Lectures:
Items included in the COURSEPACK are essential reading for a
topic. However, you are unlikely to be able to get good marks by simply
restricting yourself to the essential items. So you need to read some of
the additional material: ideally before the seminar but certainly
before the exam. If you can’t find anything on the reading list (because
everything has gone from the library) then use your initiative and read
some thing else on the topic or
ask for suggestions. Handouts,
together with other materials such as videos, texts, etc. will be
available from the Blackboard site for the unit. If I see something
relevant to a week's topic, I may well upload it at some time after the
lecture/seminar, so please check from time to time (and especially once
revising!).
Lecture 1: Why have a state anyway?
Essential reading
Gregory Kavka, "Why Even Morally Perfect People Would Need Government", in the COURSEPACK, originally in
Social Philosophy and Policy 12:1 (1995).
Additional reading
Michael Taylor,
Community, Anarchy and Liberty, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, chs 1-2.
David Hume,
A Treatise of Human Nature,
Book III, part 2, esp. §§ 1–2.
David Schmidtz,
The Limits of Goverment, Boulder: Westview, 1991. ch.1 (and the rest of the book).
Christopher W. Morris,
An Essay on the Modern State, Cambridge: CUP, 1998. chs 1-2.
Thomas Hobbes,
Leviathan, chs 13-21.
Ellen Clarke, "Anarchy, socialism and a Darwinian left",
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2006 vol. 37 (1) pp. 136-150.
Lecture 2: The meaning of liberty
Essential reading
Isaiah Berlin, "Two Concepts of Liberty", in the COURSEPACK.
Additional reading
David Miller (ed.),
The Liberty Reader essays by
MacCallum, Steiner, Charles Taylor, Cohen, Pettit and Skinner
especially. This volume is an expanded edition of an earlier collection
edited by Miller under the title
Liberty, so look for that as well. Alternatively, the followings:
Gerald MacCallum, "Negative and Positive Freedom",
Philosophical Review, 76 (1967), pp. 312-34.
Hillel Steiner, "Individual Liberty",
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 75 (1974-5), pp. 33-50.
Charles Taylor, "What's Wrong with Negative Liberty", in A. Ryan (ed.),
The Idea of Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Quentian Skinner, "A Third Concept of Liberty",
Proceedings of the British Academy, 117 (2002), no. 237, pp. 237-68.
G.A.Cohen, "Freedom and Money" (available via the Blackboard site).
Lecture 3: Should we obey the state?
Essential reading
R. P. Wolff,
In Defence of Anarchism. New York: Harper, 1970. ch. 1, in the COURSEPACK.
Additional reading
Joseph Raz, "
Authority and Justification",
Philosophy and Public Affairs14:1 (Winter 1985) pp. 3-29, also in Joseph Raz ed.,
Authority.
Christopher McMahon, "
Autonomy and Authority",
Philosophy and Public Affairs16:4 (Fall 1987) pp. 303-328.
A. John Simmons,
Moral Principles and Political Obligations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.
Christopher McMahon,
Authority and DemocracyPrinceton: Princeton University Press, 1994. chs 2 and 4
A. John Simmons, "
Associative Political Obligations";,
Ethics, January 1996.
Lecture 4: Rights and property
Essential reading
Robert Nozick, "An Entitlement Theory", originally from his
Anarchy, State and Utopia New York: Basic Books, 1974 in the COURSEPACK.
Allan Gibbard, "Natural Property Rights" originally
Nous 10:1, pp. 77-86, in the COURSEPACK.
Additional reading
Hillel Steiner,
An Essay on Rights, Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. ch 7.
G. A. Cohen, ‘Self-Ownership, World-Ownership and Equality’, in F.Lucash ed.
Justice and Equality Here and Now. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1986.
G.A.Cohen,
Self Ownership, Freedom and Equality Cambridge: CUP, 1995. (contains the item above and much else).
Arthur Ripstein,
Force and Freedom: Kant's Legal and Political Philosophy, ch. 6.
Lecture 5: Rawls’s Theory of Justice (1) The Original Position
Essential reading
John Rawls,
A Theory of Justice, Oxford: OUP, 1971. extracts in the COURSEPACK.
Additional reading
The major secondary work on Rawls's Theory of Justice is now Samuel Freeman's
Rawls.London: Routledge, 2007.
