POLSC201: Introduction to Western Political Thought

Read Book I and Book II. Through the voice of his teacher Socrates, Plato defines what he considers the ideal forms of justice, leadership, social order, and philosophical discipline throughout The Republic. At the same time, Plato addresses the tension between the pursuit of individual self-perfection and public service.

In Book I, Socrates begins by attempting to define justice by challenging notions held by Cephalus and Polemarchus. Socrates finds their notions wanting, but nonetheless they continue to hold that it is better for a person to be just than unjust. Thrasymachus challenges the assumption that it is good to be just altogether. In Book II, Socrates accepts the challenge from Glaucon and Adeimantus to argue that it is better for a person to be just than unjust and that justice is a good in itself regardless of the consequences associated with it. Socrates begins, however, by looking for justice as a virtue of cities before defining justice as a virtue of persons. He outlines his first version of an ideal city and the producer class of citizens established under the principle of specialization that each person must perform the role for which he is naturally best suited.

Watch this lecture. Pause as needed to take notes.

Read Books III and IV of the Republic. Socrates presents his second form of the ideal city, comprised of three classes: rulers, guardians, and producers. He defines their respective roles, along with the qualities, education, and training appropriate to them. By the end of Book IV, Socrates proclaims the city just. By identifying justice at the level of the city, Socrates hopes to make an analogous definition of justice as a virtue at the personal level. Keep in mind that it is a long-standing point of contention among scholars as to Plato's intent behind presenting the Republic as a utopia.

Watch this lecture. Pause as needed to take notes.

Socrates believed that the "ideal city" should be comprised of three classes. What are these classes, and what does he believe are their proper roles? Post your response in the discussion forum, and check back to see what some of your classmates have written. Feel free to leave comments on your classmates' posts.

Read Book V of the Republic. In Book V, Socrates focuses in more detail on the lifestyle of the guardian class, including the relationships between men, women, and children, as well as issues associated with war. In defending how such a lifestyle could come into being and be sustained, Socrates introduces the notion that the only possible way for the ideal society to exist is if the rulers are philosophers - his concept of the "philosopher-king".

Watch this lecture and pause as needed to take notes.

Read the Apology. This work deals with Socrates's reasoned self-defense when he is falsely charged with crimes against the state.

Study Guide Questions:

1. How would you describe the Socratic Method? Think about what Plato demonstrates with the argument between Aristophanes and Socrates. Note that Aristophanes represents past and present poets of Socrates's era and is thus oracular in nature, whereas Socrates is conversational, meaning dialectical.
2. Consider Socrates's poverty in the context of virtue. In The Apology, Plato describes Socrates' poverty as a sort of "proof" that he was not a paid teacher - that he was only living his life in response to the proclamation by the Delphic Oracle that no one was as wise as Socrates. Is this convincing, and how so?

Watch this lecture. As you watch, remember that in the Apology, Socrates faces a trial not only in a court of law, but also in the court of public opinion. Socrates makes his case both to the masses and to the judicial, civil, and political establishment. He knows that his argument is probably the last of his life, and thus he seeks to spur further dialogue among his fellow Athenians. Pause as needed to take notes.

Read Book X.

Read this article.

As you now understand, the classic Socratic Method involves dismantling prior ideas in order to free the mind of preconceived notions. By definition, this method deconstructs all prior thoughts on a topic and leaves the learner without a satisfactory answer to the primary question. Examining how the Socratic Method is used in contemporary society - particularly by teachers, legal scholars, and medical practitioners - will help you understand this approach to teaching and learning.

Write a short paragraph explaining why you believe these professions are more inclined to use the Socratic Method of instruction. Feel free to also share your thoughts on the discussion forum.

Read Crito, which is an account of Socrates' explanation for accepting the death sentence for his alleged crimes rather than confessing and taking a lesser sentence. He tells his friend Crito that, although he has been falsely convicted, he would rather accept the punishment because it will uphold the rule of law in Athens. He prefers to die rather than live outside of the law or in a fashion that would undermine the law. The form of Plato's account - a series of dialogues among friends - is important to Plato's thought.

Watch this lecture. As you watch, think about Crito's appeal to Socrates. Crito represents a Homeric, traditional type of citizen of his age. His appeal is a logical one viewed through the lens of the self, but Socrates is not swayed. He rejects the notion that a citizen must live out a public existence with displays of patriotism, nobility, and devotion to the state. Note that these actions are not the same as compliance with the law of the land.

