Updated Syllabus
SYLLABUS
Courses: PPE Philosophy Seminar
and Philosophy Tutorial
Seminar Time: Thursday (and
sometimes on Tuesday) 1:15-4:00
Seminar Place: Kravis 168 (when
not online or outside)
Tutorial Time: Designated Tuesdays,
by appointment
Professor: Paul Hurley
Contact Info: paul.hurley@cmc.edu
Office Hours: W 2:00-4:00, F 12:30-2:30
(with occasional rescheduling to accommodate faculty meetings)
INTRODUCTION
This is the syllabus for both the PPE Philosophy Tutorial
and the PPE Philosophy Seminar. Our
focus will be on areas of philosophy of particular relevance to economics and
politics – ethics, political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, and
the philosophy of law. It is helpful to
keep one distinctive contribution of philosophy in view throughout these
courses. Economics and political science
are disciplines that are by their own methodological assumptions descriptive rather than prescriptive
(political theory and jurisprudence are outliers here). They present themselves as inquiries into
what is and will be the case
with respect to market interactions and political interactions. Ethics and political philosophy, by contrast,
are primarily prescriptive. They inquire into what we ought to do individually and
collectively – into which institutions are legitimate and which actions are
justified. Economics determines which
interactions are more efficient, but not, by its own admission, which are more
just or fair, whether and to what extent efficiency (as economists understand
it) is a value, or if it is, how it weighs against competing values. The primary focus of political science is
upon questions such as which coercive political structures are more stable; the
primary focus of political philosophy is upon which ones are more or less
legitimate, and when coercive use of force by the state is justified. When we ask not just whether a group can
succeed in seceding, but whether it is justified in doing so, we have moved
beyond empirical inquiry into ethics and political philosophy. When we ask not just whether we can win a
war, but whether the war is just, we are engaged not just in political science,
but in political philosophy. Such
inquiry is important; indeed, much of the point of inquiry into what we ought
to believe is to inform our decisions about what we ought to do.
We will focus in particular this term upon the complex
interactions among Property, Freedom, Reason/Rationality, Ideology, Democracy,
and one particular freedom, Freedom of Speech/Expression.
Reason/Rationality: Is reason best understood as a tool or
instrument for determining the most effective means for satisfying our desires/
preferences, as suggested by rational choice theory (Econ 50), or is it best
understood as itself a source of substantive norms for acting and interacting
in some ways rather than others (“be reasonable!”), e.g. the Constitution’s
‘self-evident’ rights, reasons that determine what we can justifiably prefer
and which preferences we can justifiably act upon (Gov 20)?
Ideology: To what extent do prevailing beliefs about
property, freedom, reason, democracy, justice, etc. arise out of and serve
pernicious social conditions?
Democracy: What are the legitimating conditions for the
exercise of democratic institutions, and why? Do we have compelling reasons to
participate in them, in particular to vote?
Property: To come to have a property – an entitlement to
exclusive control -- in something that was previously unowned is to limit the
freedom of every other person to use that thing. What conditions, if any, could justify such
exclusive control, and such denial of prior freedom to every other person? Finally, do we each have a property right in ourselves?
Freedom: Is freedom non-interference (negative
freedom)? Is freedom formal or
substantive access to a rich set of options (positive freedom)? Is freedom independence from the arbitrary
will of others in the setting and pursuit of our ends (republican freedom)? Test cases:
I am stranded on a deserted island, so I have virtually no options, but no
one interferes with me. (Complete negative freedom, but no positive freedom) Is this freedom? I have an extremely rich set of substantive
options, but the state and other individuals constantly interfere with and
structure my pursuit of them (Positive freedom but strong limits on negative
freedom). Is this freedom? Alternatively, no one interferes with me, and
I have a rich set of options (lots of negative and positive freedom), but only
because I am a slave with an extremely permissive master who nonetheless can
interfere dramatically whenever she wants. (no republican freedom) How can this be freedom? We appeal to freedom constantly, but do we
understand it at all? Is one of these kinds
of freedom somehow more fundamental than the others? Does one of them, when fully fleshed out,
somehow comprehend the others?
Freedom of Speech: Is lying speech entitled to protection as
free speech, or is it a fundamental threat to the effective exercise of freedom
of speech? Is absolutism about freedom
of expression a coherent view? Should
freedom of speech be understood as involving a marketplace of ideas, or does
such an approach surrender speech to property? If I can sue you for defamation,
i.e. for damaging my property in my person through your speech, do you really
have freedom to speak, or does it give way to my property rights?
TUTORIAL
The tutorial component of this course is loosely modeled
upon the traditional Oxbridge tutorial.
