Social/Political Philosophy

Human rights are claims of justice that hold merely in virtue of our shared humanity. In this course we will explore philosophical theories of this elementary and crucial form of justice. Among topics to be considered are the role that dignity and humanity play in grounding such rights, their relation to political and economic institutions, and the distinction between duties of justice and claims of charity or humanitarian aid. Finally we will consider the application of such theories to concrete, problematic and pressing problems, such as global poverty, torture and genocide. (A) (I)

Topic: The Immorality of Art (instructor: C. Kirwin)
Can art lead us to virtue-and, if so, can it also lead us to vice? Should art be in the service of morality and the greater good of society, or should the artist pursue only "art for art's sake"? Can a work of art be morally bad but still artistically good? To investigate these and related questions, we'll begin at the beginning, with Plato's famous attacks on art and artists, and then look at several key texts from the history of the philosophy of art, focusing on the question of the relationship between art and morality as it is explored in these works. Towards the end of the course, we will start to relate our findings to issues in our contemporary culture, studying some feminist critiques of the aesthetic concept of beauty, as well as aesthetic developments driven by oppressed groups striving for emancipation through art. Throughout the course, we shall be looking at various artworks-including examples of painting, sculpture, literature, music, film, and photography-that connect up to the themes that we discuss.

Topic: On Freedom and Its Absence (instructor: P. Brixel)

The aim of this course is to explore the idea of freedom in political philosophy. The course is divided into three parts. In the first part, we will try to determine the relations between freedom, choice, desire, and the good by examining empiricist, existentialist, rationalist, and capability-based approaches to the definition of freedom. In the second part, we will ask what kinds of obstacles constitute constraints on freedom. Is freedom simply the absence of human interference, or the absence of domination, or can we be unfree even if we are not interfered with or dominated? In the third part, we will deploy what we have learned so far in an investigation of specific questions about freedom or unfreedom in relation to labor. Does the value of freedom impose restrictions on what work should be like? Do workers under capitalism enter the labor-contract unfreely? Is leisure necessary for freedom? This investigation will deepen our understanding of the various philosophical conceptions of freedom and unfreedom.

Topic: The Immorality of Art (instructor: C. Kirwin)
Can art lead us to virtue-and, if so, can it also lead us to vice? Should art be in the service of morality and the greater good of society, or should the artist pursue only "art for art's sake"? Can a work of art be morally bad but still artistically good? To investigate these and related questions, we'll begin at the beginning, with Plato's famous attacks on art and artists, and then look at several key texts from the history of the philosophy of art, focusing on the question of the relationship between art and morality as it is explored in these works. Towards the end of the course, we will start to relate our findings to issues in our contemporary culture, studying some feminist critiques of the aesthetic concept of beauty, as well as aesthetic developments driven by oppressed groups striving for emancipation through art. Throughout the course, we shall be looking at various artworks-including examples of painting, sculpture, literature, music, film, and photography-that connect up to the themes that we discuss.

Topic: On Freedom and Its Absence (instructor: P. Brixel)

The aim of this course is to explore the idea of freedom in political philosophy. The course is divided into three parts. In the first part, we will try to determine the relations between freedom, choice, desire, and the good by examining empiricist, existentialist, rationalist, and capability-based approaches to the definition of freedom. In the second part, we will ask what kinds of obstacles constitute constraints on freedom. Is freedom simply the absence of human interference, or the absence of domination, or can we be unfree even if we are not interfered with or dominated? In the third part, we will deploy what we have learned so far in an investigation of specific questions about freedom or unfreedom in relation to labor. Does the value of freedom impose restrictions on what work should be like? Do workers under capitalism enter the labor-contract unfreely? Is leisure necessary for freedom? This investigation will deepen our understanding of the various philosophical conceptions of freedom and unfreedom.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is intended as a list of rights the protection of which all human beings should enjoy. However, in its preamble, the Declaration mentions "reason" and "conscience" as universal attributes of human beings, thus expressing a certain conception of what a human being is. Does this conception serve well all human beings? What about cognitively or intellectually disabled persons? More specifically, when thinking about particular human rights, like the right to privacy, political participation or education - how are these rights supposed to be protected for cognitively and intellectually disabled persons? These are the questions we will consider in this class.

In this class we will investigate what it is for a society to be just. In what sense are the members of a just society equal? What freedoms does a just society protect? Must a just society be a democracy? What economic arrangements are compatible with justice? In the second portion of the class we will consider one pressing injustice in our society in light of our previous philosophical conclusions. Possible candidates include, but are not limited to, racial inequality, economic inequality, and gender hierarchy. Here our goal will be to combine our philosophical theories with empirical evidence in order to identify, diagnose, and effectively respond to actual injustice. (A)

Topic: The School of Suspicion (instructor: J. Edwards)

Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud have been called the masters of "the school of suspicion." Each of these thinkers sought, in their own way, to bring us see that our conscious understanding of ourselves and society often conceals the social, moral, and/or psychological functions that are the real explanations of why we hold the beliefs and values that we do. Their works, therefore, aim to critique our conscious conceptions and unmask the underlying causes, as well as to explain how these beliefs and values are sustained, and who benefits from their being held. In this course, we will critically examine the most important of these critiques, beginning with the school's "masters": Marx's claim that religion, ethics, and legal thought are "ideological humbug" that arise from and sustain exploitative economic relations; Nietzsche's claim that contemporary morality is life-denying, and that it originates in a trick played on the strong by the weak some 2000 years ago; and Freud's claim that beneath our conscious awareness are repressed ideas and drives that nevertheless reappear in our lives in sometimes creative, but often tragic ways. We will then turn to the most prominent critiques by the greatest "students" of the school: Adorno & Horkheimer's claim that fascism, state capitalism, and mass culture are all forms of social domination enabled by an instrumental rationality that emerged out of the Enlightenment; and Foucault's revisionary account of the workings of power, as articulated in his studies of both discipline and sexuality.

