SHUBHRA RANJAN IAS STUDY PVT LTD

ONLINE PSIR ANSWER WRITING SKILL DEVELOPMENT AND

TEST SERIES 2017
ANSWER KEY FOR : TEST 1

1."The fundamental issue of Republic is the discovery of nature and habitation of justice."
Discuss this statement and examine Plato's conception of justice.

Plato who can be safely marked as the first political philosopher to have propounded a coherent
theory of justice after rejecting host of views presented by different characters in his book ‘The
Republic’ comes up with his own idea of what constitutes a just society is or what justice actually
means. According to Plato individually, justice is a 'human virtue' that makes a person self-
consistent and good; socially, justice is a social consciousness that makes a society internally
harmonious and good.

Contradicting the position taken by some of his contemporaries that justice is something which is
external.Plato contends that it is internal as it resides in the human soul. For Plato justice is natural
and not artificial. It is therefore, not born of fear of the weak but of the longing of the human soul to
do a duty according to its nature.

Plato aims at presenting the representation of human life in a state, perfected by justice and
governed by idea of good.

Plato strongly held the view that justice does not depend upon a chance, convention or upon
external force. It is the right condition of the human soul by the very nature of man when seen in the
fullness of his environment.

The above mentioned statement reflects that Plato’s primary concern is to establish the source of
justice and proves its residence. And he does that by first defining what justice is and then placing it
in human goodness.

2) "It is inequality, as we have seen that is everywhere the cause of revolution." Explain this
with reference to Aristotle's principle of distributive justice.

In modern times presumed sense of ‘relative deprivation’ has been major source of conflict in many
parts of the world including India. Tamil crisis or the secessionist movements in many parts of
India is result of this presumed sense of ‘relative deprivation’ which is a manifestation of what
Aristotle defines as inequality.

Aristotle in a departure from Plato’s idea treats justice quite differently. Firstly Aristotle
differentiates between what he prefers to calls ‘general justice’ and special justice. Distributive
justice is Aristotle’s formulation which is one of three justices of his concept of special justice.
According to Aristotle’s distributive justice is linked to the idea of common good and common
advantage. According to this theory there are certain goods that need to be distributed according to
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the merit, worth or desert. But he puts a rider that for these individuals needs to be having equal
worth. And this is what he terms as proportional equality is. He uses the same criterion in
distributing the political power.

While accepting inequality to some extent, Aristotle points out that it is the inequality which has no
proportion that causes revolution. And for the point in the case he states that perpetual monarchy
among equals will always cause desire to be equal and may cause rebellion.

3) "Machiavelli has been called the first realist in politics." Explain with particular reference
to his concept of relationship between ethics and politics.

The view of the separation of ethics from politics is more explicitly associated with Machiavelli, He
not only insists on this dichotomy but also recommends it, in his magnum opus— The Prince to the
ruler. He unapologetically tells the ruler or prince to trample upon every ethical consideration so as
to fortify his power. He suggests the Prince to have different ethics in politics.

Although Machiavelli thinks of ethics as essential for the life of the individual and indispensable for
the continuity of society and social life, he regards attachment to it as dangerous for the prince and
he cautions him (the prince or monarch) against the danger of piety and says:

He remarks, “ Anyone who wants in all conditions to be virtuous, in the midst of all this
wickedness, has no destiny except disappointment. Thus, a prince who would not like to relinquish
his crown should learn wicked methods and utilize them wherever needed”.

Machiavelli is seen as a “realist” or a “pragmatist” advocating the suspension of commonplace

ethics in matters of politics. According to him Moral values have no place in the sorts of decisions
that political leaders must make, and it is a category error of the gravest sort to think otherwise.

4) "These dictates of reason men use to call by the name of laws but improperly for they are
but conclusions or theorems concerning conduct to the conservation and defence of
themselves." Comment.

Thomas Hobbes believed that only that law in general is not in counsel but a command. Hobbes in
his theory of creation of State presents a very gloomy picture and negative image of the men.

While theorising for the need of events that led to the creation of state Hobbes marks men as egoist
who seeks to promote self interest at any cost. And life of men , according to Hobbes, in such state
is such where there is “no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and
danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

According to Hobbes it security dilemma that guides all human endeavour in this state of nature. It
is this security dilemma that guides men to come together and forge a contract where they agree to
surrender all their rights to an all powerful state in lieu of a guarantee of right to life.

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Hobbes believes that only way to curb anarchy is to give absolute power to the state and thus
creates an all-encompassing, omnipresent and most powerful Leviathan. He believed that as men
seek self preservation they gives power to state and conferred sovereign powers to rulers. In this
context he makes the above statement. On Hobbes’s above mentioned assertion Sabine states that
the cold hearted rationalism of Hobbes reduces the state to a utility good, for what it does is to act
as servant of private security to which no men loves or respects.