Each of you will be expected to produce five 5 page tutorial papers
during the course of the term, and five 1-2 page (or the equivalent) comments
on the tutorial papers of your peers. I
will divide you into two groups, a
and b. Each group will have a tutorial paper due
roughly every other week (consult the syllabus), initially on a designated
topic (the designated topics will be written in the final syllabus), and will
have a comment due on the paper of a designated member of the alternative group
roughly every other week. Tutorial day
is Tuesday. Papers must be emailed to your commentator and to me by
3:00 PM on Monday (as a word doc); the commentator must come to the tutorial
with copies of her comments for me and for the author. We will have 60 minute tutorials, scheduled
on the hour, throughout the day on Tuesday.
Your paper and comments will provide the basis for a three way
discussion of the assigned text for the first 45 minutes; the final 15 minutes
are reserved for questions that I might have for the author and commentator.
If you are the writer, you are expected during the tutorial
to defend your written answer to the tutorial question, including your
exposition of the relevant arguments in the original text and, when appropriate,
the structure and content of your own arguments and criticisms. Your paper should include an introductory
paragraph clearly outlining the contours of your argument for readers.
If you are the commentator, you are expected to evaluate the
writer’s arguments, the extent to which he or she does justice to the relevant
arguments in the assigned text, and the extent to which he or she answers the
Tutorial Question effectively. In
particular, if there are important mistakes, lacuna, irrelevant tangents,
flawed arguments, and/or unsupported claims in the paper, it is the
commentator’s job to point them out.
The quality of the tutorial discussion is incorporated into
my overall evaluation of your papers and comments. Each tutorial paper (including discussion)
will be worth 1/8 of your overall tutorial grade, as will your partial draft of
your final paper and discussion of your draft; your 5 comments (including
discussion) will together be worth 1/4 of your tutorial grade.
SEMINAR
Although some of the meetings of our seminar will be on
Tuesdays (particularly at the beginning and the end of term), our primary
seminar day and time is Thursday, from 1:15 to 4:00. Each of you will be expected to post on the
blog most weeks, with a few self-selected bye weeks. At
least 6 of your weekly posts should be original posts on the material to be
discussed in the upcoming seminar; at least 4 of the others should be comments engaging
with the arguments put forward by others in their original posts. The original posts must be posted to the blog
by midnight the day before the seminar.
You must contribute at least 4 of these 6 original posts before the
midsemester break (including one for our seminar meeting on January 23rd).
The focus of these blog posts should be the arguments in the text that will be
discussed in the upcoming seminar; your posts will provide a jumping off point
for class discussion – you should come to class prepared to develop and defend
the arguments in your posts. These posts
will account for 1/4 of your seminar grade.
1/4 of your seminar grade will be determined by the quality of your
participation in class discussion. Half
of that grade will be determined by yours truly, the other half (confidentially)
by your peers. 1/4 of your grade will be
determined by your performance on an in class midterm; the final 1/4 of your
grade will be based upon a 12-15 page paper.
The final paper is due at the end of the term, but you must each have a
partial draft of your paper for distribution the Sunday before our April 29th
tutorial draft discussion.
POLICIES
Attendance: Come, come on time, come prepared, and come to
class with a hard copy in hand of the text to be discussed in
seminar/tutorial. Lack of attendance
(and chronic lateness) will adversely impact your grade, quite dramatically at
the extremes. Class time takes priority
over other commitments. When we are in
person, class is a screen free zone.
More on Attendance: If
at any point in the semester you are under mandated quarantine/isolation, I
will make arrangements with you to continue your instruction on Zoom during
that period. These arrangements will be
adjusted to fit the circumstances, and what constitute appropriate adjustments
in the circumstances will be at my discretion.
Video Etiquette: Please observe the following policies so that we can collectively work to
build a productive classroom when online:
§ Arrive
at class on time, as per usual, one person per screen.
§ Videos
must be turned on and kept on for the duration of class. Much of communication,
even on Zoom, is non-verbal.
§ Mute
yourself when not speaking if you are in an environment with distracting
background noise.
§ Minimize disruptions (inform your
cohabitants when you have class time and not to interrupt). Put other
applications in “Do Not Disturb” or “Downtime”.
Academic Integrity: I REALLY hate cheating, among other
reasons because it violates the fundamental purpose of pursuing an education,
and because to cheat is to unfairly benefit at the expense of your
classmates. Possible violations of
standards for academic integrity will be reported to the Academic Standards
Committee and prosecuted most aggressively.
If in doubt, cite!!
More generally, I expect you both to know and to follow the college’s
guidelines for academic honesty. Academic misconduct can occur in a variety of
ways, including (but not limited to) cheating, fabrication, and plagiarism.
