Shared set · @asarrett · History of Political Thought (Western Political Philosophy)
CEL 100 – Great Debates in American Politics: Key Texts & Thinkers
Topics and reading list taken from the course syllabus; questions and explanations are written from the standard scholarly treatment of each primary text covered in the course.
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18 questions with worked explanations. Or make your own from your notes — the first draft needs no account.
Try the first 5 cards
1 of 18
In Plato's Euthyphro, what is the 'Euthyphro dilemma' that Socrates poses about piety?
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Is an act pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is pious?
Socrates asks Euthyphro to define piety, and when Euthyphro says the pious is what the gods love, Socrates presses whether godly love causes piety or merely detects it. This exposes that defining piety by divine approval is circular and doesn't give the essence of piety itself. The dilemma remains a classic challenge to divine-command theories of morality.
2 of 18
In Plato's Apology, what are the two sets of charges Socrates says he must answer, and how does he distinguish them?
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The old, informal charges (that he studies things in the sky and below the earth, and makes the weaker argument stronger) versus the formal legal charges (corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods of the city).
Socrates argues the old charges, spread over many years by unnamed accusers, are harder to fight than the newer formal ones brought by Meletus. He treats his defense as needing to overcome decades of prejudice, not just the specific indictment. This structure shapes his whole defense strategy in the dialogue.
3 of 18
Why does Socrates refuse to escape prison in the Crito, despite Crito's arguments that he could?
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He argues that one must never do wrong or return wrong for wrong, and that fleeing would violate his tacit agreement with the Laws of Athens, harming the city that raised and educated him.
Socrates personifies the Laws of Athens, who argue that he benefited from their protection his whole life and implicitly consented to obey them by choosing to remain in the city as an adult. Breaking this agreement now, just to avoid an unjust verdict, would itself be an unjust act. This is one of the earliest philosophical statements of a social-contract-like obligation to the state.
4 of 18
According to Aristotle in Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics, what is the highest human good, and why is it self-sufficient and final?
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Eudaimonia (happiness/flourishing), because it is chosen for its own sake and not as a means to anything else, and it lacks nothing when achieved.
Aristotle argues that all human action aims at some good, and these goods form a hierarchy leading to one final end desired purely for itself: happiness. Unlike wealth or honor, which are pursued partly as means to something further, happiness is complete in itself. He identifies it more precisely as activity of the soul in accordance with virtue over a complete life.
5 of 18
In Book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics, what are Aristotle's three kinds of friendship, and which is the most complete?
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Friendships of utility, pleasure, and virtue (the good); friendship based on virtue is the most complete and lasting.
Friendships of utility and pleasure are based on what one gets from the other person and dissolve when the usefulness or pleasure ends. Virtue-friendship is between good people who wish good for each other for the other's own sake, so it is stable and rare, since it requires both parties to actually be good. Aristotle treats this highest friendship as essential to a flourishing political and…
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Also in this set
- In On Free Choice of the Will, how does Augustine reconcile the existence of evil with an all-good, all-powerful God?
- What does Augustine mean by the will being 'the cause of sin,' and why can this not be blamed on God?
- In De Regno, what argument does Aquinas give for why kingship (rule by one) is the best form of government?
- How does Aquinas define tyranny in De Regno, and what recourse does he permit against a tyrant?
- In The Book of the City of Ladies, what rhetorical strategy does Christine de Pizan use to respond to misogynist writers?
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