Political Philosophy

As part of the degree in Political Science, the course will be primarily concerned - in terms of content - with questions of freedom, justice and political authority. More specifically, questions of political authority are concerned with why and to what extent a political authority has legitimate power over individuals. The purpose of the course is to help students understand and acquire a general comprehension of the following questions: do governments derive their authority from "the consent of the governed"? If so, what does that consent look like? Can the state do anything it wants to us, or are there limits? If there are limits, where do those limits come from?
Moreover, the course aims to highlight how political philosophy is relevant, especially in times of political crisis, where it becomes imperative to find and implement some new shared criteria of judgment. Then the course calls for critical clarification of and reflection on the most fundamental terms of our political life, and suggests new criteria for an evaluation of political institutions. What is distinctive about political philosophy is its prescriptive or evaluative concern, in short, its concern with how political societies should be, how policies and institutions can be justified, how we and our political leaders ought to behave in our public lives.

The course aims at:
- Helping students to improve their ability to read philosophic texts carefully, write and speak clearly, and think analytically; the readings for this course consist entirely of primary sources, and we will spend most of our class periods with the text close at hand, going over it line-by-line in many cases.
- Allowing students to gain a critical understanding of some of the most important issues and theories in Political Philosophy; students will learn the skills of conceptual analysis and philosophic argumentation. Much time will be spent in this course getting clear about distinctions between closely related concepts (justice, fairness, desert, needs, etc.).
- Enhancing students' knowledge of central terms of political theory and sharpen their conceptual skills to identify, compare and evaluate philosophical arguments.
- Developing students critical thinking skills needed to compare, evaluate and analyze philosophical arguments within the field of political theory.
- Gaining a more complete and refined understanding of students' theoretical commitments in the political realm (or - in the absence of such commitments -, to help generate them).
- Helping students to see the connections between philosophical contributions to political thought and the actual political arrangements of our time.