Humanities Core: Winter 2006

Beitz study questions, pp. 74(b)-81(b), 83(m)-86(b), 92(m)-93(m), 95(t)-102(b).

(74) How for Beitz do questions of how to define the term “intervention” obscure other important issues?

(75-6) How does Wolff’s argument for the sovereignty of states depend on an analogy between persons and nations, and specifically, the values of freedom and equality?

(75) In what respect is Wolff’s prohibition on intervention absolute? In what respect is it not?

(77-9) Some such as Walzer ground the right of state sovereignty on the consent of its citizens. On what grounds does Beitz reject this view?

(79-80) What dilemma does that view face?

(80-1) If anything, what for Beitz is the “analogue of the moral autonomy of persons at the level of states”?

(81) Beitz affirms that we should respect the autonomy or liberty of less than virtuous people. How is this compatible with this view that only just states have a right of autonomy?

(84-5) What is Mill’s basis for respect of individual liberty? Why does Beitz think this is unlikely to justify a general prohibition on intervention in a state’s affairs?

(90-1) For Beitz what factors determine whether intervention in a society’s affairs is permissible other than whether or not its arrangements are just? How might even military action be ruled out?

(93) What is the difference between a rule that forbids intervention and a right of self-determination? How might these conflict?

(95) In what three ways can appeals to “self-determination” be ambiguous?

(97) Why for Beitz can’t the argument that colonies should have independence be based on the idea of consent? (Compare the arguments on pp. 76-9.)

(98) How for Beitz is the right of self-determination based in what is required to reduce injustice?

(100-1) For Beitz, when (roughly) is paternalism justified? For what reasons might colonialism be justified in this way? Why ultimately is it unjustified?