Choose one of the sets of texts below and critically interpret, assess and compare their perspectives on the listed topic. As this is not a research paper, no outside research is necessary. However, you may want to include discussion of other perspectives from the required readings to support your claims.
Please note that the key point to keep in mind when preparing your essay is that you need to have an argument in your paper. That argument need not (though it can) focus on criticising your selected texts but it must put forward an interpretation of their arguments and relate them to each other. The relevant readings for each question is attached below. (Choose one of the sets below to answer)
1. Thomas Hobbes and Karl Marx (What is human nature?)
- Thomas Hobbes “The Natural Condition of Mankind” in Paul Schumaker, ed., The Political Theory Reader (Chinchester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2010).
- Karl Marx “Estranged Labour” in Paul Schumaker, ed., The Political Theory Reader (Chinchester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2010).
2. John Stuart Mill and Edmund Burke (What has value? Society or the Individual?)
- Edmund Burke “The Great Primeaval contract of Eternal Society” in Paul Schumaker, ed., The Political Theory Reader (Chinchester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2010).
- John Stuart Mill “On Liberty” in Paul Schumaker, ed., The Political Theory Reader (Chinchester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2010).
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau “The Social Contract” in Ricardo Blaug and John Schwarzmantel, eds., Democracy: A Reader (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1988).
- Benjamin Constant “The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns” in Ricardo Blaug and John Schwarzmantel, eds., Democracy: A Reader (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1988).