The western tradition: moral and political values

A.A. 2025/2026
12
Crediti massimi
80
Ore totali
SSD
M-FIL/06
Lingua
Inglese
Obiettivi formativi
The course aims at introducing the students to the moral and political values prominent in the Western tradition. A selection of values (such as liberty, autonomy, equality, fairness, fraternity, solidarity, critique, limitation of power..) and issues connected with them will be presented and analyzed in order to teach the students how to recognize when they are at stake, when they conflict with each other and how to critically assess the possible solutions and policies dealing with these values. At the end of the course, the students must be able to evaluate social and political issues in the light of the main moral and political values and to envisage the justification for the choices concerning them.
Risultati apprendimento attesi
The expected learning outcomes include:
- The knowledge and understanding of the meaning and the practical implications of the main moral and political values in the Western tradition
-The ability to apply the knowledge and understanding of these values to the issues raised by the conflict among the values themselves and by typical contemporary social problems
-The ability to analyse and evaluate critically real life situations taken from the recent history of moral and political discussion
-The skill to communicate and argue in favour and against some values in specific situations, identifying themselves with one or another of the different opinions concerning the issue at stake in a discussion with the colleagues and the teacher (debate method)
-The ability to read, understand, summarize and communicate the content of chapters and articles concerning the moral and political values discussed, obtained through the reading and exposition in the classroom, guided by the teacher (flipped classroom method)
Corso singolo

Questo insegnamento non può essere seguito come corso singolo. Puoi trovare gli insegnamenti disponibili consultando il catalogo corsi singoli.

Programma e organizzazione didattica

Edizione unica

Responsabile
Periodo
Terzo trimestre

Programma
UNIT 1
Unit 1: Moral and Political Progress
Course syllabus
1. What is a Moral and Political Value?
2. "Western" and "European" Values
3. The Concept of Progress: A Look into the History of Ideas
4. R. Koselleck, "'Progress' and 'Decline'. An Appendix to the History of Two Concepts"
5. Enlightenment and Moral Progress
6. I. Kant, "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" (1784)
7. Kand and Progress as Reflective Judgement
8. I. Kant, "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim" (1784)
9. Hegel and Progress as Historical Fact
10. G.W.F. Hegel, "Lectures on the Philosophy of World History" (excerpts) (1830)
11. Marx on Progress
12. K. Marx, "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" (excerpts) (1859)
13. Nietzsche and Progress as Decadence
14. Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Genealogy of Morality" (excerpts) (1883)
15. The Frankfurt School on Progress: Benjamin and Adorno
16. T.W. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, "Dialectic of the Enlightenment" (excerpts) (1947)
17. Progress and Colonialism
18. D. Chakrabarty, "The Idea of Provincializing Europe" (excerpts) (2000)
19. Contemporary Debates on Progress in Analytic Philosophy
20. Contemporary Debates on Progress in Critical Theory
Please note: The syllabus will be fine-tuned at the beginning of the course. The final version of the syllabus, completed with more precise bibliographical indications and suggestions for papers and presentations, will be available on the Ariel website of the course

UNIT 2
Political and Moral Freedom
Course syllabus:
1. Political concepts as contested concepts
2. Freedom as contested concept: Berlin's traditional distinction and beyond
3. Constant's view of ancient and modern freedom
4. Hobbes's view of freedom in Leviathan, XXI
5. The neo-Roman view of freedom as independence from arbitrary power
6. The neo-republican view of freedom as non-domination
7. Hegel's idea of concrete freedom
8. Marx's view of freedom
9. Sartre's existential freedom
10. Foucault's view of freedom and power
11. Arendt's idea of freedom
12. Honneths' view of social freedom
13. Feminist views of freedom
14. Postcolonial views of freedom