In the last third of the lecture, notice how Smith makes the case that the juxtaposition of Socrates' exposed views in Crito and The Republic cannot be reconciled. Smith believes that Plato purposefully exposed his readers to Socrates' conflicting philosophies in an attempt to demonstrate that society must choose either one of the Socratic models, or neither - but not both. Pause as needed to take notes.

Read this article.

Read Book I of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. The Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's most comprehensive work on ethics and establishes ethical inquiry as a field unto its own apart from other fields of inquiry. In this text, Aristotle sustains the Platonic dialogue on how society should best be organized, but he does so by focusing on the codification of virtuous behavior and what it means for a person to live a good life.

Read this article, which provides context for Aristotle's ideas of ethics.

Read Book II of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Book II sets out to discover how we can determine what is virtuous, or that which is fine or excellent, such that our practical reason can be in accordance with it, both in the sense of actions to be taken and ends to be achieved. What Aristotle determines is that what is virtuous with regard to a person's character can be found between the extremes as to what it is not - or the mean between the two vices of excess and deficiency.

Read this article, which provides context for Aristotle's ideas concerning virtue and other related concepts.

Read Book III of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. After describing what is virtuous in Book II, Aristotle gives an outline of what must be in place if virtuous action is to result. What constitutes virtuous action is dependent on a variety of external factors as well as the mindset and character of the actor. Aristotle distinguishes between actions taken voluntarily and involuntarily. He determines that actions must be voluntary if they are to be virtuous and thus worthy of praise.

Read this article, which provides context for Aristotle's ideas concerning the preconditions of virtue and other related concepts.

Read this article.

Read Book VI of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

In Book II, you learned that Aristotle divides virtue into two sorts that correspond to the rational and non-rational parts of the soul. The rational part is that which has reason within itself or is reason "through-and-through", while the non-rational part is capable of being influenced by reason. Book VI of the Ethics first addresses the non-rational part of the soul, which is integral to Book X and the transition made from the Ethics to Aristotle's Politics. Here, we first address the intellectual virtues applied to the non-rational parts of the soul in Book VI, or the virtues of thought associated with our emotions, feelings, dispositions, and actions, before turning to Book X.

After you have read Book VI of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, read Book X.

Read this article.

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle devotes two books to the topic of friendship. Why does he consider friendship to be a critical component of the good life? How might Plato have responded to such an assertion?

Post your response in the course's discussion forum, and check back to see what some of your classmates have written. Feel free to leave comments on the posts of your classmates.

Read this text. As you read, think about the Nicomachean Ethics and pay attention to how Aristotle weaves ethical precepts into the fabric of political action. Aristotle argues that a law that mirrors the natural order is of the highest good to the polis. Citizenship is rationed (i.e., only free, land-owning males of native ancestry are considered citizens), but comes with serious responsibilities, often in the form of public service. As you read, consider the following question: who was considered a citizen, and who was excluded from this category?

Study Guide Questions:

1. Aristotle objected to Plato that his search for unity ended by abolishing what is distinctively political about politics. What is the nature of the complaint, and is Aristotle right?
2. Aristotle states: "[M]echanics or any other class that is not the producer of virtue have no share in the state". What do you think about this view of citizenship?

Because this text is lengthy, you may find it helpful to read it over the course of a few days.

Watch this lecture. Pay attention to the concepts of politics and social order in the context of logos, defined as reason or speech.

Watch this lecture. As you watch, think about the importance of public service as conceived by Aristotle. His position is that in any regime, each member of society has particular duties to carry out. What are those duties?

Read this article. In Book III of Politics, Aristotle analyzes arguments for and against various constitutions that employ different notions of a person's worth. This includes his preferred notion of distributive justice as proportionate equality taken from Book V of Nicomachean Ethics: justice requires that benefits be distributed to individuals in proportion to their merit or desert. Oligarchs are mistaken in thinking that those who are superior in wealth should also have superior political opportunities and standing. Democrats are mistaken in thinking that those who are equal in free birth should also have correspondingly equal political opportunities and standing. Though different in their conception of personal worth, for Aristotle both the oligarchs and the democrats are mistaken for the same reason: they assume a false conception of the ultimate end of the polis. Presented here are three different interpretations of what Aristotle means by rule of the best persons and what the common well-being of the polis entails.

Read this article. As you read, consider the common saying that the United States is a "nation of laws". See how Aristotle lays out the need for the rule of law in society.