Please note that the College’s statement of academic integrity specifies that
“all rules and standards of academic integrity apply equally to all electronic
media … [which] is especially true for any form of plagiarism, ranging from
submission of all or part of a paper obtained from an internet source to
failure to cite properly an internet source.” Accordingly, you are prohibited
from submitting papers that include text generated from a large-scale language
model (LLM) such as ChatGPT. I expect you to know and respect the boundary
between using these technologies to generate text, and using them for editing
or polishing original text that you have personally authored. When in doubt
about whether some academic practice is acceptable, ask me. Always err on the
side of avoiding misconduct. But as a
useful rule of thumb, if it isn’t OK to ask another person to do something, it
isn’t OK for you to use an LLM to do that thing.
Extensions: Because of the cooperative, synchronized nature
of this academic enterprise, it is very difficult to grant individual
extensions for tutorial papers. You need to arrange your respective schedules
such that your papers and comments are turned in to me and to your peers on
time – the tutorial approach will not work otherwise.
Mutual respect: Much of what we read is likely to make some
among us uncomfortable, perhaps even to cause offense. Some of these readings certainly make me
uncomfortable, and I find some of the views expressed within them
offensive. But they engage with important
and often extremely influential ideas, and if these influential ideas have
uncomfortable and even offensive implications, it is vital to explore how and
why this is true; indeed, it is irresponsible not to do so. These classes will not work as spaces of
shared inquiry unless we are prepared to challenge each other’s claims and
arguments and to explore controversial ideas.
But they also will not work effectively as such spaces if we fail to
treat each other with consideration and respect. Let us proceed accordingly.
Visiting Authors: I am making arrangements for some of the
authors we will be reading this term to meet with us during our seminar time to
discuss their work, some in person and some online. These direct, student driven discussions with
the authors are an extraordinary opportunity; be prepared to make the most of
them! Unless otherwise specified, plan
to post on the blog for these meetings, and proceed on the assumption that the
authors will have access to your blog posts.
In particular cases some of our authors may prefer written questions to
blog posts (I have offered them the option); we will adjust accordingly.
TEXTS
You are required to obtain hard copies of certain texts for
the course, and I will distribute excerpts from many others electronically in
PDF format or as handouts.
The texts that you are required to obtain for the two
courses are John Locke’s 2nd
Treatise, Karl Marx’s The Marx-Engels
Reader, Tommie Shelby’s Dark Ghettos,
Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom,
Seana Shiffrin’s Speech Matters, and Elizabeth Anderson’s Private Government. Please keep in mind that the original purpose
of the PPE stipend was to defer costs of the purchase of these books.
Among the texts from which I will provide excerpts as PDFs
or handouts are my own Against the Tyranny of Outcomes, Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, John Rawls’ Theory of
Justice and Briefer Restatement,
Cheryl Harris’s “Whiteness as Property,” Corey Brettschneider’s Democratic Rights, Arthur Ripstein’s Force and Freedom, David Gauthier’s Rational
Deliberation, Jean Hampton’s “Feminist Contractarianism,” Robert Nozick’s
Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Richard Posner’s The Problems of Jurisprudence,
Helga Varden’s “Leaving the State of Nature; Strengths and Limits of Kant’s
Transformation of the Social Contract Tradition,” and her “Self-Government and
Reform…,” and Seana Shiffrin’s “Unfit to Print…”
SCHEDULE
We will be behind and perhaps even ahead of this schedule at
various points during the term. Such
departures will be announced in class; you are responsible for keeping track of
them.
Jan. 21: Seminar. Introduction and Paul Hurley, excerpt from
Against the Tyranny of Outcomes (handout).
Jan. 23: Seminar. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan chs. XIII-XVII) (handout); Locke 2nd Treatise, chs. I-V (with a particular focus on V);
(Everyone posts on the blog)
Jan. 28: Tutorial. John Locke, 2nd Treatise,
chs. VI-XIII; excerpt from Adam Smith’s Lectures
on Jurisprudence (Handout), a writes
Tutorial Question: Locke argues that it is consent by the
governed – contract – that legitimates a political society. Smith argues that such consent plays no role
in the formation or legitimation of political societies. What is the core of Locke’s argument? What are Smith’s core objections to Locke’s
argument?
Jan. 30: Seminar. Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in The
Marx-Engels Reader.
February 4: Tutorial. Karl Marx, “The German Ideology,” in The
Marx-Engels Reader, b writes.
Tutorial Question: For Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, the preferred
political solution is to leave the state of nature and enter into an
appropriate form of political society.
For Marx, by contrast, the political societies they advocate are a
condition in which “activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided,” and
in which “man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves
him instead of being controlled by him.” (160) The question then is whether,
and if so how, we can overcome natural enslavement within
political society. What is Marx’s
historical account of empirical nature in “The German Ideology,” such that
political society is enslavement by such natural forces? What role does
ideology play in this account?
