PHIL 3721: ADVANCED TOPICS IN VALUE THEORY - HOBBES, LOCKE, ROUSSEAU
Fall 2012 || Level 3 Semester 1 Module 2011/2012
My office: Room 2.07, 3 Cavendish Road
Office Hours: Tuesday 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM, Wednesday 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM (or by appointment)
Course Description:
One core idea of modern political thought in the West is the social contract. As the social contract was theorized over the centuries, it also became a central feature in contemporary ethical theory, as realized in Rawls’s and Scanlon’s contractualism and Habermas’s discourse ethics. Consequently, in order to appreciate contemporary Western ethical and political thought, one does well to have a firm grasp of the various initial formulations of the social contract. The three main defenders of this view are Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Hobbes’ revolutionary account of the social contract continues to play an important role in contemporary political theorizing. Locke’s elaboration of the social contract formed the basis of the American democratic tradition. Rousseau’s articulation of an ideal of a social contract both played a central role in the French Revolution and inspired Kant’s moral and political theory. In this course, we will study closely the classic presentations of the social contract as found in selected texts by these thinkers.
Module Outline:
**READINGS MAY BE CHANGED, AND NEW READINGS MAY BE ADDED**
Week 1: The Headwaters of Modern Political Philosophy
26 Sep
Introduction – No Reading
27 Sep
Selections – on website
28 Sep
No additional reading
Week 2: Hobbes
3 Oct
Leviathan, Chapters 6 – 12
4 Oct
Leviathan, Chapter 13
5 Oct
Leviathan, Chapters 14 – 15
Week 3: Hobbes
10 Oct
Leviathan, Chapter 16
11 Oct
Leviathan, Chapter 17
12 Oct
No additional reading
Week 4: Hobbes
17 Oct
Leviathan, Chapters 18 – 20
18 Oct
Leviathan, Chapters 21 – 27
19 Oct
Leviathan, Chapters 28 – 30
Week 5
NO MEETINGS
Week 6 – John Locke
31 Oct
Second Treatise, Sections 1 – 24
1 Nov
No New Reading
2 Nov
Second Treatise, Sections 25 – 51
Week 7 – John Locke
7 Nov
No New Reading
8 Nov
Second Treatise, Sections 77 – 142
9 Nov
No New Reading
Week 8 – John Locke, J.J. Rousseau
Nov 14
Second Treatise, Sections 211 – 243
Nov 15
Nov 16
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Part 1
Week 9 – Jean Jacques Rousseau
Nov 21
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Part 2
Nov 22
No New Reading
Nov 23
Social Contract, Book 1
Week 10 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Nov 28
Social Contract, Book 2
Nov 29
No New Reading
Nov 30
Social Contract, Book 3
Week 11
NO MEETINGS