Jonathan Wolff Political Philosophy: Term 2 2003-4
Liberalism, Perfectionism and Communitarianism
The five weeks of this course will look at the idea of liberal neutrality, and how, in the last two decades, it has been challenged by communitarian and perfectionist writers.
1. Introduction: Liberal neutrality and John Rawls.
2. Sandel versus Rawls.
3. MacIntyre’s Communitarianism.
4. Raz and Perfectionism.
5. Rawls’s Response: Political Liberalism.
The best way to begin reading for these lectures, assuming that
you have a basic familiarity with Rawls’s A
Theory of Justice, is with Sandel’s
paper in Avineri and de-Shalit, then the papers by MacIntyre, Walzer, Gutman, Kymlicka and Rawls in that collection. Taylor’s paper is
also important. Miller and Friedman’s papers will also be useful. Raz’s views are not easy to grasp at first and a good
introduction is the chapter on Raz in Mulhall and
Swift, which also covers all the other issues discussed in these lectures.
Avineri, S., and de-Shalit, A. (ed), Individualism and Communitarianism
Caney, S. ‘Liberalism and Communitarianism: A Misconceived Debate’, Political Studies 1992.
Horton, J. and Mendus, S. After MacIntyre (esp intro, paper by Taylor and MacIntyre’s response to critics).
Kukathas, C. and Pettit, P., Rawls
Kymlicka, W., Contemporary Political Philosophy (ch 6)
Kymlicka, W., Liberalism, Communitarianism and Culture
MacIntyre, A., After Virtue
MacIntyre, A., Rational Dependent Animals
Mulhall, S. and Swift, A., Liberals and Communitarians (2nd Edition)
Nussbaum, M. Women and Human Development (see also Ethics October 2000 for symposium on this book)
Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice
Rawls, J.,
‘Justice as Fairness: Political Not Metaphysical’ Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1985, also in Avineri
and de-Shalit and John Rawls Collected
Papers
Rawls, J., Political Liberalism
Raz, J., The Morality of Freedom
Sandel, M., Liberalism and the Limits of Justice
Walzer, M. Spheres of Justice
Wolff, J. review of Horton and Mendus, Philosophical Books 1997