Political Philosophy (Level 7)

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: Professor Robert Northcott
• Assessment: a 2000-word essay (40%) and 2500-word essay (60%)
  

What is the best way to organise society? What form of government is best? What should be the role of social institutions?

In this module, we consider a range of issues around these core themes, and the thousands of years of discussion of them. These issues may include central concepts, such as power, liberty, justice, the state, democracy and freedom of speech, as well as political ideologies, such as liberalism, socialism, conservatism and others. 

Indicative syllabus

• Defining democracy
• Justifications of democracy
• Liberalism and democracy
• Majority rule
• Freedom of speech
• Deliberative democracy
• Epistocracy
• Political ignorance

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• understand well-established accounts of democracy and liberalism, and their interrelationships with other approaches in political philosophy and political theory
• understand the theoretical and methodological approaches deployed by contributors to debates over democracy and liberalism, their strengths and weaknesses, and the ways they influence interpretations of political phenomena
• develop critical responses to the different justifications of democracy and liberalism, including instrumental justifications and appeals to political equality and rationality, while suggesting new concepts or approaches
• apply knowledge to critically challenge philosophical accounts of the relationship between democracy and such concepts as majority rule, deliberation and self-government; and between liberalism and such concepts as scepticism and autonomy, while situating these arguments in relation to different theories and methodologies within political philosophy and political theory.