GV100

Essay Topics – 2021-2022

MT Formative Essays can be written on questions 1-9. Candidates

may not write a further Summative Essay on a thinker covered in
their Formative Essay.

Summative Essays can be written on any question from 1-30 but

candidates should NOT write more than one essay on a single
thinker.

Plato

1. Can Thrasymachus’ account of justice as the interest of the stronger

withstand Socrates’ criticisms?

2. Why should the Philosophers rule?

3. Do any of Plato’s criticisms of democracy still apply to contemporary

democratic states?

Aristotle

4. Explain and assess Aristotle’s account of the place of women within

the Polis?

5. Critically assess Aristotle’s account of the best polity/constitution.

6. Why does Aristotle defend the ‘naturalness’ of slavery?

Machiavelli

7. Critically assess Machiavelli’s account of the virtues of the successful

ruler.

8. Assess Machiavelli’s depiction and justification of violence in the

Prince.

9. Is Machiavelli a teacher of wickedness?

Hobbes
10. Can anyone ever leave Hobbes’s state of nature?

11. Is Hobbes’ account of sovereign absolutism an excuse for tyranny?

12. What if anything does Hobbes’s Leviathan have to say about

international relations?

Locke

13. ‘Locke’s theory reduces our natural rights to a species of property

right’. Discuss.

14. Describe and critically assess Locke’s theory of consent.

15. Critically assess Locke’s account of the right to Revolution?

Rousseau

16. Does civil society corrupt man’s natural innocence?

17. ‘Rousseau is either one of the greatest social contract theorists or

one of social contract theory’s most profound critics.’ Discuss.

18. Critically assess Rousseau’s theory of the general will?

Kant

19. What if anything in Kant’s account of the state leads to the view that
there should be a world state?

20. Is Kant’s theory of perpetual peace either feasible or desirable.

Federalist

21. Why was the Federalist written and was it successful?

22. Identify and critically assess the most important arguments in the
Federalist.

Mill
23. Explain the place of democracy is Mill’s theory of Representative
Government?

24. Critically assess the Mills’s theory of utilitarian feminism in Subjection

of Women.

25. Is Mill an imperialist?

Marx

26. Why do Marx and Engels claim that capitalism contains the seeds of
its own overthrow?

27. Does Marx have a theory of politics, and does it matter?

Nietzsche

28. In what ways can Nietzsche be described as a political thinker?

Arendt

29. Critically assess Hannah Arendt’s concept of ‘totalitarianism’.

Fanon

30. Explain and assess Fanon’s account of the place of violence in the
structure of colonial racism and as a tool for its overthrow.

Essays should be no more than 2000 words including all footnotes and
bibliographical references. This is an assessed piece of work and the
word count will be strictly observed.

Please read the guidance on avoiding plagiarism.

You may submit a summative essay on a thinker discussed for you

formative essay. This must be a different question AND new work.
NOTE that you cannot resubmit material from that earlier essay. Your
formative and summative essays will be submitted through Turnitin anti-
plagiarism software on Moodle and a match will constitute an
assessment offence and a mark of ZERO. Self-plagiarism is an
assessment offense.

If you are in any doubt about what this involves speak to your class
teacher.

In the event of illness or household illness or other relevant challenges

that may require an extension please discuss with your tutor and
academic mentor as a matter of urgency.

Professor Paul Kelly

GV100

25 September 2021