Lahore University of Management Sciences

POL 203- Introduction to Western Political Philosophy

Spring 2016-2017

Instructor Rabia Zaid

Email [email protected]
Office Hours Tuesday and Thursday 2:30 to 4:20
Credit Hours 4
Number of Lectures per week 2

Course Description:
This course examines major texts in the history of political thought. Many of these
texts pose difficult questions concerning the political community, social order, and
human nature. This course asks how different views on human nature and the uses
of history inform the design of government. It also considers the ways in which
thinkers like Plato, Machiavelli, and Rousseau have responded to the political
problems of their times, and the ways in which they contribute to a broader
conversation about human goods and needs, justice, democracy, and the ever-
changing relationship between the citizen and the state.

One of our central aims in this course will be to gain a critical perspective on our
times by evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of various regimes and
philosophical approaches. We will also work to better understand those assumptions
and basic concepts that define the field of political science. Each of the three units
that comprise this course is devoted to a broad theme central to understanding
politics. The first unit, centered upon the texts of Plato and Aristotle, will address the
polis, or political community. The second unit, featuring the work of John Locke,
Niccolò Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes, will explore the modern state and
constitutional government. The third unit, introducing the texts of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels, will focus on
democracy and the critique of liberal ideology. You will find that these political
philosophies have shaped various forms of government, from tyranny to republican
democracy and welfare states.

If you're interested in reading philosophy or thinking about life purpose and social
organization, this might be a good course for you to take. Additionally, if you like to
debate, consider alternative viewpoints, or talk about politics this course will likely
interest you. Also, Western political thought has served, in one form or another, as the
philosophical and ideological basis for governments around the world for centuries,
including the United States. Hopefully, this course will allow you to put yourself
 within an historical, social, and cultural setting so you may relate to contemporary
political society.

Grading:
Attendance: 10%
Class Participation: 10%
Workbook: 15%
Midterm Exam 30%
Final Paper: 35%

Week 1
Session 1:
* No required reading*
Lecture on the development of Political philosophy.
Session Discussion:
 What is Political philosophy?
 Are we all political philosophers?
 What is Political/Philosophical?

Session 2:
Plato. -The Allegory of the Cave, in Book 7
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.8.vii.html
Session Discussion:
 What is the allegory of the cave and its significance?
 What is the cycle –falling from an ideal state?
 How do values/virtues relate to each type of state?
 What is Plato’s argument regarding unjust or just life?
 Role of just or unjust life on the state?
 What is a state?

Week 2
Session 1:
Plato, Republic, Book 1 and 2
http://web.archive.org/web/20160703045440/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1497
/1497-h/1497-h.htm

Session 2:
Plato, Republic, Book 1 and 2 (ibid)
Themes: Discussion of Republic:: the Just and the Unjust, The ideal City, The
philosopher king, The Socratic Method, The ideal citizen and the Ideal State, The Good
life: Virtue and Happiness, Rule of Law.

Week 3:
Session 1:
Aristotle, Politics Book 1.
http://web.archive.org/web/20160615005624/http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/polit
ics.1.one.html
Session Discussion:
 How does society develop?
 What is the significance of relationships, such as rulers/slaves/women?
 What is “nature” of a person?
 What role does nature play in Aristotle’s thought and what relationship to
convention
 What is Aristotle’s view of Plato’s ideal state?
 What is your view of an ideal state?
 What is the key to making a political system successful?
 What is a Polity?
 What is the role of the middle class?
 What are three elements of government?

