examine the problems involved in applying it to the case of freedom of publication.

17. Is it true to describe Mill’s principle of insulation as ideological, serving to promote and defend the interests of a particular class?

18. Does Mill’s insistence of the rights of self-expression and self- determination ignore the need for human community?

19. What reasons does Mill give for introducing his principle of insulation? Do you think it is successful in doing what Mill wants it to do?