Assignments

1. What is the order of creation? What values does the order suggest to you?
2. How does the blessing pronounced by God at the conclusion of creation differ from the blessing pronounced after the flood?  What are the implications of the difference?
3. Why does God withhold "knowledge of good and evil" from humanity? What is the nature of the curse pronounced by God upon man and woman?
4. What implications do you see in the different treatment accorded the sacrifices of Abel and Cain? What is the significance of "the brand of Cain" ?
5. Why does God demand the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham? Was Abraham right in obeying God?

(a) 327a-376c:

1. What sort of a man is Cephalus? A good man, perhaps, but is he wise? What is his view of the passions?
2. A definition of what is right, borrowed from a poet. Are poets good sources for knowledge? When trying to discover what is the right thing to do, do we crave a definition?
3. Justice seems to come from a kind of practical knowledge [the Greek word is techne], how to act in this or that circumstance. The question has shifted from "what sort of a thing is justice" to "what sort of knowledge produces justice". Are the questions more or less equivalent? Does knowing what justice is carry with it the knowledge of how to act justly?
4. Can it be just to harm  one's enemies? Harming someone or something, says Socrates, means making it to conform less to its "standard of excellence", making it, in other words, less exemplary of what it is. (Harming a horse makes it less of a horse.) What objections can be made to this turn in the argument? The knowledge that goes into caring for horses cannot have as its function making horses worse; in like fashion, the exercise of justice cannot ever function to make human beings worse. What objections can be made to this point. Why does Socrates think it follows naturally from his argument?
5. Thrasymachus interposes. Socrates takes it for granted that justice is "human excellence" [the word for "exeellence" and "virtue" are the same in ancient Greek]. Thrasymachus challenges this assumption. How good are is arguments? How does Socrates defeat them? Is the conclusion (justice is not a form of human excellence, not a virtue) attractive nonetheless?
6. The challenge of Glaucon: what is his account of the nature and origin of justice? Would you wish to possess the ring of Gyges? Why? What is the nature of the challenge that he poses to Socrates?
7. Adeimantus says that Glaucon has left out the most important point. What is it?
8. What are the essential points in Socrates's account of the character of a community? How will talking about the character of a viable community aid in discovering whether justice is an excellence or not in individuals?
9. Glaucon insists that a community cannot confine itself only to necessities; it must have some luxuries as well. What does their admission do to the analogy between the community (as Socrates is outlining its nature) and the individual member of the community?

(b) 403d-445d:

1. How well does Socrates locate in the commuity the four "classical" virtues: Wisdom, Courage, Temperance (or self-control or self-discipline; the Greek word is sophrosyne), and Justice. As Socrates describes them, the last two sounds somewhat alike. How do they differ?
2. How well does he align the three elements or classes of people to be found in any community with the alleged three parts of the human psyche? The Greek word has got into our language; what other word(s) might be synonymous with it?
3. Socrates says that two of the elements must be in charge of the third, which is appetite. Why should the element responsible for "courage" be in charge of appetite? How can reason control appetite? Is appetite, as Socrates says, "the greater part of everyone's make-up and naturally insatiable?" Is, for example, thirst an appetite; and is it always insatiable?

(c) 471c-521b, 576c-592a:

1. How good is Plato's argument that it does not invalidate an ideal pattern of a state to show that it cannot possibly exist? Does the defense of the validity of an ideal pattern (a "paradigm"; Greek=paradeigma) extend to other things?
2. If appetites are insatiable, so (says Socrates) is reason, insatiable for knowledge of all sorts. What the philosopher craves is not instances or examples but the paradigm itself, the standard of excellence by which something is judged to be good or bad of its kind. Most people are incapable of grasping these standards, which do not change with time or circumstance. How is the distinction between the few and the many here correlated with a distinction between universal knowledge and random, changeful "opinion" or "belief". How valid do you think the assertion that there is no universal knowledge, only relative belief?
3. How does the parable of the Cave fall in with the distinction between knowledge and belief? with the exposition of the divided line? Why, in the parable, do those who have never seen the source of all light turn on the one who has and kill him?
4. The rich, the brave and the wise each maintain that their way of life is best, but the wise are right and the other two wrong. How do we know this?

