M.

Phil Theory of Politics Michaelmas Term 2009 Dr David Leopold and Dr Adam Swift
ON THIS FIRST PAGE ARE BOOKS THAT YOU SHOULD TELL YOUR COLLEGE LIBRARY IT SHOULD HAVE Overviews and Introductions These are books that do not appear on the weekly reading lists but often provide very helpful discussions of the issues covered. C. Fabre, Justice in a Changing World (2007) G. Gaus, Political Concepts and Political Theories (2000) R. Goodin and P. Pettit (eds.) Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (1993) D. Knowles Political Philosophy (2001) W. Kymlicka Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (2nd ed, 2001) J. A. Simmons Political Philosophy (OUP 2007) A. Swift Political Philosophy: A Beginners Guide for Students and Politicians (2nd ed, 2006) J. Wolff An Introduction to Political Philosophy (2nd ed, 2006) Collections of articles M. Clayton and A. Williams (eds.) The Ideal of Equality (2002) M. Clayton and A. Williams (eds.) Social Justice (2003) D. Estlund (ed.) Democracy (2002) R. Goodin and P. Pettit (eds.) Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (2nd ed, 2005) W. Kymlicka (ed.) The Rights of Minority Cultures (1995) D. Miller (ed.) The Liberty Reader (2006) A. Phillips (ed.) Feminism and Politics (1998) J. Raz (ed.) Authority (1990) J. Waldron (ed.) Theories of Rights (1985)

Week 1: Rawls and the Original Position Rawls work has been central to recent debates about justice, and students are expected to grasp the central argument of A Theory of Justice the derivation of two principles of justice from a hypothetical contract behind a veil of ignorance. Rawls has often been accused, by communitarians, of relying on too thin a conception of human personality. This claim should be assessed critically, as also the claim that hypothetical contracts cannot tell us what justice requires of us in real human societies. Core reading J. Rawls Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001): Parts 1-3. A B. Barry Justice as Impartiality (1995): chapters 1-3. R. Dworkin The Original Position in N. Daniels (ed.) Reading Rawls (1978) M. Sandel, The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self, Political Theory (1984) and in S. Avineri and A. de-Shalit (eds.) Communitarianism and Individualism (1992) and in R. Goodin and P. Pettit (eds.) Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (2nd ed, 2005) and in Sandels collection Public Philosophy (2005) S. Mulhall and A. Swift, Rawls and Communitarianism, in S. Freeman (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Rawls (2003)

Week 2: Impartiality and Neutrality The idea that the state should be, or even can be, neutral or impartial is controversial. Who or what should the state be neutral between? If any state must appeal to some values to justify its decisions, how can any claim to impartiality be anything but a sham? We consider what kinds of claim to neutrality might be coherent and, even if some are, whether the state should indeed refrain from acting on perfectionistic judgements about what makes peoples lives go well. Core reading G. Sher, Beyond Neutrality: Perfectionism and Politics (1997), chs. 1-4. A J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993): lectures I, IV, V. S. Mulhall and A. Swift Liberals and Communitarians (2nd ed. 1996), pp. 25-35, ch. 5, pp.218-221, and pp. 249-58 J. Chan, Legitimacy, Unanimity and Perfectionism, Philosophy and Public Affairs (2000). J. Waldron, Legislation and Moral Neutrality in R. Goodin and A. Reeve, (eds.), Liberal Neutrality (1989) and in Waldrons collection Liberal Rights (1993)

Week 3: Libertarianism Rawls theory of justice as fairness sparked an energetic riposte from Nozick, whose libertarianism is founded on strong claims about rights to self-ownership and ownership of alienable property, and their significance for individual freedom. Other libertarians adopt a more consequentialist perspective, while some develop theories that take seriously rights to self-ownership but insist that these are compatible with egalitarian theories about how natural resources should be distributed. Core Reading R. Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974): section 7 on Distributive Justice A G.A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality (1995): chs. 3 and 4. D. Schmidtz, The Elements of Justice (2006): chs. 32-34. P. Vallentyne and H. Steiner (eds.) Left-Libertarianism and its Critics (2000): contributions by H. Steiner (Original Rights and Just Redistribution) and P. Van Parijs (Reallibertarianism). [This collection may be hard to find. The Steiner piece is chapters 7 and 8 of his An Essay on Rights (1994); the Van Parijs piece is excerpted from his Real Freedom For All: What (if Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? (1995): sections 1.8, 2.6, 2.7, 3.5, 4.3 and 4.4.]

