POL200Y5 Study Guide - Final Guide: Collective Action, Fiduciary, Voluntary Association
POL200 Final Exam Revision
Section 2: Short Answer Questions: Cumulative exam (a full year course). Answers based
on notes taken over the course of the year.
1. What four virtues does cicero name as essential to honourable living? Describe
each (pro-tip: for justice make sure you cover all dimension of his concept).
Cicero names four virtues as essential to honourable living. These are wisdom, justice,
courage, and decorum. The first virtue, wisdom, is based on the idea that humans bring
knowledge to life. Cicero describes wisdom as the virtue that separates humans from animals.
He begins his claim by describes what humans have in common with animals: self-
preservation, survival instincts, pursuing goods such as food and shelter, and reproducing to
procreate and continue our species. Then Cicero names some aspects that set humans apart
from animals, such as our reason, language, and understanding of cause-and-effect. Humans
are capable of thinking and planning for the future, long-term ideas. Animals live by instinct,
whilst humans live by reason. Our sociability and language also set us apart from animals.
Thus, Cicero says that wisdom is our natural desire as we are wisdom-seekers, we seek the
truth. Cicero believes that all humans have the desire to seek truth ingrained in us all.
Moreover, Cicero also talks about dogmatism, we shouldn’t believe things based on authority
of other people – we should investigate them about why they’re worth having. Pursuit of
wisdom is not about accepting but about investigating. He also mentions that a life of action
is most honourable, we must act and do things and highlights the significance of action
guided by wisdom.
The second virtue is justice, which is the social glue that holds humans together. Cicero
divides justice into two categories: justice itself, and then justice divided into two further
folds. Beneficence is the first half of justice itself, which is when we are our best selves,
through generosity and kindness. But Cicero states that there are limits to generosity and
kindness. We must make sure it doesn’t harm anyone as people take from some to help
others. This is not real generosity then. We are being unjust if we act his way. We tend to
offer people help in ways that can harm them. We should give what we have but not more
than we can afford to lose. We should first take for ourselves, otherwise, it is for glory.
Cicero states that we should be generous to people according to their standing and prioritize
justice through reason. The justice divided into two further folds looks at how justice is first,
treating common goods as common and private goods as private. He believes that no property
is private by nature, but humans do have private ownership of goods in practice. Ownership
happens through many ways: settlers, conquering, formal agreements, lottery winnings, and
occupying. Cicero says this is how humans have divided land that was once common. It is a
convention and private property should be respected. But we should also care for common
stock, by giving time, service, and expertise to what we hold in common as a community.
The second fold of justice is that we don’t harm other people unless provoked by an injustice
they did. This includes keeping promises and staying away from conflict. In this no harm
justice, Cicero narrows down to positive and negative injustices. Cicero is interested in when
we make mistakes and commit injustices. Positive injustice is direct harm, when we hurt
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people out of fear or anxiety, motivated by greed or passion, and pursuing honour and glory.
An example of this is Caesar. A negative injustice is indirect and passive harm, when one
does interfere between injustice occurring due to a lack of care, or being lazy, or being busy
and consumed by one’s own life and issues, and even out of fear of death and loss. For
Cicero, this is just as bad as abandoning one’s family, friends, or country, as it works against
the active life of a community.
The third virtue is courage. If people are just it is good, but if they display justice with a spirit
it is even better. The courageous person, according to Cicero, does justice for the right reason
and with spirit and bravery. Cicero believes that courage is overcoming fears, desires, pain,
pleasure, and anger. He states that the courageous people do not put much stock in others’
opinions and are tempted by fame or glory. These people tend to be public figures such as
politicians and ministry workers, who can fight temptation. The ones who are tempted can
also fall into temptation, this bad and they must stand up against it.
Decorum, which is the fourth virtue, can be understood as temperance or moderation, but
stronger. Cicero describes decorum as the virtue which is related to the whole picture such as
how we live our lives, conduct our relationships, order our things, choose how to act, and
present ourselves. He says that we are faced with what to do and before we act, we should
take a moment to think, display self-control for an informed decision. We should also think
about a course of action, how much energy and time something will require, and the goals,
we should be goal-orientated. Moreover, Cicero claims that we should look to others, as
being ignorant of other people’s views is being arrogant. We can then judge from this
whether our choices will gain approval from those we admire and are close to us. Cicero
states that we have reason to moderate our emotions and make decisions and this is an
important part of decorum. Moreover, he says that we are each unique. We each have
something special that we need to take care of, knowing oneself and pursing what we are
good at is also decorum. Decorum encourages us to think and act more level-headed when
faced with an important decision.
