5AANB008 Political Philosophy II: History of Political
Philosophy
Syllabus – Academic year 2013/14
Basic information
Credits: 15
Module Tutor: Dr Sarah Fine
Office: 902
Consultation time: Tuesdays, 4pm - 5pm; Wednesdays 11am - 12pm
Semester: First
Lecture time and venue: Wednesdays, 12pm – 1pm, room K1.28
*Please note that tutorial times and venues will be organised independently with your teaching tutor
Module description (plus aims and objectives)
Students will focus on the work of five major figures in the history of modern political philosophy: Thomas
Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx. In this way, students will be
introduced to a selection of the central texts, concepts, and debates in political philosophy.
Aims:
To engage with a selection of important texts in the history of political philosophy, and to consider why
these are key texts.
To draw upon the texts in order to think carefully about central debates, concepts, traditions and
controversies in political philosophy.
To reflect on enduring themes in political philosophy, such as the relationship/tension between liberty
and authority, and between liberty and equality.
Objectives:
By the end of the module, the students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and practicable skills
appropriate to a Level 5 module and in particular will be able to demonstrate:
A good understanding of the core texts and debates that they have studied in depth.
That they recognise the importance of these texts in the history of political philosophy.
The ability to critically assess the arguments in question.
Assessment methods and deadlines
Formative assessment: 2 x 1500 word essays.
Deadlines: Essay 1, Fri 8 Nov 2013; Essay 2, Fri 20 Dec 2013.
Summative assessment: 2 x 2000 word essays.
NB Please note that for semester I-only Study Abroad students, assessment requirements may vary.
Outline of lecture topics (plus suggested readings)
Weeks One and Two <2 and 9 Oct>: Thomas Hobbes
Suggested reading:
Thomas Hobbes ([1651] 1996) Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), parts 1 and 2.
Richard Tuck (1989/2002) Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University
Press).
Weeks Three and Four <16 and 23 Oct>: John Locke
Suggested reading:
John Locke ([1690] 1988) ‘Second Treatise’ in Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
John Locke ([1689] 1985) A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. James Tully (Indianapolis:
Hackett)
John Dunn (2003) Locke: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Weeks Five and Six <30 Oct and 13 Nov>: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Suggested reading:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau ([1755] 1997), ‘Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality’
in The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1997) ‘Of the Social Contract’ in The Social Contract and Other Later
Political Writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Christopher Bertram (2004) Rousseau and the Social Contract (London: Routledge).
Weeks Seven and Eight <20 November and 27 November>: John Stuart Mill
Suggested reading:
John Stuart Mill ([1859, 1869] 1989) ‘On Liberty’ and ‘The Subjection of Women’ in On
Liberty and Other Writings, ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
John Skorupski (1989) John Stuart Mill (London: Routledge).
Weeks Nine and Ten <4 December and 11 December>: Karl Marx
Suggested reading:
Karl Marx ([1848] 2002) The Communist Manifesto, ed. Gareth Stedman Jones (London: Penguin).
Karl Marx ([1843, 1846] 1994) ‘On the Jewish Question’ and ‘From “The German Ideology”’, in
Marx: Early Political Writings, ed. Joseph O’Malley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Karl Marx ([1875] 1996) 'Critique of the Gotha Programme’, in Marx: Later Political Writings, ed.
Terrell Carver (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Jonathan Wolff (2002) Why Read Marx Today? (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Suggested essay questions
Hobbes
‘Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe
they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre as is of every man against every man’
(Leviathan, chapter 13). Discuss.
What is the relationship between obedience and protection in Hobbes’s account of sovereignty?
‘Thomas Hobbes was liberty’s enemy’. Discuss.
Locke
What is the role of tacit consent in Locke’s political theory?
‘”The Second Treatise” should be read primarily as a defence of property’. Discuss.
Critically examine Locke’s argument that toleration should not be extended to Catholics and atheists.
Rousseau
‘The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force
the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey
himself alone, and remain as free as before’ (Rousseau, The Social Contract, I: 4). Does Rousseau succeed
in providing the solution?
Critically analyse Rousseau’s remark that those who refuse to obey the general will shall be ‘forced to be
free’ (The Social Contract, Book 1, Chapter 7).
What is the role of the lawgiver in Rousseau’s The Social Contract?
Mill
What is the significance, for Mill’s argument, of the distinction between self-regarding actions and otherregarding actions?
‘Mill’s defence of liberty is not utilitarian’. Discuss.
‘The Subjection of Women is obviously right but of little importance’. Discuss.
Marx
What is the role of alienation in Marx’s critique of capitalism?
What is wrong with exploitation?
Critically assess Marx’s account of ideology.
Suggested additional readings
General
Iain Hampsher-Monk (1992) A History of Modern Political Thought: Major Political Thinkers from Hobbes to
Marx (Oxford: Blackwell).
Andrew Levine (2002) Engaging Political Philosophy: From Hobbes to Rawls (Oxford: Blackwell).
Susan Moller Okin (1979) Women in Western Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
John Rawls (2007) Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge MA:
Harvard University Press).
Hobbes
Annabel Brett and James Tully with Holly Hamilton-Bleakley (eds.)(2006) Rethinking the Foundations of
Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), chapters by Tuck and Hoekstra.
Gregory Kavka (1986) Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Michael Oakeshott (1975) Hobbes on Civil Association (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Quentin Skinner (2008) Hobbes and Republican Liberty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press),
chapters 5 and 6.
Locke
John Dunn (1969) The Political Thought of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the 'Two
Treatises of Government' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
John Horton and Susan Mendus (eds.) (1991) John Locke: A Letter Concerning Toleration in Focus (New
York: Routledge).
A. John Simmons (1989) ‘Locke's State of Nature’, Political Theory, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 449-470.
James Tully (1993) An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
Jeremy Waldron (2002) God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations of Locke's Political Thought
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Rousseau
Joshua Cohen (2010) Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Frederick Neuhouser (1993) ‘Freedom, Dependence and the General Will’, Philosophical Review, vol.
102, no. 3, pp. 363-395.
Judith N. Shklar (1969) Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau’s Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
Gopal Sreenivasan (2000) ‘What is the General Will?’, Philosophical Review, vol. 109, no. 4, pp. 545–
581.
Robert Wokler (2001) Rousseau: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Mill
Julia Annas (1977) ‘Mill and the Subjection of Women’, Philosophy, vol. 52, pp. 179-94.
Richard Arneson (1980) ‘Mill versus Paternalism’, Ethics, vol. 90, no. 4, pp. 470-489.
Daniel Jacobson (2000) ‘Mill on Liberty, Speech, and the Free Society’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol.
29, no. 3, pp. 276-309.
Jonathan Riley (1998) Mill On Liberty (London: Routledge).
Nadia Urbinati and Alex Zakaras (eds.) (2007) J. S. Mill’s Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Marx
William James Booth (1989) ‘Gone Fishing: Making Sense of Marx’s Concept of Communism’, Political
Theory, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 205-222.
G.A. Cohen (1979) Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Steven Lukes (1985) Marxism and Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Michael Rosen (1996) On Voluntary Servitude: False Consciousness and the Theory of Ideology (Cambridge:
Polity), chapter 6.
Justin Schwartz (1995) 'What's Wrong with Exploitation?', Noûs, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 158-188.