Dante, The Inferno

1. The general scheme of the Inferno derives from Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, k VII, chapter 1, where the ethical states to be avoided are divided into incontinence, viciousness, and mad brutishness. Do the types here represent what Aristotle was talking about? What has Dante added by way of circles in Hell to Aristotle's scheme and why has he added it?
2. The place most like the conventional image of Hell as Dante inherited it was Malebolge, which comes complete with devils and pitchforks. How are the punishments endured by the damned in areas above and below Malebolge different from the punishments endured within it?
3. What, in your view, is the dark wood? What is the mountain that Dante is trying to climb? Why, in the poem, is Dante required to pass through Hell to get to Paradise?
4. "Love made me," says the inscription on the gates of Hell. How is Hell an expression of divine Love?
5. Does the punishment in Hell always suit the sin? Are the characters in Hell fully defined by the sin that has determined their position in Hell or do they exhibit traits that might be termed "redeeming", were it not for the fact that they did not effect the redemption of the person who bore them? Find three cases in which the latter is true and try to account for the portraits of the sinner in each.
6. There are transitions in the journey from circle to circle, but major transitions from group to group. One of these is the battlements and defenses of the city of Dis. Hell is a city, then? The Erynes or Furies are there, and Dante is protected from looking at them. Virgil is denied entrance and appears to be angered and perplexed. How would you interpret the symbolism here?
7. Those in Hell know the future and the past but not the present. What does this mean?
8. There is a two-fold division within Aristotle's category of the vicious, what does it signify? Comment on the three-fold division of the violent, who occupy the outer and higher half of the realm of the vicious. Does it seem sensible? Dante is moved to scorn in the innermost circle of the incontinent; he displays anger at numerous points in the circle of the vicious; and he is downright cruel in the circle of the treacherous. How would one justify this behavior?
9. Dante's geography of Hell obviously admits of a hierarchy of sins, from least to most sinful. However, his arrangement is sometimes puzzling to our modern eyes. For example, he places the prodigal higher than the spendthrift, murderers higher than the noble Ulysses, and counterfeiters right next to the bottom, wherein are placed the worst of the lot. Can you explain this? There are also judgments upon sins that we might not share. How would you explain the condemnation of usuryBthe sin of making money by the use of money? How would you explain the condemnation of Ulysses, who urged his men never to stop searching for knowledge?
10. Unless loss of personality is part of the punishment, Dante's figures are deeply personified in very few strokes of his pen. Yet they are also meant to be allegorical, to stand for something. What does it mean to say that one "stands for something", has become an emblem, so to speak? Do you stand for something in this sense? Certainly, we are familiar with figures who stood for something in history, Lindburgh, for instance, or Nathan Hale. Does this "standing for" carry a judgment on features of one's character?