2. How does Cicero explain the relationship between virtue and benefit in On
Duties?
For Cicero, the virtues help one lead an honourable life. He says that we all want benefits and
good lives. Cicero claims that we can be successful and lead virtuous lives. He uses the same
framework used for honourable living, that we are social beings. He claims that what is
beneficial is doing the right thing. We can help each other and hurt each other through
sociability. Choosing between what we want is a moral dilemma as no matter what we risk
losing something. According to Cicero, whatever is useful is honourable and it is useful to be
honourable through interdependence with society. Therefore, if we are torn on whether an
action is beneficial, we should keep the community in mind. What benefits a single person,
should benefit the whole community. The community is then stronger together. This way,
everything is an easy choice. If one is acting out of self-interest, he/she will damage the
whole community. For Cicero, what is honourable and beneficial to society is the same thing.
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As once again, for Cicero, living honourably is by following the four virtues, wisdom, justice,
courage, and decorum. Thus, by living honourably and virtuously, we are living beneficially.
3. According to Seneca, what is the relationship between mercy and power?
According to Seneca, mercy is the self-control of the mind when encountered with the
opportunity of vengeance or leniency. If, however, showing mercy is demonstrating and
securing power, either by law or advantage, there is an imbalance in power. Thus, mercy
happens when there is a power imbalance. This is because mercy can be exercised by only
the powerful person in a relationship. For example, Seneca believes that anyone can kill
someone, but it takes a powerful person to save someone. Saving someone shows that one
has the power to grant or take away life in that situation. He claims that true honour and glory
is to show restraint. Seneca is trying to differentiate tyrant from kings, as kings rule in the
best interest of the people and tyrant rule with self-interest and cruelty. Moreover, it benefits
powerful leaders to show mercy as they earn their people’s respect, reminds them of the
ruler’s power over them, and can consolidate the ruler’s power more. Once a ruler becomes
enraged and punishes the people, he/she has sunk to their level and lost his/her position. The
leader’s power can be better served by using what only kings can do, by granting life to those
who have wronged. A ruler should fashion himself as the gods, as above the fray thus,
showing one’s authority. If a leader is cruel, he has made more enemies than allies, and will
now have to continue being cruel in order to survive and preserve his power, hence, he
becomes more vulnerable. To live under cruelty is a life of fear, with no security, the ruler
becomes a slave to his cruelty. Seneca offers the analogy of the Bee “king”, which does not
have a stinger. This means that in the natural world, natural leaders such as the Queen Bee
does not require stinger. It is in the leader’s best interest to stay away from violence and
cruelty.
4. What reason does Aquinas give for favouring monarchy or kingship over other
types of regimes?
Aquinas argues that monarchy is the best regime, after considering Aristotle’s typology of
regimes. He claims that the main concern for a ruler is to preserve the peace. Under the rule
of many, this is impossible as we all have different interests as individuals. We can cooperate
better in a non-monarchy, but this will also the different views will create fertile ground for
conflict and disagreements. Moreover, Aquinas claims that a power which is united is more
efficient than a power that is not united. One can counterargue that a united group of rulers
can be more capable than one individual. However, Aquinas refutes this, because a group of
people are more likely to fail than one person. This is the collective action problem, an
individual failing to contribute to a group’s unitedness affects the rest of the members
negatively. This could lead to the regime of many becoming versions of oligarchy or
democracy which are the worse regimes. Aquinas believes that under monarch these
problems would be avoided. Diversity, for Aquinas, is a double-edged sword. Monarchy is
more convenient because of its oneness and unity. Aquinas uses nature as evidence as there
can only be one Queen Bee. Moreover, he uses Christianity for support as well, emphasizing
that there is only one god, and so we should have one ruler too. Between the choices of
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Document Summary
Section 2: short answer questions: cumulative exam (a full year course). Describe each (pro-tip: for justice make sure you cover all dimension of his concept). Cicero names four virtues as essential to honourable living. The first virtue, wisdom, is based on the idea that humans bring knowledge to life. Cicero describes wisdom as the virtue that separates humans from animals. He begins his claim by describes what humans have in common with animals: self- preservation, survival instincts, pursuing goods such as food and shelter, and reproducing to procreate and continue our species. Then cicero names some aspects that set humans apart from animals, such as our reason, language, and understanding of cause-and-effect. Humans are capable of thinking and planning for the future, long-term ideas. Animals live by instinct, whilst humans live by reason. Our sociability and language also set us apart from animals. Thus, cicero says that wisdom is our natural desire as we are wisdom-seekers, we seek the truth.
