Political Philosophy

Political philosophy deals with a wide variety of questions we face as human beings reflecting on the nature and values of political society:  What is a state and how, if at all, can it give its citizens obligations to conform to its dictates?  What is necessary for a state to be just?  Are there values other than justice with which a state must be concerned?  And so on.

This course will investigate these and other questions of political philosophy as they have been discussed by some of the main figures of European and American political thought from the seventeenth century forward. 

Course Materials for Philosophy 366

You can find all course materials for Philosophy 366 here.

Major Texts for Philosophy 366


    Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
 

John Locke,  A Second Treatise of Government
 

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  The Social Contract
 

  John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, On Liberty, and The Subjection of Women.
 

  Karl Marx,  Collected Works
 

John Rawls, Ben Rogers' wonderful article on Rawls
 

  Robert Nozick, Obituary in the Harvard University Gazette
 
 
 


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Last revised on December 31, 2001