Length 1,500 words to 2,000 words (which is approximately six to eight pages), double-spaced, Times New Roman font, size 12, one-inch margins. Any papers that fail to comply with these requirements will be given an automatic D grade without an option to revise.
Choose one of the following four topics for your paper:
1) Compare and contrast the views of politics in Leo Strauss and Max Weber. How are their characterizations of the practice of politics different and similar? What role, if any, does ethics play in each thinkers work? What skills/abilities are necessary for good political leadership? What makes for poor political leadership? Whose account do you find most persuasive and why?
2) Compare and contrast the view of the state in Aristotle and Thomas Hobbes. How do they define the state? What is the origin of the state? What purpose does it serve? In what ways are they similar and how do they differ? What is the relation of the state to the individual? Which account do you find most persuasive and why?
3) Compare and contrast the thought of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. In what ways do they offer similar approaches to the study of human freedom and the formation of society and the state? In what ways do they differ? How are their differences based on different basic assumptions? Which do you find most persuasive and why?
4) Select three out of the following five thinkers: John Locke, Olympe de Gouges, Mary Wollstonecraft, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill. Compare and contrast the ideas in your three chosen thinkers. How do they define freedom? How does freedom relate to rights? To what extent does their notion of freedom relate to an argument for individual self-development? To what extent does freedom move beyond arguments for rights? Whose account do you find most persuasive and why?
Whatever topic you choose, you must do at least five things:
Take a clear position in your introduction.
Offer a summary of the relevant parts of each thinkers arguments to show that you understand their arguments.
Make direct comparisons and draw contrasts between the thinkers you discuss.
Say whose argument you find the most persuasive and explain why.
Make use of direct quotes from the texts to defend your argument beyond those that I used in class lectures. Using quotes outside those I highlighted in lecture shows me that youve read the text.
Important: You must cite all sources in accordance with the Chicago Manual of Style (see your syllabus for details). Use footnotes. You must use and cite arguments from the primary texts. Plagiarism is never excused. You will automatically fail this class if you plagiarize. It is better to write a bad paper than a plagiarized one.
Be sure your paper has your name and a title.
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