Ronald Dworkin,
Taking Rights Seriously, London: Duckworth, 1977, ch. 6
Samuel Freeman, "Introduction", in Samuel Freeman (ed.)
The Cambridge Companion to Rawls.Cambridge: CUP, 2003.
Jon Mandle,
What's Left of Liberalism, New York: Lexington, 2000. chs 2 and 3.
See also the
WikiPedia entry on Rawls (and links therefrom), and my own
Rawls glossary.
Lecture 6: Rawls’s Theory of Justice (2) The Difference Principle
Essential reading
* John Rawls,
A Theory of Justice, extracts in the COURSEPACK.
Additional reading
Philippe Van Parijs, "Difference Principles", in Samuel Freeman ed.
The Cambridge Companion to Rawls.
Brian Barry,
Theories of Justice, Brighton: Harvester, 1991, ch 6 and Appendix C.
G.A. Cohen,
"Where the Action Is";,
Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1997.
G. A. Cohen, ‘The Pareto Argument for Inequality’,
Social Philosophy and Policy, 1995.
(Both of these are included in his
Rescuing Justice and Equality, Cambridge Mass.: Harvard, 2008.)
Christopher Bertram, ‘Principles of Distributive Justice, Counterfactuals and History’,
Journal of Political PhilosophyI, 3 (1993).
John Harsanyi,
"Can the Maximin Principle Serve as a Basis for Morality",
American Political Science Review, (69) (1975),pp. 594-606.
Lecture 7: Justifying Democracy
Essential reading
Thomas Christiano, 'An Argument for Democratic Equality', in the COURSEPACK. originally in his
The Rule of the Many, Boulder: Westview, 1996.
Richard Arneson, "The Supposed Right to a Democratic Say", in the COURSEPACK, originally in Christiano and Christman eds.,
Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell, 2009.
Additional reading
Brian Barry, 'Is Democracy Special?', in B. Barry (ed.)
Democracy, Power and Justice. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Michael Walzer, 'Philosophy and Democracy', in Thomas Christiano (ed.),
Philosophy and Democracy. Oxford: OUP, 2003.
Richard Arneson, 'Democratic Rights at the National Level', in Thomas Christiano (ed.),
Philosophy and Democracy.
Lecture 8: Liberalism
Essential reading
Jeremy Waldron, "Theoretical Foundations of Liberalism", in the COURSEPACK - originally in the
Philosophical Quarterly,37 (1987).
Additional reading
Ronald Dworkin, "Liberalism", in Stuart Hampshire (ed.)
Public and Private Morality Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. Also in Michael Sandel (ed.)
Liberalism and its Critics, Oxford: Blackwell, 1984.
Gerald F. Gaus, "The Moral Foundations of Liberal Neutrality", in Christiano and Christman eds.,
Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy.
John Rawls,
Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysicalin Philosophy and Public Affairs 14, no, 3 (1985) and in Milton Fisk ed.
Justice.
in the
Philosophical Quarterly,37 (1987).
Jean Hampton, ‘The Moral Commitments of Liberalism’, in Copp, Roemer and Hampton (eds)
The Idea of Democracy.
Lecture 9: Conservatism
Essential reading
Michael Oakeshott, "On Being a Conservative", in the COURSEPACK, and in his
Rationalism in Politics and other essays.London: Methuen, 1962.
G.A. Cohen, "A Truth in Conservatism", in the COURSEPACK.
Additional reading
Edmund Burke,
Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Roger Scruton,
The Meaning of Conservatism, Basingstoke: Penguin Books, 1980.
Lecture 10: Justice and personal behaviour
Essential reading
G.A. Cohen, "If you're an egalitarian, how come you're so rich?", in the COURSEPACK, Originally in his
If You're an Egalitarian How Come You're So Rich? Cambridge Mass.: Harvard, 2000.
Additional reading
Harry Brighouse,
Justice, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004, ch.8
Liam Murphy, "Institutions and the Demands of Justice",
Philosophy and Public Affairs 27 (1999).
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, "It's not
my fault", in W. Sinnott-Armstrong and Richard Howarth eds.
Perspectives on Climate Change Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005 and in Stephen M. Gardiner et al,
Climate Ethics Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.