Topic: Equality and Its Value (instructor: N. Lipshitz) The wealthiest 85 people on the planet have more money than the poorest 3.5 billion people combined; four hundred Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined; the average white American's median wealth is 20 times higher than the average African American's. Assuming these assertions to be correct, should we be bothered by them? What, if anything, is wrong with inequality? In this seminar, we will explore these questions with the help of contemporary analytic philosophers (and one Aristotle). 

Topic: Causation and Rationality (instructor: R. O'Connell) What is it for something to be the cause or effect of something else? And in what sense are we causes? In this course we shall tackle these questions simultaneously, with the aim of understanding how our conceptions of ourselves as minded, rational beings, on the one hand, and of causation on the other, influence and illuminate one another. Some of the questions we shall ask along the way are: What are causes and effects? What kinds of explanation are causal explanations? What, if anything, is the causal connection between people's reasons and their behavior? Does the kind of causality that pertains to human action differ in any fundamental way from other kinds of causation? If so, then how?

Topic: The School of Suspicion (instructor: J. Edwards)

Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud have been called the masters of "the school of suspicion." Each of these thinkers sought, in their own way, to bring us see that our conscious understanding of ourselves and society often conceals the social, moral, and/or psychological functions that are the real explanations of why we hold the beliefs and values that we do. Their works, therefore, aim to critique our conscious conceptions and unmask the underlying causes, as well as to explain how these beliefs and values are sustained, and who benefits from their being held. In this course, we will critically examine the most important of these critiques, beginning with the school's "masters": Marx's claim that religion, ethics, and legal thought are "ideological humbug" that arise from and sustain exploitative economic relations; Nietzsche's claim that contemporary morality is life-denying, and that it originates in a trick played on the strong by the weak some 2000 years ago; and Freud's claim that beneath our conscious awareness are repressed ideas and drives that nevertheless reappear in our lives in sometimes creative, but often tragic ways. We will then turn to the most prominent critiques by the greatest "students" of the school: Adorno & Horkheimer's claim that fascism, state capitalism, and mass culture are all forms of social domination enabled by an instrumental rationality that emerged out of the Enlightenment; and Foucault's revisionary account of the workings of power, as articulated in his studies of both discipline and sexuality.

Topic: Equality and Its Value (instructor: N. Lipshitz) The wealthiest 85 people on the planet have more money than the poorest 3.5 billion people combined; four hundred Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined; the average white American's median wealth is 20 times higher than the average African American's. Assuming these assertions to be correct, should we be bothered by them? What, if anything, is wrong with inequality? In this seminar, we will explore these questions with the help of contemporary analytic philosophers (and one Aristotle). 

Topic: Causation and Rationality (instructor: R. O'Connell) What is it for something to be the cause or effect of something else? And in what sense are we causes? In this course we shall tackle these questions simultaneously, with the aim of understanding how our conceptions of ourselves as minded, rational beings, on the one hand, and of causation on the other, influence and illuminate one another. Some of the questions we shall ask along the way are: What are causes and effects? What kinds of explanation are causal explanations? What, if anything, is the causal connection between people's reasons and their behavior? Does the kind of causality that pertains to human action differ in any fundamental way from other kinds of causation? If so, then how?

The most philosophically explicit and rigorous of the British Utilitarians, Henry Sidgwick made important contributions to normative ethics, political philosophy, and metaethics. His work also has important implication for law. His great work The Methods of Ethics, which will be the primary focus of this seminar, has been greatly admired even by those who deeply disagree with it - for example John Rawls, for whom Sidgwick was important both as a source and as a foil, and Bernard Williams, who wrote about him with particular hostility. Sidgwick provides the best defense of Utilitarianism we have, allowing us to see what it really looks like as a normative ethical and social theory. Sidgwick was also a practical philosopher and activist, writing on many topics, but especially on women's higher education, which he did much to pioneer at Cambridge University, founding Newnham College with his wife Eleanor. A rationalist who helped to found the Society for Psychical Research, an ardent feminist who defended the ostracism of the "fallen woman," a closeted gay man who attempted to justify the proscriptions of Victorian morality, Sidgwick is a philosopher full of deep tensions and fascinating contradictions, which work their way into his arguments. So we will also read the work in the context of Sidgwick's contorted relationship with his era. An undergraduate major in philosophy or some equivalent solid philosophy preparation. (I) (IV)

The course will examine the evolution of western thinking about the modern concept of the state. The focus will be on Renaissance theories (Niccolò Machiavelli; Thomas More); theories of absolute sovereignty (especially Thomas Hobbes); theories about 'free states' (James Harrington, John Locke); and republican theories from the era of the Enlightenment.

Many of the toughest ethical and political challenges confronting the world today are related to environmental issues: for example, climate change, loss of biodiversity, the unsustainable use of natural resources, pollution, and other threats to the well-being of both present and future generations. Using both classic and contemporary works, this course will highlight some of the fundamental and unavoidable philosophical questions presented by such environmental issues. Can a plausible philosophical account of justice for future generations be developed? What counts as the ethical treatment of non-human animals? What do the terms "nature" and "wilderness" mean, and can natural environments as such have moral and/or legal standing? What fundamental ethical and political perspectives inform such positions as ecofeminism, the "Land Ethic," political ecology, ecojustice, and deep ecology? And does the environmental crisis confronting the world today demand new forms of ethical and political philosophizing and practice? Are we in the Anthropocene? Is "adaptation" the best strategy at this historical juncture? Field trips, guest speakers, and special projects will help us philosophize about the fate of the earth by connecting the local and the global. (A) (B)