Optional theme: Political philosophy practice questions.

In Hobbes' account, subjects cannot justly complain that the sovereign has wronged them. Which feature of the covenant is meant to establish this?

• The subjects authorise the sovereign's acts, so those acts are their own.
• The sovereign swears an oath of protection and is bound by its terms.
• The sovereign's right to rule comes from nature rather than from the subjects.
• The subjects keep a collective right of resistance they may choose not to use.

Answer: The subjects authorise the sovereign's acts, so those acts are their own.

The covenant is made among the subjects rather than between subjects and sovereign, so the sovereign is not a party to it and cannot break it, and each subject counts as the author of what is done in his name. Hobbes still allows an individual to resist an attempt on his own life, since the right of self-preservation cannot be transferred, but that liberty is personal and not a right of rebellion.

Locke describes the state of nature as governed by a law of nature that everyone is entitled to enforce. Which defect of that condition is his central reason for leaving it?

• Its inhabitants owe one another no moral duties until a government exists.
• Each is judge in his own case, so disputes get no impartial settlement.
• Property cannot exist until a legislature has determined who owns what.
• Life in it is a war of every man against every man without intermission.

Answer: Each is judge in his own case, so disputes get no impartial settlement.

Locke's state of nature already contains natural law, natural rights and property acquired by labour; what it lacks is a settled known law, an impartial judge and a reliable power to execute judgements. The fourth option imports Hobbes' description, which is the most frequent confusion between the two contract theories.

In Republic VI Plato compares the city to a ship whose owner is short-sighted and whose sailors fight over the helm although none of them has studied navigation. Which conclusion is the comparison offered to support?

• A city is safest when its offices are filled by lot so that no faction can capture them.
• The authority of a ruler rests on the agreement of those who are to be ruled by him.
• Experience of public business is enough to qualify any citizen to hold office.
• Ruling is a craft, so it belongs to those who have knowledge of it.

Answer: Ruling is a craft, so it belongs to those who have knowledge of it.

The simile turns political authority into a question of expertise, which is why Plato's city is governed by those trained to know the good rather than by whoever the crew happens to prefer. The second option states the later social-contract answer that his argument is designed to bypass.

Nozick argues that a minimal state could arise out of a condition of competing private protective associations without anyone's rights being violated along the way. Which claim is that argument designed to answer?

• Rawls' claim that inequalities must be justifiable to the least advantaged.
• Hobbes' claim that only an undivided sovereign can secure a lasting peace.
• The anarchist claim that the existence of a state must wrong somebody.
• Locke's claim that legitimate government requires the consent of the governed.

Answer: The anarchist claim that the existence of a state must wrong somebody.

The invisible-hand story is addressed to the individualist anarchist: if the minimal state can emerge through steps that violate no one's rights, then its existence needs no further justification. Nozick's separate thesis, that anything more extensive than the minimal state does violate rights, is what he turns against redistributive theories such as Rawls'.

Locke holds that a man who travels a government's highways or inherits land under its laws thereby consents to it. On his account, what kind of consent is this?

• Express consent, which makes him a perpetual member of the commonwealth
• Tacit consent, which binds only while the enjoyment continues
• Hypothetical consent, which he would give were he fully rational
• Unanimous consent, given by the whole community at its founding

Answer: Tacit consent, which binds only while the enjoyment continues

Express consent makes a person a permanent member of the commonwealth, whereas the consent Locke infers from the enjoyment of protection binds only for as long as that enjoyment lasts. Hume's objection is aimed precisely at this weaker device: an obligation cannot be grounded in a consent that is merely inferred from staying where one is.

Nozick imagines a society whose holdings match some favoured pattern exactly, after which a million spectators each freely pay a small sum to watch one gifted basketball player. What conclusion does he draw from the inequality that results?

• That people deserve whatever their natural talents enable them to earn.
• That any pattern can be preserved only by restricting free exchange.
• That an inequality is just when the least advantaged also gain from it.
• That an inequality is just only if the losers consented to it in advance.

Answer: That any pattern can be preserved only by restricting free exchange.

The argument is a dilemma about liberty rather than about desert: whatever pattern one starts from, voluntary transfers will disturb it, so the pattern can be maintained only by forbidding or reversing those transfers. The third option states Rawls' difference principle, the patterned rival the example is meant to embarrass, while the fourth makes justice turn on the consent of those who lose out, a contractualist test that Nozick's historical theory does not use.