Think about how you would interpret Aristotle's famous quote, "Man is by nature a political animal". What does he mean by this? Can you find any evidence of this in our modern political system? Post your response in the discussion forum, and check back to read your classmates' responses. Feel free to leave feedback on those comments and posts.

Read Chapters I-XVII of The Prince. In many ways, Machiavelli is considered the first modern political scientist. In The Prince, Machiavelli argues that successful statecraft requires tools that many traditional philosophical and political ideals simply could not provide, and he sees politics as a public responsibility that cannot be based upon the same ethics that guide private life.

Study Guide Questions:

1. What is Machiavelli's view of human nature?
2. Is Machiavelli's approach to government similar to or different from Plato's idealized vision in The Republic, and how so?
3. How is Machiavelli's concept of virtue similar to or different from that of Aristotle?
4. Machiavelli questions whether it is better for the prince to be loved by the people or feared by the people. He argues that both are important, and if possible, the prince should be equally feared and loved. However, he also calls this an unattainable ideal, and finally concludes that the prince should choose to be feared, rather than loved, by the people. Is Machiavelli right?

Watch this lecture. As you watch, consider Machiavelli's background compared to that of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The political landscape of Europe was considerably bigger and more complex during the Renaissance and thus allowed Machiavelli to advance some of the first political concepts and models.

Modern politics is rife with examples of Machiavellian thought. If Machiavelli were alive today, would he be a liberal or conservative? A libertarian or fascist? Why?

Post your response in the discussion forum, and check back to see what some of your classmates have written. Feel free to leave comments on the posts of your classmates.

Read this article. Machiavelli's theory of mercenaries was the first of its kind, and this article explains the historical and contemporary debates surrounding Machiavelli's theory.

Read this text. As you read, consider whether you think it would be possible for Hobbes to make the claims he does without Machiavelli's theories laid out almost a century and a half earlier.

Thomas Hobbes designed the first theory of the sovereign state. In Leviathan, he sees life before the emergence of states as "nasty, brutish, and short", and envisions the Leviathan, a sovereign state led by a king who indiscriminately rules over his territory and citizenry. In turn, citizens give up their freedom for security.

Study Guide Questions:

1. According to Hobbes, why should we accept law and government?
2. According to Hobbes, what form of law and government should we accept?
3. Describe how, according to Hobbes, civil society comes to be and is sustained out of his version of the state of nature.

Watch this lecture. As you watch, consider Hobbes' assertion of the innate equality of all human beings, which in some ways is a precursor to the concept of inalienable rights.

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Read this text. While Hobbes saw human nature as brutal, Locke's thinking reflected the ideals of the European Enlightenment. For enlightenment thinkers, people were broadly considered to be equal and independent. Locke's thinking revolutionized how people thought about citizenship by proposing that all individuals have a right to "life, liberty, and property".

Also consider the rights of private ownership in the United States. As these rights are not directly spelled out in the Constitution, it can be said that Locke's influence was once again a driving philosophical force in the American mind as the Industrial Revolution was progressing.

Study Guide Questions:

1. Describe and evaluate Locke's defense of property rights. Bear in mind the distinction between rights over one's person (self-ownership rights) and rights over material resources (world ownership rights).
2. Explain Locke's doctrine of consent to government. Is the doctrine strictly necessary to his account of legitimate government? Carefully distinguish between different kinds of consent (explicit, tacit, etc.), and pay close attention to conquest and usurpation, where power is acquired without a contract.

Watch this lecture. Compare Locke's version of the natural state of humanity to that of Hobbes and Plato.

Watch this lecture.

Consider Locke's influence on Abraham Lincoln. Both Lincoln and his rival Stephen Douglas professed that consent was necessary to grant slavery legal status in the US. However, the concept of consent is pivotal. Why does Smith consider Stephen Douglas' concept of consent to slavery to be flawed logic?

Also, consider the rights of private ownership in the United States. As these rights are not directly spelled out in the Constitution, it can be said that Locke's influence was once again a driving philosophical force in the American mind as the Industrial Revolution was progressing.

Watch this lecture. For Enlightenment thinkers, all people were equal and independent, and this allowed new credible political ideologies to develop. Consider the pre-Enlightenment views of the ruling classes in European countries as compared to the United States, which theoretically had an open and free political system in which all were able to participate. Also take note that a key tenet of Lockean philosophy is the right of the people to revolt against a government that is corrupt or otherwise unable to carry out the wishes of its constituency.

