Political Science 2O06 Political Theory

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Political Science 2O06Political Theory
Lecture One Introduction to Political Theory
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What is Political Theory?

• As we know, political science is the study of
  governments, public policies and political
  processes, systems, and political behaviour. 
• There are several different approaches to the
  study of politics.
• We might divide the study of political science
  into two camps.
• On the one hand we have the descriptive approach
  to political science. This facet of political
  science focuses on observing actual behaviour of
  political agents (state, politicians, etc.) and
  making empirical observations about them.
• Political theory takes the prescriptive approach,
  and focuses on making normative statements about
  the political world.

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The study of political theory could be boiled
down to two questions.

• Who gets what? and Says who? Jonathan Wolff

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Not quite. However.

• it is a useful starting point.
• Political theory focuses on several normative
  questions in politics How should it be?.
• Political theory deals with the fundamental
  questions, or first-order questions about the
  state, government, politics, liberty, justice,
  property, rights, and law.

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Some major questions

• Should we have a state?
• What justifies the state?
• What is political power?
• What is the best way to make new laws?
• Who or what has the right to exercise this
  political power?
• How much power should the state exert over
  me?
• Why should the state have authority over me,
  or the lives of those close to me?
• Should I be able to do whatever I want? Should
  others have the same the right as I do?
• These are some of the Says who? questions.

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More major questions

• On what basis should people possess property?
• What rights and liberties should individuals
  enjoy?
• Is there any good reason why some people should
  have more property than others?
• What should be the relation between political
  power and economic success?
• Should there be any connection between the two
  at all?
• How much liberty should I have?
• How much liberty should my neighbour have?
• How should these rights be given to me? As an
  individual, or as a member or group?
• Who or what should guarantee my rights?
• What principles should be used to judge when
  rights conflict?
• These are some of the Who gets what?
  questions.

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These are some of the major questions that
political theorists (or political philosophers)
have struggled with for thousands of years.
They are serious questions and must be taken
seriously if we as individuals or as a society
want to seriously answer the question What is
to be done? One thing we have to deal with when
studying the history of political theory is that
these philosophers have answered these questions
in very different ways.
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The study of political theory

• The study of politics goes back to the time of
  ancient Greece to both Plato and Aristotle.
• They had begun with the question What is the
  best regime?
• We can study political theory in two different
  ways.
• One way is to look real-world issues and examine
  and debate normative issues surrounding them (ex
  when is it right to go to war?)
• Another way is to act as a historian of
  political ideas and examine what past theorists
  have dealt with these issues.
• The latter approach will be used in this course.

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Goals of this course

• You will become acquainted with theories of the
  some the most important philosophers to have ever
  lived. You will be able to distinguish a Platonic
  argument from, say, a Lockean one.
• This will help you become familiarized and
  acquainted various elements within political
  theory as presented by the philosophers in this
  course.
• In this course you will grapple with these
  critical issues presented by these thinkers. You
  will quickly find that they do not agree with
  each other on much. Often you will find a
  philosopher arguing directly against another
  philosopher (ex. Rousseau against Hobbes and
  Locke).
• You will learn how to critically and carefully
  read. These are not easy texts to understand, and
  their meaning can easily be lost.
• You will also learn how to critically examine
  and assess the works of these theorists, over and
  above the ability to summarize and explicate
  these arguments.

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About this course

• This is an introductory course in political
  theory. It is not meant to be an exhaustive study
  of the history of political thought. It is only
  meant to give you a sample of what political
  theory is like.
• It is a selective course. We simply do not have
  the time to study everyone who wrote something
  significant about politics.
• It is selective in two ways. First, it is
  selective in who we study. A lot of very
  important thinkers are not studied in this
  course.
• Secondly, it is selective in what we read. Often
  a theorist has several key works that are worth
  studying (ex Plato. I could easily have you read
  The Laws, Gorgias, and the Phaedo in addition to
  what I assigned).
• It is often a challenge for a lecturer to decide
  which thinker and which text to include or not
  a lot of exclusions have to be made.
• Ultimately these courses are personal or
  subjective ones. (Which work does the lecturer
  think is important?)
• What you do get here are the bare essentials or
  absolute classics of this course.

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People worth mentioning
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More worth mentioning
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Germans worth mentioning
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Themes worth mentioning

• You will notice that there are no women in the
  course.
• Feminist political theory is a relatively new
  phenomenon in political theory. Most of the major
  contributors are still alive (Carole Pateman,
  Catherine McKinnon, Anne Phillips).
• The first major contribution to political theory
  made a by a woman was by Mary Wollstonecraft (A
  Vindication of the Rights of Man and A
  Vindication of the Rights of Woman).
• Another major female political theorist was
  Hannah Arendt.
• Other male political theorists have called
  attention to feminist issues (J. S. Mills The
  Subjection of Women).