To put simply the ground of obedience, according to Hobbes, to an authority is a belief that self
preservation can be better assured by surrendering to state.

5) "The measure of property nature has well set, by the extent of men's labour and the
conveniency of life." Comment.

The above statement is made by John Locke.

In his book Second Treatise on Government Locke propounds his theory of property on three
simple logics.

Firstly he starts by asking a simple question: By what right an individual can claim to own one part
of the world, when, according to the Bible, God gave the world to all humanity in common

Locke himself provides the answer that persons own themselves and therefore their own labor.
When a person works, that labor enters into the object. Thus, the object becomes the property of
that person.

And then he adds the cardinal principle of his theory that one may only appropriate property in this
fashion if the there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.

So the two basis of owning a property, simply put forward by Locke is ‘Labour of the person owing
it and that it does not create inconvenience for others.

6) "From this liberty of each individual follows the liberty within the same limits of
combination among individuals; freedom to write for any purposes not involving harm to
others." (J S Mill) Comment.

Here essentially JS Mill is talking about liberty of an individual that coexist harmoniously with that
of other. The only freedom which deserves to be recognised is of pursuing our own good in our
own way, so long as we do not deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.

Mill identifies three areas which constitute “the appropriate region of individual liberty” and it is
very important to understand all three of it to understand what does the above mentioned statement
actually means.

According to Mill the three appropriate region of individual liberty comprises, firstly, the inward
domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience in the most comprehensive sense; liberty
of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or
speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may
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seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual
which concerns other people, but, being almost of as much importance as the liberty of thought
itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Secondly, the
principle requires liberty of tastes of pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own
character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment
from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should
think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual, follows
the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any
purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and
not forced or deceived

7) Write short note on

A) Greatest happiness of greatest number of Bentham.

Jeremy Bentham was a political philosopher who was criticised for being unapologetically
utilitarian, a hedonist and not able to differentiate between pleasure and happiness. He stresses on
amount of happiness and number of people getting that happiness and ignores the quality of
happiness. Bentham was influenced both by Hobbes' account of human nature and Hume's account
of social utility. He famously held that humans were ruled by two sovereign masters — pleasure
and pain. He stressed that humans seek pleasure and the avoidance of pain, they and it is what
govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think.

B) General will of Rousseau.

General will as defined by Rousseau is a collectively held will that aims at the common good or
common interest. The general will is central to the political thought of the Swiss-born French
political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and an important concept in modern republican
thought. Rousseau distinguishes the general will from the particular and often contradictory wills of
individuals and groups. In The Social Contract Rousseau argues that freedom and authority are not
contradictory, since legitimate laws are founded on the general will of the citizens. In obeying the
law, the individual citizen is thus only obeying himself as a member of the political community.

8) Write short note on

A) Real is rational and rational is real. This is Hegelian construct which simply put means that
the logic of the mind is the same as the metaphysics of reality. Hegel categorically rejected Kant's
argument that claims that something that exists was unknowable as contradictory and inconsistent.
On the contrary, he claimed that whatever is must by definition be knowable: "The real is rational,
and the rational is real.

When Hegel says "the real is the rational", he uses the word "real" with a different connotation,
different from that sense in which we ordinarily use the word. What Hegel means that something
can be not "real", yet still exist. An hallucination, a dream, etc. are examples of this. If you dream
about a chair, it is certainly there - there is a dream-chair; it exists, but we do not say that it is

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"real". On the other hand, something can be real, yet not exist. An example of this would be
numbers, which are real, which are true, which however do not exist. So for Hegel, reality does not
mean existence.

Also, Hegel saw history as the process in which Spirit or Consciousness comes to self-realisation.
This historical process occurs in dialectical stages. The first stage is a thesis; a contradictory
antithesis follows this; and finally a synthesis reconciles or "mediates" the two and becomes, in
turn, a new thesis. History has this structure at the largest, and also at the smallest scale (if you were
drawing a picture of it you would use fractal geometry). At the most general level the stages are
Spirit In Itself (the thesis), Spirit For Itself (the antithesis), and finally Spirit In and For Itself (the
synthesis)

C) Will not force is the basis of state: TH Green was one of the most celebrated positive liberals
who believed in enabling state in contrast to the negative connotation attached to it. According to
Green the state does not consist in any definite concrete organisation formed once for all. It
represents a "general will" which is a desire for a common good. Its basis is not a coercive authority
imposed upon the citizens from without, but consists in the spiritual recognition, on the part of the
citizens, of that which constitutes their true nature. "Will, not force, is the basis of the state."

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