Please note: The syllabus will be fine-tuned at the beginning of the course. The final version of the syllabus, completed with more precise bibliographical indications and suggestions for papers and presentations, will be available on the Ariel website of the course
Prerequisiti
For Unit 1 and Unit 2:
The admission to the course requires a general preliminary knowledge of the Western moral and political tradition. No specific knowledge in philosophy or political theory is required.
Metodi didattici
UNIT 1
Frontal lessons and structured discussions of assigned texts (40 hours).
During the structured discussion the students have: 1) to shortly present the assigned text (10-15 minutes); 2) to discuss the text, arguing its basis in favour and against the thesis proposed by the author (30 minutes); 3) to offer and discuss examples proposed by the teacher (30 minutes); 4) to take a precisely argued position on the topics chosen for the discussion (15 minutes).
The aim of the active part is to train the students' argumentative capacities on issues where the moral and political values are at stake.
At the end of each discussion unit, the teacher summarizes the results of the discussion and re-organizes the contents concerning each value in a systematic perspective. The whole of the values treated in the course offer a general unitary overview of the Western moral and political tradition.

UNIT 2
Frontal lessons and structured discussions of assigned texts (40 hours). During the structured discussion, students are required to: 1) Briefly present the assigned text (approx. 10 minutes); 2) Discuss the text, identifying its main theses and problematic aspects of the argumentation (approx. 15 minutes); 2) Formulate questions for class discussion, based on the analysis carried out (approx. 15 minutes). The aim of this active part is to develop students' argumentative skills on issues related to freedom. At the end of each discussion unit, the instructor will summarise the outcomes and reorganise the content from a systematic perspective.
Materiale di riferimento
UNIT 1
Teaching Resources

- Adorno, T.W. and Horkheimer, M., 2002. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Translated by E.F.N. Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Hegel, G.W.F., 1975. Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Translated by H.B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Originally delivered 1857)
- Kant, I., 1996. 'An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784)'. In: M.J. Gregor, ed. Practical Philosophy. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.11-22.
- Kant, I., 2005. 'Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim'. Translated by A. Wood. In: A.O. Rorty and J. Schmidt, eds. Kant's Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Originally published 1784)
- Koselleck, R., 2002. '"Progress" and "Decline". An Appendix to the History of Two Concepts'. In: The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts. Translated by T.S. Presner. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp.218-235.
- Marx, K., 1970. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Translated by N.I. Stone. New York: International Publishers. (Originally published 1859)
- Nietzsche, F., 1998. On the Genealogy of Morality. Translated by M. Clark and A. Swensen. Indianapolis: Hackett. (Originally published 1887)

Further readings

- Adorno, T.W., 2005. 'Progress'. In: Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords. Translated by H. Pickford. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Allen, A., 2016. The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Benjamin, W., 1969. 'Theses on the Philosophy of History'. In: H. Arendt, ed. Illuminations. Translated by H. Zohn. New York: Schocken, pp.253-264. (Originally published 1940)
- Forst, R., 2017. 'The Concept of Progress'. In: Normativity and Power: Analyzing Social Orders of Justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Foucault, M., 1977. 'Nietzsche, Genealogy, History'. In: D.F. Bouchard, ed. Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- Jaeggi, R., 2025. Progress and Regression. Translated by R. Savage. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- McCarthy, T., 2009. Race, Empire, and the Idea of Human Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Møller, S., 2021. 'Kant on Non-Linear Progress'. Ethics & Politics, 23, pp.127-147.
- Sauer, H., et al., 2021. 'Moral Progress: Recent Developments'. Philosophy Compass, 16(10), e12769.

UNIT 2
Teaching Resources

-W.B. Gallie, Essentially Contested Concepts, in «Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society», New Series, vol. 56 (1955-56), pp. 167-198
-Selected passages from the works by Hobbes (Leviathan), Rousseau (Social Contract), Kant (What is Enlightenment), François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture (Refutations), Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of History), Marx (On The Jewish Question), Mill (On liberty), Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth), Berlin (Two Concepts of Liberty); all the passages will be available on the on the Ariel website of the course
-B. Constant, The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns, LIberty fund on line edition
-Q. Skinner, A Third Concept of Liberty, in «Proceedings of the British Academy», 117 (2002), pp. 237-268
-P. Pettit, Freedom, in D. Estlund (ed. by), The Oxford Handbook of Political Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, chapter 4
-J.P. Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, New Haven, Yale University Press; 2007
-M. Foucault, The subject and Power, in «Critical Inquiry», Vol. 8, No. 4, Summer, 1982, pp. 777-795
-H. Arendt, What is freedom?, in Ead., Between Past and Future, The Viking Press, New York 1961, pp. 143-172
-A. Honneth, Three, Not Two, Concepts of Liberty: A Proposal to Enlarge Our Moral Self-Understanding, in R. Zuckert and J. Kreines (eds), Hegel on Philosophy in History, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 177-192
-G.C. Spivak, Can the subaltern speak?, in R. C. Morris, Can the subaltern speak? Reflections on the history of an idea, New York, Columbia University Press, 2010, pp. 21-80.
-S. de Beauvoir, Introduction, in Ead., The secondo Sex, New York, Vintage Book, 2010