February 6: Seminar. Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness as Property”
(handout). Before break, 1709-1750;
after break, 1750-1791.
February 11: Tutorial. Richard Posner, excerpt from Economic
Analysis of Law (handout) and “Wealth Maximization Revisited” (handout) a
writes
Tutorial Question: Posner takes his wealth-maximization
account to require the state to exercise its coercive powers to “mimic the
market – if this can be done at a cost lower than the gain brought about by the
market-mimicking transaction.” (WWR, 102) Present and critically evaluate Posner’s
account of the application of this account of the state’s coercive authority in
the determining whether people should be assigned the right to their own labor,
and in deciding tort cases.
February 13: Seminar. Arthur Ripstein, excerpt from Equality,
Responsibility, and the Law (handout)
February 18: Tutorial. Martha Chamallas, “Will Tort Law Have
It’s ‘Me Too’ Moment?” (handout), b writes
Tutorial Question: Chamallas provides an argument that
gender inequality is reproduced in the law over time despite changes in legal
doctrine that purport to address it, through a process of “preservation through
transformation.” Present and critically evaluate her argument, including her
discussion of examples.
February 20: Seminar. Briana Toole, “Standpoint Epistemology
and Epistemic Peerhood: A Defense of Epistemic Privilege.” (handout) Toole
visiting in person.
February 25: Tutorial. Robert Nozick, excerpt from Anarchy,
State, and Utopia (handout), a writes
Tutorial Question: What is the core of Nozick’s argument here
that any state beyond the minimal state violates the liberty, in particular the
property rights, of its citizens, and upon what grounds would an advocate of
the wealth-maximization approach (such as Posner) challenge such an argument? Critically
evaluate Nozick’s argument.
February 27: Seminar. John Rawls, excerpt from A Theory
of Justice (handout)
March 4: Tutorial. Tommie Shelby, Dark Ghettos,
Introduction and Chs. 1 and 2, b writes (with sophomore Murtys)
Tutorial Question: In Dark Ghettos Shelby presents a “normative
nonideal theory of ghettos.” (14) Present his account of nonideal theory, then
present and critically evaluate his argument in nonideal theory for taking an
egalitarian pluralist approach, emphasizing in your treatment the respects in which
this is an argument within nonideal theory.
March 6: Seminar. Tommie Shelby, Dark Ghettos cont’d,
ch. 8, and excerpt from The Idea of Prison Abolition, (handout) Shelby
visiting by zoom.
March 11: Tutorial. Corey Brettschneider, excerpt from Democratic
Rights (handout), a writes
Tutorial Question: Brettschneider takes his theory of
democracy to steer a middle path between two unacceptable kinds of
alternatives, in the process avoiding the shortcomings of each while
incorporating their strengths into a single, unified approach. What are the two alternative theories? Present and critically evaluate the theory of
democracy that he develops as an alternative to them.
March 13: Seminar. Arthur Ripstein, excerpt from Force
and Freedom (handout)
March 25: Seminar. Helga Varden, “Leaving the State of
Nature; Strengths and Limits of Kant’s Transformation of the Social Contract
Tradition,” (Handout) Varden visiting by zoom.
March 27: Seminar. Midterm
April 1: Tutorial. Alasdair MacIntyre, excerpt from After
Virtue (handout), b writes
Tutorial Question: Only a virtuous person can participate
effectively in practices, and only a person who participates effectively in
practices can secure internal (as opposed to external) goods, goods crucial to
living an excellent life. The economically
rational agent cannot be the excellently reasoning agent, because she cannot be
virtuous, cannot participate effectively in practices, and cannot secure the
internal goods (only external goods) crucial to living an excellent life. Formulate your own tutorial question engaging
with these aspects of MacIntyre’s argument.
April 3: Seminar. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom,
with junior Murtys
April 8: Tutorial. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom,
with junior Murtys, a writes
Tutorial Question: TBD
April 10: Seminar. Simon
Blackburn, excerpt from Ruling Passions (handout)
April 15: Tutorial. Elizabeth
Anderson, Private Government, chs 1 and 2, and an excerpt from Hijacked
(handout), b writes
Tutorial Question: TBD
April 17: Seminar. Elizabeth Anderson, Private Government.
April 22: Seminar. Shiffrin, Speech Matters, Chs. 1
and 2
April 24: Seminar. Shiffrin, Speech Matters, Chs. 3
and 4
April 29: Tutorial. Rough draft tutorial, a and b write; a
and b comment.
May 1: Seminar. Corey Brettschneider, excerpt from The
Presidents and the People (handout), Brettschneider visiting in person.
May 6: Seminar. Shiffrin, “Unfit to Print: Government Speech
and the First Amendment.” (handout) Shiffrin visiting by zoom.
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