In his Second Treatise, John Locke maintains the natural liberty of human beings; all people are born free, and the attempt to enslave any person creates a state of war. Yet Locke himself had invested in the slave trade and drafted the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina which granted absolute power over slaves. How do you think Locke reconciled his beliefs with his actions regarding slavery?

Post your response in the discussion forum, and check back to see what some of your classmates have written. Feel free to leave comments on the posts of your classmates.

Read this text. Rousseau uses history and travel experience to show that humans have slowly evolved from brute animality to moderate sociability and eventually corruption and inequality as the rich have taken over government. Rousseau is famous for developing the idea that freedom exists in three forms: civil, natural, and moral.

Study Guide Questions:

1. Does Rousseau advocate a return to the state of nature?
2. What role does the notion of private property play in Rousseau's thought?
3. Reading this selection, taking notes, and answering the study guide questions should take approximately 6 hours.

Watch this lecture.

Watch this lecture. Rousseau proposes a social contract that "defends and protects with all common forces the person and goods of each associate, and by means of which each one, while uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before." Also consider Smith's description of the emergence of government types. Layer by layer, they have developed as philosophical reasoning expanded the boundaries of Western society's political thinking.

Rousseau lived in a very different era, but his exploration of the place of the individual in society has significant relevance in the 21st century. His works address many of today's worries, especially about social inequality and dysfunctional democracy. What would Rousseau have to say about the U.S. political system if he were alive today?

Post your response in the course's discussion forum, and check back to see what some of your classmates have written. Feel free to leave comments on the posts of your classmates.

Read this text. As you read The Social Contract, consider the United States Constitution, particularly as amended by The Bill of Rights. Many of the concepts therein originate with Socrates and Aristotle, but come into their own as fully formed foundational principles through the US Founding Fathers' reliance upon and interpretation of Rousseau.

Study Guide Questions:

1. Can individuals be free, in the aftermath of Rousseau's social contract that involves the "total alienation of each associate of himself and all his rights to the whole community"?
2. What does Rousseau mean by a "moral freedom which...makes man the master of himself"?

Watch this lecture. Consider Rousseau's idea that societal contracts are more of a societal association about how we will conduct business, rather than a consensus on how one's life is to be lived according to societal mores. Also pay attention to the distinctions between civil, natural, and moral freedoms as portrayed by Rousseau.

Read this text as follows:

• Volume I, Chapter 2
• Volume I, Chapter 3
• Volume I, Chapter 10
• Volume I, Chapter 11
• Volume I, Chapter 12
• Volume I, Chapter 13
• Volume II, Section II, Chapter 6
• Volume II, Section II, Chapter 7
• Volume II, Section II, Chapter 8
• Volume II, Section II, Chapter 9
• Volume II, Section IV, Chapter 1
• Volume II, Section IV, Chapter 2
• Volume II, Section IV, Chapter 3
• Volume II, Section IV, Chapter 4
• Volume II, Section IV, Chapter 5
• Volume II, Section IV, Chapter 6

In this work, Tocqueville studies democracy via the civil practices he observed during a tour of the newly-independent American colonies. While in America, he noticed that wealth circulated more freely without hereditary ranks and distractions.

Study Guide Questions:

1. Why does Tocqueville want to study democracy in America?
2. How does Tocqueville view equality in America?
3. How does Tocqueville view the role religion plays in America, specifically with regard to politics and social order?

Watch this lecture. In his work, Tocqueville describes the radical departure from the classical notion that citizens have different innate abilities and assesses the potential consequences resulting from the belief in and passion for equality.

Watch this lecture. With the introduction of equal political rights, Tocqueville also advocated more democratic and representative institutions capable of upholding the people's interests, and he warned of a tyranny of the majority.

Read this chapter, which gives a brief overview of the historical and political context in which Marx and Engels studied and wrote.

Watch this video, which gives an overview of Marx's life and work.

Study Guide Questions:

1. What does Marx say is the main source of conflict throughout history?
2. Why does Marx think that the bourgeoisie is unfit to rule?
3. According to Marx, why are laborers forced to sell their labor for the lowest possible wages?
4. Explain Marx's views on the relationship between religion and capitalism.
5. Why does Marx think that capitalism inevitably creates its own destruction?

