Andrew Molas is a recent graduate from the University of Toronto, where he received his Honours Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy. He is currently in the process of applying to graduate programs to study Philosophy, and his philosophical strengths/areas of interests include political philosophy, ethics and morality, and bioethics. Download his winning paper Discussing the Sufficiency Condition in Locke’s Second Treatise of Government and comment on it below.
Discussing the Sufficiency Condition in Locke’s Second Treatise of Government
Abstract: This paper examines the sufficiency condition discussed in §27 of Locke’s Second Treatise and to discuss whether it is meant to serve as a necessary restriction on the right to appropriate goods in the State of Nature. By appealing to the work done by Waldron, I will examine both Tully’s argument—that the sufficiency condition is necessary to ensure that people are not made worse off and deprived of the right to the means of their survival—and Sreenivasan’s argument—that the condition is necessary to limit the amount that an individual can legitimately appropriate in order to preserve an equal opportunity for everyone to access and appropriate resources to ensure their subsistence—and argue that neither of these arguments successfully demonstrate why the sufficiency condition should be interpreted as a necessary restriction on individual appropriation.
2012 Short List
Congratulations to the the following applicants whose papers were short listed for the Keenan Prize for 2012!
- William Brooke – Social Capital and Distributive Justice
- Walter J. Reid – Contractarian and Communitarian Approaches to International Justice and Environmental Ethics
- Alexander Agnello – Tending to Needs Over Preferences: A Discussion on Expensive Tastes
- Zachary Nicholas Davidson – Hobbes’ Leviathan: A Project for Peace