Week 4: Egalitarianism What metric or currency is appropriate when thinking about the justice of distributions? Does an emphasis, characteristic of what has become known as luck egalitarianism, on the distinction between responsible and non-responsible choices betray the true egalitarian ideal? Even if some conceptio ns of equality are valid, it is a reasonable question why distributive equality is valuable in any sense. Some argue that intuitions about the value of equal distributions are better conceived as prioritarian than egalitarian, since equality per se is vulnerable to the levelling down objection. Core Reading R. Dworkin, What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1981, reprinted as Chapter 2 of his Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue (2000). G. A. Cohen, On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice, Ethics (1989) A E. Anderson, E., What is the Point of Equality?, Ethics (1999) and in M. Clayton and A. Williams (eds.) Social Justice (2003) S. Scheffler, What is Egalitarianism?, Philosophy and Public Affairs (2003) D. Parfit, Equality or Priority? in M. Clayton and A. Williams (eds.) The Ideal of Equality (2002) L. Temkin, Equality, Priority and the Levelling Down Objection, in M. Clayton and A. Williams (eds.) The Ideal of Equality (2002)

Week 5: Global Justice Much political theory has traditionally considered questions of distributive justice within a given bounded community, which is often assumed to be the nation-state. John Rawlss A Theory of Justice is an obvious case in point. But this assumption is receiving increasing scrutiny and criticism from a number of scholars, who debate the extent to which we owe duties to non-nationals as well as to nationals. Reflection on the growth of international interdependence and globalization has introduced a new variable into the debate, as thinkers query not only the normative desirability but the empirical relevance of nation-state centred accounts.

Core Reading J. Rawls, The Law of Peoples, (1999): especially Section 3. T. Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (2002): Introduction and Chapters 5 and 8. A S. Caney, Justice Beyond Boundaries (2005): ch 4 D. Moellendorf, Cosmopolitan Justice (2002): chs 3 and 4. D. Miller, Justice and Global Inequality, in A. Hurrell and N. Woods (eds.), Inequality, Globalization, and World Politics (1999), also available at http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/politicalscience/0198295669/toc.html T. Nagel, The Problem of Global Justice, Philosophy and Public Affairs (2005)

Week 6: Democracy We survey different justifications of democracy. For some, the core claim is that democracy is the procedure for making political decisions that treats citizens as equals. Others emphasise the value of collective deliberation. We look also at the classic Schumpeterian rejection of normatively ambitious models of democracy and defence of a more realistic conception of democracy as competitive elitism, while considering the suggestion that deliberation can help to solve notorious problems in aggregating preferences. Core reading T. Christiano: Democracy as Equality in D. Estlund (ed.) Democracy (2002) J. Waldron The Constitutional Conception of Democracy Journal of Political Philosophy (1998) and in D. Estlund (ed.) Democracy (2002) and in Waldrons Law and Disagreement (1999) A J. Cohen, Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy in A. Hamlin and P. Pettit (eds.) The Good Polity (1989) and in R. Goodin and P. Pettit (eds.) Contemporary Political Philosophy (1993) and in D. Estlund (ed.) Democracy (2002) and in J. Bohman and W. Rehg (eds.) Deliberative Democracy (1997) J. Elster, The Market and the Forum in J. Elster and A. Hylland (eds.) Foundations of Social Choice Theory (1986) and in R. Goodin and P. Pettit (eds.) Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (2nd ed, 2005) and in J. Bohman and W. Rehg (eds.) Deliberative Democracy (1997) J. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1943): chs. 21 and 22, which are reprinted as Two Concepts of Democracy in A. Quinton (ed.) Political Philosophy (1967). D. Miller, Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice, Political Studies (1992) and in D. Estlund (ed.) Democracy (2002)

Week 7: Rights We consider the idea that rights are trumps held by individuals against the democratic will of the majority before going on to look at the very influential analysis of the concept of rights and insistence on the limitations of a rights-based morality - offered by Joseph Raz. As thinking about justice increasingly goes global, the discourse of human rights has become politically important as well as philosophically controversial. What is the relation between philosophical thinking about such rights and international declarations and international law Core reading R. Dworkin Do We Have a Right to Pornography? in his A Matter of Principle (1985) and (mostly) as Rights as Trumps in J. Waldron (ed.) Theories of Rights (1984). J. Waldron Rights and Majorities: Rousseau Revisited in his Liberal Rights (1993) and in Chapman and Wertheimer (eds.) Nomos XXXII: Majorities and Minorities A B J. Raz The Morality of Freedom (1986): chs. 7, 8 and 10. J. Griffin, Discrepancies Between The Best Philosophical Account Of Human Rights And The International Law Of Human Rights, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (2001) (some of this appears as ch.11 of his On Human Rights (2008) J. Tasioulas, The Moral Reality of Human Rights, in T. Pogge (ed.) Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right (2007)

Week 8: Political Obligation The problem of political obligation has often been characterized as the fundamental problem in political philosophy. How do states gain the right to demand obedience and support from their citizens? What are the grounds of legitimate political authority? Do citizens have special moral ties to the members of their own political communities? Do states have the power to change citizens moral requirements with their decrees? If not, what are the implications of this for liberal political philosophy? Core Reading A. J. Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations (1979), Chapters 1-4. D. Schmidtz, Justifying the State, Ethics (1990). A. R. Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), pp. 90-95. A. J. Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations (1979), Chapter 5 G. Klosko, Presumptive Benefit, Fairness, and Political Obligation, Philosophy & Public Affairs (1987) J. Raz, Authority and Justification, Philosophy & Public Affairs (1985) C. H. Wellman, Liberalism, Samaritanism, and Political Legitimacy, Philosophy & Public Affairs (1996)

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