Suggested readings for non attending students:

T. Tömmel and M. Passerin d'Entreves, Hannah Arendt, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by E. N. Zalta and U. Nodelman, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2025/entries/arendt.
G. Gutting and J. Oksala, Michel Foucault, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by E. N. Zalta and U. Nodelman, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2022/entries/foucault/
- J. Jennings, Constant's Idea of Modern Liberty, In H. Rosenblatt (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Constant, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 69-91.
F. Lovett, Republicanism", in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by E. N. Zalta and U. Nodelman, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2022/entries/republicanism
-M. Bevir, The Contextual Approach, in G. Klosko (ed. by), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Political Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011
-N. Hirschmann, Feminism, in G. Klosko (ed. by), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Political Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011
Please, note: these are optional readings and therefore they will not be the subject of questions during the final oral examination


Further readings:
Q. Skinner, Liberty as Independence: The Making and Unmaking of a Political ideal, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2025
J. Oksala, Foucault on Freedom, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009
N. Hirschmann, The Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom, Princeton Princeton University Press, 2003
A. Honneth, Freedom's Right. The Social Foundations of Democratic Life, New York, Columbia University Press, 2014
Please note: these are recommended readings for further exploration of some topics covered in the course and will therefore not be the subject of questions during the exam.
Modalità di verifica dell’apprendimento e criteri di valutazione
UNIT 1
Attendant students are required to read the assigned materials during the course and to participate actively in the discussion of the texts. Also, the students have to show, in the final colloquium, that they have read and understood all the assigned texts and that they can argue on relevant issues using the concepts, the knowledge and the theories that have been presented and used in the course.
The assessment is based on an oral colloquium, and it includes the evaluation of the active role played by each student (through short presentations of the texts, participation in the discussion, offering arguments and cases, raising objections to the theories) during the course.
For non-attendant students, evaluation is based on an oral colloquium.
The criteria for assessment are:
1. Adequate and complete knowledge of the contents and the material of the course
2. Adequate language in the use of moral concepts and theories
3. Clarity of exposition in the presentations and in answering the questions
4. Capacity to re-elaborate the contents in order to face problematic issues in morally and politically relevant situations
The mark is assigned in 30/30

Unit 2
Attendant students are required to read the assigned materials during the course and to participate actively in the discussion of the texts. Also, the students have to show, in the final colloquium, that they have read and understood all the assigned texts and that they can argue on relevant issues using the concepts, the knowledge and the theories that have been presented and used in the course.
The assessment is based on an oral colloquium (up to 27/30), and it includes the evaluation of the active role played by each student (through short presentations of the texts and participation in class discussion) during the course (up to 3/30).
For non-attendant students, evaluation is based on an oral colloquium (maximum mark: 30)
The criteria for assessment are:
1. Adequate and complete knowledge of the contents and the material of the course
2. Adequate language in the use of moral concepts and theories
3. Clarity of exposition in the presentations and in answering the questions
4. Capacity to re-elaborate the contents in order to face problematic issues in morally and politically relevant situations
The mark is assigned in 30/30
M-FIL/06 - STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA - CFU: 12
Lezioni: 80 ore
Docenti: Ceron Annalisa Antonia, Volpe Alessandro
Docente/i
Ricevimento:
Lunedì 9.15-12.15. Per favore, prendere appuntamento via mail una settimana prima.
Studio del docente e/o Piattaforma Teams.