Session 2: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics,

http://web.archive.org/web/20160411090922/http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotl
e/nicomachaen.1.i.html

Week 4

Session 1:
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter 1-12
http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince.pdf

Session Discussion:
 What are the critical pieces of advice offered to the prince?
 With which ones would you agree the most? Disagree?
 What is Machiavelli’s source of knowledge?
 Given Machiavelli’s advice, what appears to be his view of “person” of the
“good”, and of “society’? * idea of virtue*

Session 2: Machiavelli, The Prince Chapter 12-24

Week 5
Session 1: Machiavelli, Documentary (In class Assignment)

Session 2: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapter 1: The First part of Man

.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140804072200/http://resources.saylor.org/POLSC/
POLSC201/POLSC201-2.2-Leviathan-PD_files/POLSC201-2.2-Leviathan-PD.htm

Sessions Discussion:
  Negative vs positive liberty?
 Discuss replacement of Machiavellian republican liberty with liberty as security
 Define political obligation?
 Rights of the sovereign?
 What is indivisible sovereignty?

Week 6:
Session 1:
Hobbes, Review and conclusion.
In class discussion will include an article on Hobbes. Article will be handed out in
class.

Session Discussion:
 What is paradoxical in Hobbes writing?
 What is Political Absolutism?
 Hobbesian doctrine of Sovereignty?
 Ecclesiastical authority vs fundamental equality of human beings?
 What does the liberal opposition say regarding absolutism?

Session 2:

• John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government Chapter 1-6

http://web.archive.org/web/20160304074642/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/737
0/7370-h/7370-h.htm

Week 7

Session 1:

John Locke, Slavery and Private Property, Representative Government and

Revolution

Session 2: John Locke, Continued

Week 8

Session 1: Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality. Discourse on Inequality. Part 1 and

Part 2.
Available in pdf:
http://www.nutleyschools.org/userfiles/150/Classes/5377/DiscourseonInequality.pd
f

Session 2: Rousseau Social Contract. Part 1 and Part 2

Session Discussion:
 Rousseau: State of Nature?
  Man’s transition from Nature to society?
 Effect of time and history on Humans??
 What is Compassion? Goodness? Are they important?

Available in Pdf:
http://english.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/rousseau-the-social-
contract.original.pdf
Continued.

Week 9:

Session 1: Midterm Exam

Session 2: David Riazanov's

KARL MARX and FREDERICK ENGELS An Introduction to Their Lives and Work
http://web.archive.org/web/20150925191331/https://www.marxists.org/archive/ria
zanov/works/1927-ma/ch02.htm

Marx’s Theory of Capitalism

Marx's Theory of Capitalism

Part 1: The commodity:
http://web.archive.org/web/20150908161920/https://www.marxists.org/archive/m
arx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/ch01.htm

Week 10
Session 1:

From Capitalism to Socialism to Communism

Capital chapter 12:

Session 2:
 Marx theory of capitalism
 From capitalism to socialism to communism
 Alienation: Separating workers from the results of their work.
 Understanding modes of production (Materialism)
 Marx’s Critique of the Gotha program

Week 11
Session 1: Marx and Engels Documentary
Session 2: John Stuart Mill’s ‘On Liberty’
http://web.archive.org/web/20160325192232/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/
34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm
page 1-28

Week 12:

Session 1:
John Stuart Mill ‘On Ulitarianism’
http://web.archive.org/web/20160802122946/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/
11224/11224-h/11224-h.htm

Session 2
Hegel, G.W.F.-Interdependence and Dependence of Self-Concusioness: Lordship and
Bondage, in The Phenemology of Mind, trans. J.B Baillie (Harper & Row, 1967). Pp.1-
19
Pdf available:
http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~pred9095/Redding_Ind&Dep_Dec04.pdf

Week 13
Session 1:
Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Volume 1
Introduction part 1 read Summary of Chapter 1, 2 3 and 4, Read complete chapter 5.
Pdf available: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/815/815-h/815-h.htm
Session Discussion:
 What is the “general will”?
 How does this answer problems related to inequality, amour-propre, and
general discontent?
 Re-evaluation of the relationship between freedom and equality?
 Can social powers be a threat to human liberty?

Session 2: Tocqueville, continued and Documentary

Week 14:
Session 1: Simone De Beauvoir, Reading on LMS
Session 2: Simone De Beauvoir

Week 15:
Session 1: Review