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What’s the right thing for a group of people to do? How does a society know it is well governed? How do you know you are doing the right thing for your country, or your fellow citizens, or how that will impact on your family and friends? Who matters more, your family or your fellow citizens? The best way to answer these questions has been debated for more than over 2000 years. This course is an introduction to the thinkers that have suggested answers to these questions and influenced everyone from Plato to Trump and you. In this course, you will study the evolution of the ideas that form the building blocks of the political and social sciences. The course traverses the political ideas that arose in the Greek and Roman civilisations, the Renaissance, the birth of America, the death of the English and French despotic monarchies, and the great traumas of socialism, Marxism and the political upheavals that followed the wars of the 20th century. We will trace the changes in the fundamental political concepts such as freedom, equality, rights, justice, government, the state, markets, and domination.
Learning objectives: By the end of the module, students should be able to comprehend and critically analyse complex arguments from the canon of Western Political Though, to provide a critical account of them, and to construct and defend their own sustained arguments about major political values.
PHIL145
Students must attend one activity from each section.
Lindsey Te Ata o Tu MacDonald
J. Morrow; History of Western Political Thought: a thematic introduction ; 3rd edition; Palgrave Macmillan (2nd or 3rd edition – the latter is better, and available from University Bookshop, and as an ebook).
Also recommendedWill Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy, 2nd ed, Oxford University Press, 2002.Dryzek, John, Bonnie Honig, and Anne Phillips, eds. 2006. The Oxford Handbook ofPolitical Theory. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Goodin, Robert E., and Phillip Pettit, eds. 2006. Contemporary Political Philosophy: AnAnthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Wolff, Jonathan. 2006. An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Oxford, UK: OxfordUniversity Press.
Domestic fee $894.00
International fee $4,100.00
* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.
For further information see Language, Social and Political Sciences .