PHIL. 410A: DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR WEEK #1 AND #2 ON
WITH PAPER TOPIC #1 AND
PAPER DEADLINES
I. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS ON
1. What is
negative liberty?
2. What is
positive liberty?
3. What, if any,
is the relation betweeen: (a) negative liberty and democracy; (b)
positive liberty and democracy?
4. What is value
pluralism? According to
II. BACKGROUND ON THOMSON'S ACCOUNT: Thomson distinguishes four basic kinds of
rights: claims, privileges, powers, and
immunities. We begin our reading with
her discussion of claims, which will be the most important of the four. The other three are: (1) Privileges. To have a privilege of doing X = not being
under an obligation not to do X (privilege = moral permission). (2) Powers.
To have a power is to be able to alter rights (e.g., the legal ability
to transfer my property to my heirs with a will is the legal power to give them
a right to it). (3) Immunities. An immunity is the
lack of a power. (You have a legal
immunity against me, because I cannot alter your property rights (without your
consent). Immunities are the least
important category for our purposes.
Finally, a cluster right is a combination of two or more of the
four basic kinds of rights.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
ON THOMSON. Answer the following questions about
Thomson's account of rights. (When you
do the reading, make a note of the pages where Thomson discusses them, so that
you can easily refer to them in class and when you write your paper or prepare
for an exam.)
1.
Explain the following terms as Thomson uses them:
(a) Claim
(b) Behavioral constraint
(c) Moral residue
(d) Infringe/violate a claim/right
(e) prima facie claim/right.
(f) advantage
(g) First Property vs. Second
Property
(h) belief-mediated and
non-belief-mediated distress
(i) natural claims (rights) vs. social claims (rights)
2.
What is (T1)? Why does (T1)
capture the idea that all claims are absolute?
Does Thomson believe that claims are absolute? Explain.
3.
According to Thomson, are all claims enforceable?
4.
What is (T3)? Why would it
greatly simplify the theory of claims if (T3) were true? Use the example of Alfred and Burt to explain
why it is not true.
5.
What is the State of
6.
What is trespass? Why does
Thomson think we have a natural claim against trespass? Why isn’t it enough to suppose that we have a
right not to be harmed by others?
7.
What is the Requirement-of-Fault Thesis for Claim Infringement? Why does Thomson think that Day’s End shows
it is false? Do you agree? Explain.
What is the objective sense of "ought" and its cognates? Why does Thomson believe that Day’s End is
evidence that we use “ought” in an objective sense?
8. What is the Harm Thesis? Does Thomson accept it? To answer this question, you need to explain
which kinds of harms Thomson includes and which she excludes from the Harm
Thesis.
9. What is the Risk Thesis? Does Thomson accept it? Explain.
10.
What is the Distress Thesis? What
kinds of distress does it not cover?
Explain.
11.
What is the Limits Thesis? What
are the three kinds of natural claims that it includes. What other kinds of claims are there,
according to Thomson?
12.
According to Thomson, is there a natural claim against coercion? Explain.
13.
According to Thomson, is there a natural power to punish those who
violate our rights? What natural powers
do we have to protect our rights?
14.
What is the Tradeoff Idea? What
is the TRANSPLANT example? What is the
MAFIA example? What do they illustrate
about natural claims?
15.
Expain why Thomson thinks no one has a natural
claim to be saved.