Reference no: EM133278561

Assignment:

1. Aristotle gives a teleological account of human nature. What is the human telos (in English and Greek) according to Aristotle? How does he derive it? How does it relate to virtue?

2. Epictetus the Stoic deeply admired Diogenes' austerity and Socrates' modesty, attributes that are absent from Aristotle's catalogue of virtues. What are Stoicism's basic principles? Briefly compare Stoic and Aristotelian views on virtue.

3. Feminist care ethics is commonly seen as a contemporary form of virtue ethics that accounts for ethically relevant features of gendered experience. Identify and briefly articulate two early feminist critiques of feminist care ethics. How have the priorities of care ethics shifted in response to these critiques?

4. Aquinas claimed the natural law is an innate moral insight common to all members of humanity; but Charles Mills argues that natural law, "the epistemology [historically] associated with contractarianism," (17) is an "epistemology of ignorance" that excludes a vast segment of humanity. How does natural law fit into John Locke's theory of the social contract? How are natural law and the social contract related to what Mills calls the "racial contract"?

5. The "mixed category of property and humanity" (1718) produced by slavery left traces in the law that today affirm whiteness as a form of property, argues Cheryl Harris. How do John Locke's views on self-ownership contribute to the conflation of whiteness and property? What does Harris' grandmother's experience illustrate about self-ownership and whiteness as property?