1. The story deliberately sets itself as describing events taking place before steam had replaced sail, another, distant-seeming world. At the time, England and other European states were leagued in war against France, represented by Napoleon Bonaparte, who was thought by many in the United States to represent the force of republicanism, if not democracy, and the end of the political authority and privilege royalty and nobility. Indeed, the story tells us at one point (chapter 8), that veterans of the American revolution hoped that he might carry his conquests across the Atlantic. The events of the story, therefore, take place during a war against France whose purpose was to make the world safe from democracy, not for democracy. How does this circumstance color the story as a whole?
2. Billy is an ordinary seaman, impressed into service (as the law allowed) by a man-of-war to make up the loss of a seaman upon it. Why does Billy offer a farewell salute to his ship, The Rights of Man? How should his cry of farewell be taken?
3. The narrator contrasts the vices of ordinary sailors with the vices of those who claim "respectability". What is the point of the contrast?
4. Chapter four offers an account of Nelson, who died at Trafalgar. There is, throughout, an implied contrast with Captain Vere. How would you develop the contrast?
5. The three main characters, Billy, Vere, and Claggart are described at some length before the story gets under way. How would you sum up Billy's character? Why was he called "the peacemaker"? How did he bring about peace on the only occasion that we know about before he joined Vere's ship? What is the significance of his stammer?
6. How would you describe Vere? His belief in the justice of the English cause is tied to a mistrust of "innovators" and political revolutionaries; his suspicion of those who would destroy aristocratic privilege is, the narrative says, "disinterested". Does the narrative admire him? Does it, on the whole, take his side?
7. Describe Claggart and his role upon the ship. What is his effect upon his subordinates? Why does the narrative wish that it could resort to Biblical usage to describe him? Who in the narrative does resort to Biblical references to describe events? The wish to use Biblical language is expressed during the narrative's attempt to explain why Claggart hates Billy. How does the narrative explain the hatred? Is the explanation a good one?
8. The old Dansker says that Claggart always has a good word for Billy because Claggart hates Billy. What does he mean by this?
9. Does Claggart believe the charges that he levels against Billy? How would you support your answer?
10. Why does Billy strike Claggart? Did he commit murder? Does Vere think that he committed murder? Why does Vere convene a court-martial aboard ship? Why does the doctor think that Vere has gone mad?
11. If you were on the court-martial and Vere did not speak before a verdict was to be rendered, how would you vote? Would Vere's speech make a difference to your vote?
12. The narrative can tell us what passed through Billy's mind when he is summoned to Vere's cabin? Why does the narrative pointedly refuse to tell us what passed between Vere and Billy after the court-martial?
13. The narrative compares Vere to Abraham and Billy to Isaac. Is the comparison justified?
14. The narrative offers three consecutive endings to the story, chapters 28, 29 and 30, any one of which could have concluded the story by itself. What is the point of this device?
15. At the end of chapter 21, the narrative draws a distinction between the viewpoint of those in authority during emergencies and those under authority or protected by it. What are the ethical implications of this distinction? Are they legitimate considerations in judging those in authority?

1. What does Kant mean by a maxim? What is the difference between a categorical and a hypothetical imperative?
2. Kant gives three versions of the categorical imperative. How would you distinguish the first two? Why does Kant believe that they come down to the same thing?
3. Compare the view of freedom expressed by Kant with the treatment of it by Hobbes. The two philosophers each make the claim that being ethical means much the same as being rational (recall Hobbes saying that to behave unjustly was akin to a contradiction, in that it was absurd) i.e., without the possibility of calculation. And yet there views of reasonable conduct are different. How would you describe some of the differences? Kant has harsh words for the notion of the "pursuit of happiness". Would Hobbes have agreed with him?
4. What does Kant mean by "autonomy". Are human beings autonomous?
5. Kant offers four examples of the application of his notion of the categorical imperative. How do they illustrate his argument? Are they well-chosen?
6. Kant distinguishes between duties to oneself and duties to others. How important is this distinction to Kant's argument? Can you have duties to yourself, or is the phrase just a colorful manner of speaking? Isn't it rather like owing yourself some money to owe yourself to do something or to behave towards yourself in a certain way?
7. Kant does not believe in the authority of "role-models". He says, in effect, that you cannot "imitate Christ" until you recognize his perfection and this recognition depends upon your already knowing what it means to be perfect. Jesus, it would appear (although Kant does not say this), cannot teach us anything that we do not already know. What do you think of this argument?

