This year assessment on this course is a combination of an essay and a one hour in class assignment for which you prepare in advance. So the (lengthy) list of questions below now serves both purposes.

If you have difficulties with essay writing click here.

For a guide to writing philosophy essays look at the links page.

1 Is it true that in a Rawlsian society no-one is any worse off than he or she need be?

2 Does Rawls's account of the Original Position imply any theory of persons, or of personal identity?

3 Evaluate Taylor's arguments against neutralist liberalism.

4 Can one consistently be a holist about the nature of persons, but an individualist about whose good is promoted by a political policy?

5 What can the communitarian appeal to if she wants to reject some kinds of community as oppressive or intolerant?

6 Can liberalism avoid making any metaphysical claims about persons or society? How would it do this?

7 In what way does Michael Walzer claim that liberals misdescribe social relations when they compare them to contracts?

8 Michael Walzer connect the communitarian critique of liberalism to the sociological conditions of American life. Does that imply that the liberal versus communitarian debate does not generalise to other societies?

9 Is MacIntyre right to argue that, if liberalism is just one tradition amongst others, then it lacks intellectual authority for us?

10 How can MacIntyre claim that some traditions, but not his own "neo- neo-Thomism", can avoid the problem of incommensurability?

11 Does Rorty confuse the lack of a necessary foundation for liberalism with the lack of universality in its scope?

12 Does Gray's "agonistic liberalism" reduce the normative content of liberalism to "might is right"?

13 Is Raz correct in his argument that states must inevitably encourage some forms of life and discourage others - and that they are right to do so?

14 Assess Raz's critique of liberal neutrality.

15 In what way does Dworkin value "liberal community"?

16 If a liberal society makes it more difficult for certain moral outlooks to reproduce themselves across time, is that a damaging defect of liberalism?

17 Did Rawls's move to political liberalism compromise his egalitarianism?

18 Is the liberal republican correct to argue that there is a third concept of liberty?

19 How can an appeal to either civil society or citizenship strengthen the appeal of liberalism?

20 How can people not legislate for the conduct of others on the basis of beliefs they take to be both true and of fundamental importance?