Final Exam Study Guide
, Pangborn 302
The primary basis for the exam are the assigned texts. The handouts (marked by ☞) are
intended to facilitate your understanding of the texts, not to substitute them. These questions
are meant to help you preparing for the exam, but other questions may be asked as well.
Ethics
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Book 1 (The Highest Good – Happiness)
• Why is it necessary to postulate a highest good?
(EN 1.2, 1.7)
• Why is happiness (i.e. the highest good) “activity of
soul in conformity with virtue”? (1.7; ☞ 4)
Book 2 (The Virtues in General)
• Do we possess moral virtues from birth? (2.1; cf.
6.13) How do we attain the virtues? (2.1, 2.4)
• What is the meaning of the notion “mean relative
to us”? (2.2; 2.6) Which actions and emotions have
no mean? (2.6)
• What is the definition of virtue? (2.6)
• Why are virtuous actions not to be understood as
“routine actions”? (EN 2, EN 6)
• How do excellence in art and in virtue differ? (2.4;
☞ 5)
• What are the different conditions for virtue, i.e.
which factors must be present in virtuous actions?
(2.4, 2.6, ☞ 5).
Book 3.1–4 (Voluntariness and Choice)
• How does the voluntary relate to choice, and
choice to deliberation? (3.1–4)
• How do actions done by choice, non-chosen volun-
tary actions, acts done under constraint, actions of
mixed nature, and actions due to ignorance differ?
(EN 3.1–2; ☞ 6)
Book 3.6–12 (Courage and Self-control)
• What is courage? What are the opposite vices?
(3.6–7, 3.9)
• How can courage, though it regards pain and
fears, aim at pleasure? (3.9)
• What is self-control (temperance)? What is self-
indulgence (intemperance)? (3.10–12)
• Why is self-indulgence bad? (3.10; 3.12)
Book 4 (Other Moral Virtues)
• How is magnanimity (pride) defined and what is it
concerned with? (4.3)
Tuesday, May 4, 4:00–6:00 p.m.
HSPH 102-01 – Dr. Tobias Hoffmann
Book 5 (Justice)
• Why is justice called “complete virtue”? (5.1)
• What are the two functions of law? (5.1, ☞ 7)
• What is justice as fairness or distribution (“distribu-
tive justice”), what is justice as rectification (“com-
mutative justice”) (5.2–3; ☞ 7)?
• How do misadventures, mistakes, and unjust acts
differ? What characterizes the unjust man? (5.8,
☞ 7)
• What is equity? (5.10; ☞ 7)
Book 6 (The intellectual virtues)
• What is practical wisdom (prudence) and what is
its function in ethics? (6.1–2, 6.5, 6.7, 6.12–13)
• How do art, practical wisdom, and (philosophic)
wisdom differ? (6.4–5. 6.7, ☞ 8)
• Why does practical wisdom require experience?
(6.7)
• What is the difference between action and produc-
tion? (6.2)
Book 7.1–10 (Incontinence and Continence)
• How is incontinence possible? In other words, how
can one act against one’s own better judgment?
(7.3; cf. ☞ 1)
• Can an incontinent person do evil in full awareness
of the good? (7.3; cf. ☞ 1)
• How do the self-indulgent, the incontinent, the
continent, and the temperate persons differ? (7.2,
7.4, 7.7, 7.8; see also ☞ 3)
Books 8–9 (Friendship)
• What are the “conditions” for a friendship? (That
is, what characteristics must be present to allow a
friendship to develop)? (☞ 9)
• What characterizes the three different kinds of
friendship? (☞ 9)
• How do noble and base self-love differ? (9.8) How
does this distinction shed light on the non-selfish
character of Aristotle’s “eudaimonistic” ethic?