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More themes worth mentioning

• You will also notice that we only cover Western
  thinkers.
• Usually Eastern political theorists (much like
  feminist theorists) are usually studied in their
  own courses.
• However, it is important to recognize that
  without medieval Muslim scholars (such as
  Averroes and Avercinna), political theory could
  not have evolved.
• Muslim scholars rediscovered Aristotle and
  reintroduced his work to the Western world.
• Averroes had a profound impact on medieval
  political philosophy, most notably on the work of
  St. Thomas Aquinas.

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A quick summary

• So far we have looked at what political theory
  is about.
• We have looked at some of the normative
  questions that political theorists have dealt
  with in the past, and continue to deal with
  today.
• We talked about how we study political theory.
• We talked about some of the skills that you
  should be develop when this course is finished.
• We also had a look at some of the major
  political thinkers that will not be covered in
  this course.

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So what will we do in this course?
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Who we will read in this course
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Themes studied in this course

• Justification of the State
• The State of Nature
• Who Should Rule?
• The Place and the Nature of Liberty
• The Distribution of Property
• The Individual and Justice

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Justification of the State

• The purpose of political theory is not to
  answer what kind of state there should be, but
  rather whether there should be states at all
  Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia.
• As stated earlier, this question was one of the
  first question asked by political philosophers
  (Platos Republic and Aristotles Politics).
• What is the best kind of state that can allow
  for its citizens to live justly?
• What kind of normative principles should the
  state embody?
• What should the ideal arrangement of the state
  be?
• What actions should the state do to render
  itself legitimate to its citizens?
• What principles should the state embody for its
  citizens? (utility? Justice? Etc.)
• What makes people want to live under the state
  than live without it?

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The State of Nature

• The state of nature is the state of existence
  human beings live in without the state.
• This has been interpreted to mean either one of
  two things.
• First, the state of nature has been used to
  refer to an actual historical time when human
  beings lived without a state.
• Second, it has been used as a hypothetical
  situation that imagines how human beings would
  behave if the state were not there.
• This has been used by political theorists to
  help justify the state.
• How would people act if the state was not there?
  Would they do bad things?
• What is the nature of humans? Are their natures
  something set in stone or is it something that
  has evolved over time and can continue to evolve?

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Who Should Rule?

• So we have a state. Who should be in control of
  it?
• To use a more elegant term who or what should
  be sovereign?
• We have a few options we can have the rule of
  none (anarchy), the rule of one (monarchy), the
  rule of the few (oligarchy), or the rule of many
  (democracy).
• Believe it or not, you will find people in this
  course who will make the case that ordinary
  people should not have a say in ruling (due to
  their nature).
• Even if theorists argue that the many should
  rule, they will disagree how they should rule.
• When should people have a direct say in their
  own rule, and when should they trust
  representatives to rule in their place?
• What are the duties of citizens in a regime if
  they have a share in ruling?

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The Place and the Nature of Liberty

• How and when are individuals free?
• Does freedom exist when we do not have
  restrictions or barriers to our actions placed in
  our way?
• Or are we free when we have the capabilities to
  do whatever we want?
• What guarantees our freedom? What should be the
  tools to protect freedom?
• Is there are a sphere of non-interference that a
  person enjoys that no one can encroach upon?
• When is it justified for an individual to
  interfere in the liberty of others?
• When is it justified for the state to interfere
  in the liberty of others?
• How do I enjoy my liberty? Do I enjoy it as an
  individual or as a member of society?

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The Distribution of Property

• In society, people own property. That is part of
  human nature.
• Should everyone have the same amount of
  property? Or at the very least, should none be so
  rich that they could buy another?
• Everyone having the same amount of property is
  highly unlikely. So how much inequality is
  acceptable between individuals?
• What should be the relationship between economic
  wealth and political power?
• Put another way should only the rich or
  well-off be able to rule?
• And how do we come to own property? Why should
  you believe me when I say that this laptop is
  mine?
• What are legitimate ways to acquire property?
• Do people have the right to acquire whatever
  they want? Are there things that they can and
  cannot own?

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The Individual and Justice

• How are we to enjoy or social and political
  rights? How do are we to respected in society?
• What should take priority the individual or
  society?
• Should our identifications to various groups
  (ethnicity, religion, etc.) have any bearing in
  the political sphere? Should we be accorded
  special rights because of our belonging to these
  groups?
• If we have group rights, how are they to mesh
  with individual rights? What do we do when they
  conflict?
• What role should justice play in politics?
• What is the relationship between the justice on
  the individual level and justice at the
  collective level?
• What is the form that justice takes, if it is
  agreed that justice should play a role in
  politics?
• Can a system of rights and a set of political
  institutions be derived from principles of
  justice?

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How to do well in this course

• Attend every lecture.
• Read everything that is assigned to you at
  least once. Your ability to read and understand
  these texts is critical to your success in this
  course. Ideally you should read everything twice.
• When you get your essay questions, it is
  imperative that you answer the question that you
  choose to answer. Dont answer the question you
  want to answer.
• Structure your essays properly.
• The essays should be considered dry runs for the
  exams. The nature of the questions for both the
  essays and exam will be very much the same. The
  only difference is the time in which to do them.