Read this text. In his essay On the Jewish Question, Marx takes issue with Bruno Bauer, one of his colleagues among the Young Hegelians. Bauer had earlier made an argument against Jewish emancipation from the German Christian state from an atheist perspective, arguing that religion whether Jewish or Christian was a barrier to emancipation. In responding to Bauer, Marx introduces his distinction between political emancipation in form of liberal rights and liberties, and human emancipation, which encompasses an end to alienation from our work and from each other.

Watch this lecture, which presents Marx's works on economics and society as definitively a part of the Enlightenment tradition in political and economic thought as that of Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill.

Read this preface, which constitutes a sketch of Marx's framework for historical materialism. He argues that the nature of a society's economic structure depends upon the degree of development of the productive forces or means of production, meaning human labor conjoined with technology. The relations of production or superstructure, meaning the political and legal institutions of society, is in turn explained by the nature of the economic structure. Revolution occurs, however, when the forces of production are stifled by the superstructure, which is replaced by a structure better suited to preside over the continued development of the forces of production.

Read this chapter. Marx begins by establishing two necessary conditions for commodity production: (i) a market and (ii) a social division of labor where people make different things. For Marx, commodities both have a use-value, and an exchange-value or price, but it is the latter which is problematic. In coming to understand why one commodity is priced differently from another, Marx derives his labor theory of value.

Read this chapter, in which Marx shows the effects of his law that within a capitalist economic structure, the tendency of the rate of profit must fall. This leads to increasing intensity of exploitation as well as other effects that contribute to the downfall of capitalism.

Read this work, in which Marx describes the transition from a capitalist to a socialist to a communist society, and it is here where he describes communism as a society in which each person should contribute according to their ability and receive according to their need.

Watch this lecture, which focuses on the technical, as opposed to normative, aspects of Marxian exploitation, and how Marx believed a socialist economic structure is the logical successor to a capitalist economic structure, which would in turn develop into a communist economic structure.

Read this article, which addresses the question as to why we should study Marx today, and gives an overview of a contemporary strain of political thought called Analytical Marxism. From there, the importance of the principle of self-ownership in Marx's framework is traced, and how that principle corresponds to contemporary debates regarding distributive justice, and particularly "the difference principle" in the work of John Rawls.

Watch this lecture, which focuses both on the empirical failures of Marx's predictions and theoretical inconsistencies in his framework, and the influence his work has had on late 19th and 20th century political thought.

As you are already aware, The Communist Manifesto reflects an attempt to explain the goals of communism, as well as the theory underlying this movement. Both Engels and Marx argue that class struggles are the motivations for all historical developments - mostly between the "proletariat" and the "bourgeois". Who comprises these classes and why have they, according to the authors, created such class conflict?

Post your response in the discussion forum, and check back to see what some of your classmates have written. Feel free to leave comments on the posts of your classmates.

Read this overview of Mill's major works and their importance in continuing debates about liberty.

Watch this lecture from 32:55, where Szelényi discusses Mill's background and major contributions to political philosophy.

Read this text. Note the distinction Mill makes between freedom of the will and civil or social liberty. Mill's fundamental question is about the nature and limits of the power that society can legitimately exercise over the individual.

Read this text. Utilitarianism has its roots in 18th- and 19th-century classical philosophy, particularly in the writings of political theorist Jeremy Bentham (and Mill's father, James Mill). This moral theory is also known as the "greatest-happiness principle", which holds that one must always act so as to produce the greatest aggregate happiness among all human beings, within reason.

Watch this lecture, which explains the tension between Mill's principle of liberty and his version of utilitarianism.

Watch this lecture, which demonstrates the contradictions and problems with the neoclassical utilitarian framework through theoretical examples and case studies.

Read this article, which attempts to reconcile the tension between Mill's principle of liberty and his invocation of utilitarianism. The difficulty lies in that the principle of liberty disqualifies utility-promotion as a reason for restraint of liberty, unless such restraint also prevents harm to others. Yet at the same time, once the harm-to-others threshold presented by the principle of liberty is crossed and liberty-limitation is justifiable, it becomes justified according to the balance of restraint of liberty and prevention of harm as assessed by a utilitarian calculation. By appealing to perfectionist tendencies in Mill's thought, and particularly his notion of "the permanent interests of man as a progressive being," the principle of liberty can be seen less in the light of problems with regard to utilitarian calculation and more as an indispensable pillar for what Mill would have us aspire to be both as a tolerant society and as autonomous individuals.