Dan Brudney

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s political philosophy is based on an account of moral psychology, an account that is highly critical of the present—critical of current institutions and of its product, namely, our present moral psychology—while also, at moments, hopeful for the future. The seminar begins by presenting Rousseau’s political philosophy as a development of and a contrast to earlier social contract theories, in particular, to Thomas Hobbes’s view. We then examine both Rousseau’s and a few contemporaries’ moral psychologies to determine whether the political philosophy that Rousseau favors is feasible and/or desirable.

The course will start by looking at the intellectual connections of several major figures in 18th and 19th century philosophy of religion. We will examine David Hume’s “Essay on Miracles” and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, John Stuart Mill’s “The Utility of Religion,” Friedrich Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality, and selections from William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience. In the last third of the course we will examine more recent writers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Emmanuel Levinas. The goal of the course is to present and to assess different ways in which philosophers have conceived of and argued for or against religious belief. (IV)

Since the 17th century, the social contract has been a central metaphor to characterize the conditions under which political authority is legitimate.  However, the content of the social contract and its imagined mode of coming into being have varied widely.  In this course we will try to delineate the conditions that might make the concept of a social contract a plausible way to justify political authority.  We will read Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, and Rawls.  We will focus on these writers’ conceptions of the person, on their views of how such conceptions generate specific institutional arrangements, and on their accounts of the justification of state power. (A)

Students writing senior essays register once for PHIL 29901, in the Autumn Quarter, and once for PHIL 29902, in the Winter Quarter. The Senior Seminar meets for two quarters, and students writing essays are required to attend throughout.

Abortion is a complex and fraught topic. Morally, a very wide range of individual, familial, and social concerns converge upon it. Politically, longstanding controversies have been given new salience and urgency by the Dobbs decision and the ongoing moves by state legislatures to restrict access to abortion. In terms of moral philosophy, deep issues in ethics merge with equally deep questions about the nature of life, action, and the body. In terms of political philosophy, basic questions are raised about the relationship of religious and moral beliefs to the criminal law of a liberal state. We will seek to understand the topic in all of this complexity. Our approach will be thoroughly intra- and inter-disciplinary, drawing not only on our separate areas of philosophical expertise but on the contributions of a series of guest instructors in law, history, and medicine. (A)

Students writing senior essays register once for PHIL 29901, in the Autumn Quarter, and once for PHIL 29902, in the Winter Quarter. The Senior Seminar meets for two quarters, and students writing essays are required to attend throughout.

Decisions about medical treatment and medical policy often have profound moral implications. Taught by three philosophers, a physician, and a medical lawyer, this course will examine such issues as paternalism, autonomy, informed consent, assisted suicide, abortion, organ markets, distributive justice in health care, and pandemic ethics. (A)

John Locke’s political philosophy contributed mightily to the English and American constitutions.  It is still a significant force in modern debates about rights and the criteria of political legitimacy.  We begin the course with Locke’s Second Treatise of Government and go on to read his important “A Letter Concerning Toleration.”  Issues to be addressed include Locke’s conception of the state of nature, his explanation of the need for a political society, and his justifications of economic inequality and the right of revolution.

We then turn to a very different writer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  Rousseau has been read as defending, among other things, liberalism, totalitarianism, civic republicanism, and communism.  We will read his First and Second Discourses, On the Social Contract, and parts of the short essay On the Government of Poland.  Issues to be addressed include Rousseau’s account of developmental psychology, his conception of the initial political agreement, the nature of the General Will, the role of the Legislator, and what is meant by his infamous claim that citizens can be “forced to be free.”  Our goal is to grasp Locke and Rousseau in their historical and intellectual contexts but also to determine what is true and vital in their views. (A)