1. One of the most important moments in Mill's exposition of utilitarianism occurs when he writes of most "moral associations"(meaning by the phrase both vested ideas about morality and social conduct and the institutions that such ideas support), that they are wholly artificial and yield with the advance of civilization to "he dissolving force of analysis" (Chapter three, Utilitarianism).How important is "he dissolving force of analysis"to the story? Which characters in particular exhibit the dissolving force of analysis in their expression of ethical or social views?
2. Raskolnikov overhears a conversation about God and it confirms his intention to act. What is the substance of the conversation? Does the student in the conversation express a reasonable opinion? Can one be moral if one does not believe in God?
3. Raskolnikov is not an atheist, or so he seems to say during his first interview with Porfiry. How is it possible to "elieve in God and the New Jerusalem"and still commit murder?
4. Outline Luzhin's views on new ideas, ethics, religion. Razumihin immediately accuses him of licensing murder, and Luzhin stoutly denies this. What is the nature of their disagreement?
5. Luzhin seems to believe that a wife should look upon a husband as a benefactor, and Raskolnikov takes a dim view of Luzhin on this account. What is wrong with the belief? What does it imply about Luzhin's character? The story earlier offers an example of a man marrying a woman in order to save her, Marmeladov. Does the reason for the marriage have anything to do with the nature of it?
6. Raskolnikov intervenes in behalf of a young girl who has evidently been raped, engages a policeman to help her, then suddenly tells the policeman to mind his own business. What motivates his sudden change in character? But Raskolnikov can turn upon himself in the course of two sentences. "Man is a scoundrel," he muses, after encountering the prostitute Duclida..  "And he is a scoundrel who calls him a scoundrel." What is the meaning of this remark? The encounter with Duclida first prompted a meditation about "a square yard of space", a thought that recurs in the novel. What does it refer to? What is there about the episode with Duclida that prompts such reflections?
7. Hearing Raskolnikov's theory about superior sorts of persons, Razumihin says that it is an excuse for bloodshed and adds that it is worse than the official excuse for bloodshed. What is the official excuse? Why does Razumihin think Raskolnikov's is worse? "The only novelty in your ideas," says Razumihin, "is that you sanction bloodshed in the name of conscience, as a duty." Does that sound like a novelty still? What situations can give rise to a duty to shed blood?
8. Describe the character of Svigdrigailov. What is his history? He sees ghosts. Who are they and what is his response to them? Why is he so interested in Raskolnikov? Why is he so interested in Sonya? Near the end of the book, he describes his technique for seducing women. How would you describe the technique?
9. There are five dreams in the novel. What does the first dreamBRaskolnikov's dream about the mare--mean? The next to last concerns an abandoned child and the dreamer is Svigdrigailov. What is the meaning of this dream? Are the dreams realistic? Do dreams in life reflect reality or comment upon it?
10. Raskolnikov identifies with Sonya and tells her why? Both of us, he says, have transgressed. Why does he think that the transgressions are similar? Is he right?
11. Raskolnikov offers himself and Sonya various explanations of why he killed the pawnbroker. What are they? Do they all add up? If not, which one is closest to the truth?

1. How would you describe the way in which the nameless narrator was promoted to command of his ship? Is it meant to be typical of appointment to authority? What is the significance of the "alone-ness" of the narrator at the outset of the story? Is the condition good, bad, indifferent?
2. The narrator distinguishes himself from his crew in that they "had simply to be equal to their tasks", whereas he had to measure up to "that ideal conception of one's own personality that every man sets up for himself secretly." Can this view of the distinction between the one in authority and those under authority be justified? Where would you draw this line and what is the meaning of it?
3. Why did the second mate withhold the knowledge of the Sephora until the end of the meal?
4. How would you evaluate the narrator's initial moves as captain?
5. The name "Leggatt" is pronounced, legate (as in delegate) and means someone sent on commision from higher authority. Is the name appropriate here?
6. Why did Leggatt go overboard? Is he guilty of murder or even manslaughter? He makes a distinction between swimming till he sinks and committing suicide;  is this distinction justified? He also distinguishes between swimming 'round and 'round and swimming straight forward (again, until he sinks). Why is this difference important?
7. Both Archbold (if that is his name) and Leggatt claim to have given the order that saved the ship. Who is telling the truth? Is one of them lying?
8. Leggatt kills one man while saving ship and crew. The narrator risks ship and crew to save one man. Is this recklessness? The narrator says that this was "a matter of conscience". What does he mean by this? One might say that the narrator has created a crisis on the ship. Is it ever a good thing for someone in authority to create a crisis?
9. The narrator speaks of "the chapter of accidents which counts for so much in the book of success." Explain the phrase. Do you think it is applicable to most careers?
10. What is the point of the floating hat at the end of the story?