Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL2050: Political Philosophy

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

Rawls’s theory of justice and his critics; the liberal communitarian debate; theories and types of equality; theories of liberty: negative, positive, republican; deliberation and public reason; citizenship, multiculturalism, recognition, and solidarity; civic, cosmopolitan, and environmental rights/duties; forms of powers and their critique; discourses of difference.

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
27.5	122.5

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled learning and teaching activity	16.5	11 x 1.5 hour lectures
Scheduled learning and teaching activity	10	10 x 1 hour tutorials
Scheduled learning and teaching activity	1	Review session
Guided Independent study	122.5	A variety of private study tasks directed by module leader

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice;

R. Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia;

M. J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice;

I. Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty;

Phillip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government;

R. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue;

Amartya Sen, Inequality Reexamined;

G.A. Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality;

C. Taylor, The Politics of Recognition;

W. Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community and Culture;

Brian Barry, Equality and Culture: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism;

J. Rawls, Political Liberalism;

J. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy;

J. Waldron, Law and Disagreement;

M. Foucault, Power: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Volume III;

M. Walzer, Spheres of Justice;

Steven Lukes, Power. A Radical View;

J. Derrida, Spectres of Marx