Philosophy 365 S
Political Philosophy
Winter 2006
Bahen Centre B024 Professor Gopal Sreenivasan
Mon & Wed 5-6:
(416) 978-2824
The following are available for purchase in the University Bookstore:
Skinner,
Course Reader.
In addition, four papers are available online as links from the
online syllabus. Note that these
readings are not included in the course reader.
Assignments
There will be three essays (2000 words) required in this
course. There will be no
examinations. The essays will each be
worth 33 percent of the final grade.
Tutorials
The Monday meeting of this class will be a lecture. The Wednesday meeting will be an optional
tutorial with the instructor, which will be open to half the class every other
week. Three Wednesday meetings over the
course of the term are cancelled.
(From my point of view:
there will be tutorial every week with [at most] half of you. From your point of view: you have the option of five tutorials,
roughly one every other week).
Reading
Schedule
January 9 Introduction. [No Wednesday]
Jan 16
Jan 23 MacCallum, “Negative and positive freedom,” Philosophical Review 76 (1967): 312-34.
Jan 30 Skinner,
February 6 Pettit, Republicanism (Clarendon, 1997), chh. 1 and 2. [No Wednesday]
Equality
Feb 13 Williams, “The idea of equality,” Problems of the Self (
First essay due.
Feb 20 Reading week.
Feb 27 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 2nd ed. (Harvard, 1999), §§11-14 and 17.
March 6 Sen, “Equality of what?,” in S. Darwall (ed.) Equal
Freedom (
March 13 Parfit, Equality or Priority? in J. Harris (ed.) Bioethics (
Democracy
March 20 Dworkin, Freedom’s Law (Harvard, 1996), Introduction.
March 27 Waldron, “A rights-based critique of constitutional rights,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 13
(1993): 18-51;
Waldron, Law and Disagreement (Clarendon, 1999), chh. 12-13.
Second essay due. [revised]
April 3 Spector, “Judicial Review, Rights, and Democracy,” Law and Philosophy 22 (2003): 285-334.
[No
Wednesday]
April 10 Sreenivasan, “Does today’s international trade agreement bind tomorrow’s citizen?,”
Chicago-Kent Law Review 81 (2006): 119-45.
End
of lectures.
Third
essay due April 28.
Office
hours
Tuesdays 1-3. I will also hold office hours by appointment.
Late
penalties
Essays submitted after the due date will be penalised one increment of a grade (e.g., from B to B-). Essays submitted a week or more late will be penalised a further increment for each week late.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a serious academic offence. It comes in various forms, all of which carry grave penalties. If in doubt about what constitutes plagiarism, ask. You should consult the Philosophy Department’s statement on plagiarism.
Students agree that by taking this course all required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. The terms that apply to the University's use of the Turnitin.com service are described on the Turnitin.com web site.
Writing help
Help in writing is available from the Philosophy Department’s essay clinic. You are also encouraged to consult the Department’s guide to writing a philosophy essay.
6 March 2006