Study Guide for Final Exam: Polsc. 661
Fall 2006

1. What is natural law? Why was it important to Martin Luther King and others like him who argued for social change?

2. Describe how Thomas Aquinas uses Aristotle=s political thought in his development of natural law. Be able to discuss the other types of law: eternal, human and divine, and discuss natural law=s relationship to them.

3. What are some similarities and differences between the thought of Aristotle and Aquinas. Be able to discuss these through Aquinas=s treatise On Kingship and the selections from Summa.

4. What are the three general precepts of Thomas=s natural law theory, and what does he base them on? What kind of Asecondary precepts@ does he derive from them, and in what way are they Aflexible?@ Why is this flexibility important?

5. Discuss the development of Just War theory from Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas and forward as examined in class. What are the central tenets of Jus ad Bellum and Jus in Bello.

6. What is positivism and in what way is it a challenge to Thomas=s approach of natural law?

7. Be able to describe the practices of the King=s nobles which led William of Pagula to voice such strong warnings to King Edward.

8. Trace the teaching on property from Aristotle, to Aquinas to William of Pagula. What new dimension do the two Christian authors add to Aristotle=s teaching on property?

9. Contrast William of Pagula=s warnings to the King, which involve threats of metaphysical evil, with Christine de Pizan=s approach on how to deal with the common people.

10. How does Christine de Pizan develop the ideas of meritocracy and care for the common people within her mirror book?