Yale University - Moral Foundations of Politics 

Welcome to Moral Foundations of Politics!

The Shape of the Course

Expectations

Course Overview

Meet Your Instructor

Pre-Course Survey

Readings

Enlightenment Political Theory

The Eichmann Case and Problem of Illegal but Legitimate Acts

The Paradox of Discomfort and the Organization of the Course

Politics in the Enlightenment

Early vs. Mature Enlightenments

The Workmanship Ideal

Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, pg. 21-55, 135-149

Locke, First Treatise

Locke, Second Treatise

Hobbes Lessons for the Professors of Mathematics

Mini Quiz - Enlightenment Political Theory

Utilitarianism: Classical and Neoclassical

Elements of Utilitarianism

The Theory of Classical Utilitarianism

The Utility Monster and the Principle of Diminishing Marginal Utility

The Panopticon and Bentham on Government

Distribution and Diminishing Marginal Utility

Bentham on Equality and Rights

Neoclassical Utilitarianism: The Philosophical Context Beginning

Neoclassical Utilitarianism: The Economic Context

Ideological Stakes of the Transition from Classical to Neoclassical Utilitarianism

Introduction and the Harm Principle

Bentham, Mill, and The Rights-Utility Synthesis

The Harm Principle in Practice

The Harm Principle and the Spectrum of Harm

Harm Examples

Is the Harm Principle Conservative?

Office Hours 1

Bentham, Intro to Morals and Legislation

Bentham in W. Stark, Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings, 442

Mill, On Liberty, Chs. 1-2

Mill, On Liberty Ch. 5

Utilitarianism: Classical and Neoclassical

Marxism, Its Failures and Its Legacy

Marx Introduction

Marx as an Enlightenment Thinker

Marx's Challenge to Classical Political Economy

The Working Class

Exploitation - The Micro Story

Exploitation - The Macro Story and the Theory of Crisis

Marx's Overall Failures

Failures in the Macro Theory

Rethinking the Labor Theory of Value

Office Hours 2

Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party

Marx, Capital (Vol. I), Prefaces, Chs. I, IV, VI, XII, XVI (excerpts)

Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program

Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Ch. XVII (Sections 8-11, 14)

Roemer, "Should Marxists be interested in exploitation?" Analytical Marxism

Marxism, Its Failures and Its Legacy

The Social Contract Tradition I

Consent and Thomas Hobbes

John Locke and the Workmanship Ideal

Locke on Consent

Immanuel Kant's Ethics

John Rawls Introduction

John Rawls's Enduring Innovations

The Veil of Ignorance

Principles of Justice

The Difference Principle

Problems with Rawls

Political Not Metaphysical

Political Disagreement

The Overlapping Consensus

Hobbes, Leviathan, Introduction, Chs. 13-17, 21

Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Chs. 2-5

Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals

Rawls, A Theory of Justices, pg. 3-19, 52-56 (Sections 1-4, 11)

Rawls, "Social Unity and Primary Goods," sect. IV, V in John Rawls: Collected Papers

Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pg. 102-109, 118-123, 153-160, 221-227 (Sections 20, 21, 24, 29, 40)

Rawls, "Justice as fairness: political not metaphysical." Philosophy & Public Affairs 14 (1985): 226-48 (Sections 2-6)

Shapiro, "Resources, Capacities, and Ownership." Political Theory 19.1 (February 1991), 47-72

The Social Contract Tradition I

The Social Contract Tradition II

Introduction to Nozick

Features of Nozick's Account

The Invisible Hand Evolution of the State

Necessity and Obligation

Incorporating Independents

Compensation

Liberty Upsets Patterns

Markets and Power

It is Unjust for Chamberlain to Make So Much Money

Office Hours 3

Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, pp. 3-17, 26-35 (Chs. 1-3)

Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, pp. 54-63, 78-84, 88-90, 108-119 (Excerpts from Ch. 4, 5)

Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, pp. 149-164, 174-182 (Excerpts from Ch. 7)

The Social Contract Tradition

Anti-Enlightenment Politics

Burke's Conservatism

Devlin's Conservatism

Introduction to MacIntyre

Emotivist Culture

Practices

Failure of the Enlightenment Project

Concluding Anti-Enlightenment Thought

Office Hours 4

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (excerpts

Patrick Devlin, "Morals and the Criminal Law"

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, Chs. 1-3

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, Chs. 5

Anti-Enlightenment Politics

Democracy

Democracy and its Critics

The Federalist Papers

The Republican Tradition

Discovering the General Will

Habermas' Deliberative Ideal

Deliberation in the Real World

The Westminster System in Practice

The Majority Rule

Competition and Democracy

Electoral Systems

Reviewing the Enlightenment

Democracy and Human Freedom

Office Hours 5

Hamilton, Jay, and Madison, The Federalist Papers, Paper No. 1, 9, 10, 14, 39, 48, 51, 62, 70, 78

Jean-Jaques Rousseau, The Social Contract and the First and Second Discourses, Book I Ch. 6-7, Book II Ch. 3

William H. Riker, Ch. 5, "The Meaning of Social Choice" in Liberalism against Populism, pp. 115-23

J¼rgen Habermas, "Three Normative Models of Democracy"

James Fishkin, "Deliberative Polling: Toward a Better-Informed Democracy"

Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Chs. 17-19

Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Ch. XXI and XXII

Buchanan and Tullock, The Calculus of Consent, excerpt from Ch. 6

Shapiro, "John Locke's Democratic Theory," in Locke's Two Treatises of Government, pp. 309-332

Douglas Rae, "The Limits of Consensual Decision"

Shapiro, "Elements of Democractic Justice." Political Theory

Post-Course Survey

Professor Shapiro's Letter to Students

Democracy