(“Eudaimonistic” = “oriented to happiness”)
Book 10 (Pleasure and Happiness)
• What is pleasure? (10.3–4)
• By what criterion do we distinguish between good
and bad pleasures? (10.5, 1175b 24–29)
Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
• Why is a good will a higher good than virtue or
happiness? (pp. 7–9, IV:393–96)
• What is the moral value of the consequences of ac-
tions (pp. 7–8, IV:394)?
• Understand these important distinctions:
(1) “in accord with duty” vs. “from duty”;
(2) “from inclination” vs. “from duty” (pp. 10–11,
IV:397–98; ☞ 14)
• What gives an action its moral value? (p. 11,
IV:398)
• Why is it wrong to commit suicide? (pp. 30–31,
IV:421–22)
• What is the meaning of: duty, maxim, law, cate-
gorical imperative, autonomy of will? ☞ 14)
• What is the universal imperative of duty? (p. 30,
IV:421; ☞ 14) How does it “work”? (p. 30, IV:422–
32, IV:423)
Politics
Aristotle, Politics
• What are the three basic forms of society? (1.2–3)
• Is slavery a violation of nature? (1.4–6)
• Why is the “unnecessary art of getting wealth” bad?
(1.8–9)
• Who qualifies as a citizen? (3.1)
• How does Aristotle define the term “constitution”?
(3.6)
• What are the six basic forms of constitution? (3.7)
• What speaks for and against the rule of the multi-
tude (democracy)? (3.11)
• Oligarchs and democrats have different views
concerning how justice should be realized in a
state. What are they? (3.9, 5.1)
• What is the relation between a flourishing state
and a flourishing individual? (7.1–3)
• Why is the virtue of the citizens the concern of the
state? (7.1–3)
• What is the end of education? (7.13–15, 7.17, 8.3)
Machiavelli, The Prince
• Should a ruler try to reach his objectives by plead-
ing or by force? (ch. 6)
• How does Machiavelli distinguish “cruelty well
used” and “cruelty abused”? (ch. 8)
• Which qualities should a ruler have and how
should he make use of them? (chs. 15–18)
Mill, Utilitarianism
• What is the fundamental principle of morality?
(☞ 15, p. 3 left)
• By what criterion should one rank different kinds
of pleasures? (☞ 15, pp. 3–4)
• Whose happiness should be worked towards?
(☞ 15, pp. 4–5, p. 7 left)
• Are there any rules that hold without exception?
(☞ 15, p. 9, p. 10 left)
Comparisons
• What is the highest good according to Aristotle,
Kant, and Mill?
• Compare Kant and Mill on lying (GMM p. 14f., cf.
p. 65; ☞ 15, p. 9, p. 10 left)
• Compare Aristotle, Kant and Mill on the moral
value of the agent, the act and the consequences
(☞ 16).
• Compare Aristotle, Kant and Mill on acts that are
bad without exception (☞ 16).
• Compare Aristotle, Kant and Mill on happiness
(☞ 16).
Hobbes, Leviathan
• How does Hobbes describe the notions of “free-
dom” (liberty), “will,” and “deliberation”? (6.49–
53, 21.1–2)
• Why is freedom compatible with necessity? (21.4)
• What is the most general inclination of man? (10)
• Does a person have absolute worth? (10.16)
• What is the natural condition for man? (13.1–9)
• What is the “right of nature”? What is the defini-
tion of “law of nature”? What are the first three
laws of nature? (14.1–5; 15.1)
• What is justice? (15.3)
• What lies in the competence of Sovereign Power
and what lies beyond it? (18.1–13)
Comparisons
• Compare Aristotle and Hobbes on the origin and
purpose of a state.
• Compare Aristotle’s definition of “state” (Pol. 3.1,
3.9) with Hobbes’s definition of “commonwealth.”
• Compare Aristotle and Machiavelli on the means
of preserving a government.
• Compare Aristotle and Machiavelli on the place of
virtue in politics.—Notice that what Machiavelli
calls virtù is not quite the same as what Aristotle
calls ἀρετή (excellence, Latin virtus, virtue).