Political philosophy

In terms of content, we will be primarily concerned with questions of freedom, justice and political authority. Questions of political authority are concerned with why and to what extent a political authority has legitimate power over us. 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 crisis, where it becomes imperative to find and implement some new shared criteria of judgment. Then it calls for critical clarification of and reflection on the most fundamental terms of our political life, and suggests new possibilities for the future. 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. What does a justifiable or legitimate political order involve?

In terms of method, students will also learn various skills in philosophic methodology:

- Students will learn how to read philosophic texts. 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;
- 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.);
- Students will learn to understand and discuss coherently the foundational issues listed in the course description;
- Students will be expected both to be able to analyze the arguments of other philosophers, and to forge new arguments of your own.


To sum up, the general aims of this course are the following:
· To help students to improve their ability to read carefully, write and speak clearly, and think analytically;
· To allow the students to gain a critical understanding of some of the most important issues and theories in Political Philosophy;
· To enhance students' knowledge of central terms of political theory and sharpen their conceptual skills to identify, compare and evaluate philosophical arguments;
· To develop students critical thinking skills needed to compare, evaluate and analyze philosophical arguments within the field of political theory.
· To gain 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).
· To see the connections between philosophical contributions to political thought and the actual political arrangements of our time.

Non definiti