Write an essay on one of the following topics. Choose whichever question you can answer best.
1. Is Socrates that emerges as a supporter of strict obedience to the laws in the Crito at odds with Socrates who is apparently determined to defy any potential court order forbidding further public philosophizing in the Apology? Whatever stance you take, be sure to justify your answer.

2. In Politics Book I, Aristotle makes a defense of slavery as a natural institution. According to Aristotle, for whom and under what circumstances is slavery appropriate? Critically discuss the success of Aristotle’s natural slavery argument.

3. In Hobbes’s Doctrine of the State of Nature, Merriam writes: ‘Although “naturally” man is a stranger to political life and looks askance at government, as one who would not be entangled on its net, yet he possesses irresistible impulses to enter the civil condition and inevitably passes over into it. Naturally, he is out of society, but inevitably he comes in.’ (Merriam 1906, 156)

Present and critically analyze the account of this “coming in” to society that Thomas Hobbes offers in Leviathan.

4. In the Second Treatise on Government, John Locke offers an account of how the just initial acquisition of private property is possible. He writes: ‘But I shall endeavor to shew, how men might come to have a property in several parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without any express compact of all the commoners.’ (Chapter V, Section 25)

Present and critically assess Locke’s argument for private property.

5. According to Jean Jacques Rousseau, his version of the ‘social contract’ can be reduced to the following formation: ‘Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.’ (Of the Social Contract, 1.6)

Present and critically discuss Rousseau’s conception of the general will.

6. In On Liberty, J. S. Mill offers ‘one simple principle’ designed to regulate the restrictions that governments and societies can place on the liberty of their citizens. He writes that ‘the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.’ (On Liberty, Chapter 1).

Present and critically examine Mill’s Harm Principle.

7. In Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844), Karl Marx examines four aspects of the alienation of labor in capitalist society. Present the four aspects of alienated labor and critically assess Marx’s solution to the problem

1. Residential segregation and gentrification are interlocking urban inequalities that impact the health and well-being of marginalized populations around the country. Why is it important to consider these issues jointly and from a historical perspective?

2. How does an understanding of residential segregation provide insight into the process of gentrification and its consequences?

How is culture produced and reproduced? The social construction of reality is a framework that helps us begin to answer this question. Using the social construction of reality framework

• how food in one of the below case studies is connected with other facets of culture and
• how it plays a role in the production and reproduction of certain cultural practices and
• how other cultural practices produce and reproduce certain eating habits.

In your response,Identify examples of each of the components of the social construction of reality and explain how they work together or influence each other. Include enough explanation of the cultural beliefs and practices so that someone who has not read what you have nor is a member of the same cultural group would be able to understand the connections.

Case Studies for this post:

The proponents of “traditional” marriage often claim that a heterosexual and monogamous union is the most “natural” form of marriage (implying that non-conventional forms of marriage are “unnatural”). Have monogamy and heterosexual unions been the only or dominant forms of marriages worldwide? Please incorporate information from the chapters on marriage and family in your response.

This week, we’ve learned about anthropological and historical perspectives on the cultural construction of gender and sexuality, as well as changing frameworks for understanding the complexities of sex itself. As described in the lecture, anthropologists talk about gender as a performance, rather than simply identity. We do gender according to norms, roles, and ideologies that we learn – and unlearn.

This assignment asks you to draft guidelines for a Martian visitor who is trying to learn more about gender.  Drawing on your own experiences as a member of the human community:

1. What does the Martian need to know about doing gender?
   • (Note: you do not need to share your own gender identity to answer this question; you can instruct them according to your understanding of any gender)
2. How do people in your community get enculturated into gender roles?
   • Where can the Martian find helpful advice and examples on doing gender? What kinds of sources/spaces/materials might provide further insight and detail?
3. Why might your instructions to the Martian differ from someone else’s guidelines about gender?