POL 511
Graduate Seminar: Moderation
Prof. Rahul Sagar
238 Corwin Hall
258-2369
rsagar@princeton.edu
In this course we will study Aristotle's Politics, Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy
and Florentine Histories, Montesquieu's Persian Letters and Spirit of the Laws, Hume’s
Political Essays, Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, and Tocqueville's
Democracy in America. We will study the broader themes in these texts and we will also
examine how far these texts shed light on the idea of moderation and the idea of a
moderate regime in particular. Some of the questions we will address include: Is there
such a thing as a moderate regime? Why is moderation valuable? Is a democratic regime
more or less likely to be moderate? We will end by examining recent invocations of the
idea of moderation in the work of Raymond Aron, Michael Oakeshott, and Isaiah Berlin.
Assignments: Term Paper (25-30 pages in length)
Meetings: Mondays 1:30 pm – 4.20 pm in Robertson 006
1
POL 511: Syllabus
Week 1: Aristotle (Sep 17)
Aristotle, The Politics, trans. Stephen Everson, Cambridge University Press, 1996, Books
3-7
Fred D. Miller Jr., "Aristotle's Political Theory", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, located at:
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2012/entries/aristotle-politics
Richard Mulgan, “Aristotle's Analysis of Oligarchy and Democracy,” in A
Companion to Aristotle’s Politics, eds. David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr.,
Oxford: Blackwell, 1991,
C. C. W. Taylor, “Politics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle ed.
Jonathan Barnes, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995, Chap. 8.
Week 2: Aristotle (Sep 24)
Aristotle, “The Constitution of Athens,” in The Politics, trans. Stephen Everson,
Cambridge University Press, 1996, (“The History of the Constitution,” 211-42)
*Bernard Yack, “Class Conflict and the Mixed Regime,” in The Problems of a
Political Animal, Berkley: University of California Press, 1993, Chap. 7.
Cristiana Sogno, “The Ideal of Political Moderation in Aristotle’s Athenaion
Politeia,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, Vol. 41, No. 4, 2000
2
Geoffrey Ernest Maurice De Ste. Croix, “Class Struggle,” in The Class Struggle
in the Ancient Greek World, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981, Chap. 5.
*Eugene Garver, “Factions and the Paradox of Aristotlean Political Science,” in
Aristotle's Politics: Living Well and Living Together, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2011, Chap. 5.
*Josiah Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of
Popular Rule, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998, Chap 6.
Week 3: Machiavelli (Oct 1)
Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, ed. Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. and Nathan Tarcov,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996
Bk. 1: 1-8, 11-13, 17-18, 32, 37, 46, 55
Bk. 3: 8, 16, 25
Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, trans. Laura Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield Jr.,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988, Bks. 2-3
*John McCormick, “Machiavelli and the Gracchi: Prudence, Violence, and
Redistribution,” Global Crime, Vol. 10, No. 4, 2009
*Quentin Skinner, “Machiavelli on the Maintenance of Liberty,” Australian
Journal of Political Science, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2007
Anna Maria Cabrini, “Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories,” in The Cambridge
Companion to Machiavelli, ed. John M. Najemy, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010
3
Week 4: Machiavelli (Oct 8)
Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, trans. Laura Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield Jr.,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988, Bks. 4, 7-8
*Gisela Bock, “Civil Discord in Machiavelli’s Istorie Fiorentine,” in Machiavelli
and Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, Maurizio Viroli, New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1990, Chap. 13.
*John Najemy, “Society, Class, and State in Machiavelli’s Discourses,” in The
Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli, ed. John M. Najemy, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010
*Lauro Martines, “Political Conflict in the Italian City States,” Government and
Opposition, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1968
Christine Meek, “Whatever’s Best Administered is Best,” in Communes and
Despots in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, eds. John E. Law and Bernadette
Paton, Burlington: Ashgate, 2010
*Gene Brucker, Renaissance Florence, Berkley: University of California Press,
1969, Chap 4
P.J. Jones, “Communes and Despots: The City State in Late Medieval Italy,”
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 15, 1965
Gene Brucker, Florence: The Golden Age, Berkley: University of California
Press, 1998 (“A School for Self-Government”)
4
Week 5: Montesquieu (Oct 15)
Montesquieu, Persian Letters, trans. George R. Healy, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998
Donald A. Desserud, “Virtue, Commerce, and Moderation in the Tale of the
Troglodytes,” History of Political Thought, Vol. 12, No. 4, 1991
Week 6: Montesquieu (Oct 22)
Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller, and Harold S.
Stone, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989, Bks. 1-8, 11-12, 14, 19-21
*Aurelian Craitu, A Virtue for Courageous Minds, Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2012, Chaps. 1-2.
Paul Rahe, “Forms of Government,” in David W. Carrithers, Michael A. Mosher,
and Paul A. Rahe, eds., Montesquieu’s Science of Politics: Essays on the “Spirit
of the Laws,” Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001
*Isaiah Berlin, “Montesquieu,” in Against the Current: Essays in the History of
Ideas, ed., Henry Hardy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001
*Nannerl O. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France, Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1980, Chap. 14.
Pierre Manent, The City of Man, trans. Marc LePain, Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1998, Chap. 1.
5
Judith N. Shklar, “Montesquieu and the New Republicanism,” in Machiavelli and
Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, Maurizio Viroli, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1990, Chap. 13
Pierre Manent, An Intellectual History of Liberalism, trans. Rebecca Balinski,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, Chap. 5
*** Fall Break ***
Week 7: Montesquieu (Nov 5)
Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller, and Harold S.
Stone, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989, Bks. 1-8, 11-12, 14, 19-21
*Anne Cohler, Montesquieu's Comparative Politics and the Spirit of American
Constitutionalism, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1998, Chaps. 2 and 4
*Paul O. Carrese, The Cloaking of Power: Montesquieu, Blackstone, and The Rise
of Judicial Activism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003, Ch. 1-2
Sharon Krause, “Despotism in the Spirit of the Law,” in in David W. Carrithers,
Michael A. Mosher, and Paul A. Rahe, eds., Montesquieu’s Science of Politics:
Essays on the “Spirit of the Laws,” Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001
*Andrea Radasanu, “Montesquieu on Moderation, Monarchy, and Reform,”
History of Political Thought, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2010
*Eric Nelson, The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2004, Chap. 5
6
Paul Carrese, “The Machiavellian Spirit of Montesquieu’s Liberal Republic,” in
Paul A. Rahe, ed., Machiavelli’s Liberal Republican Legacy, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2005
Paul A. Rahe, Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2010, Chaps. 1-2
Week 8: Hume (Nov 12)
David Hume, Political Essays, ed. Knud Haakonssen, New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1994, Essays 1, 2-3, 5-7, 10, 13
*Fredrick Whelan, Hume and Machiavelli: Political Realism and Liberal
Thought, New York: Lexington Books, 2004, Chaps. 1 and 6
*Andrew Sabl, “When Bad Things Happen from Good People (and Vice-Versa):
Hume's Political Ethics of Revolution,” Polity, Vol. 35, No. 1, 2002
*Duncan Kelly, The Propriety of Liberty, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2010, Chap. 2
Sheldon Wolin, “Hume and Conservatism,” The American Political Science
Review, Vol. 48, No. 4, 1954
*Steven Wulf, “The Skeptical Life in Hume’s Political Thought,” Polity, Vol. 33,
No. 1, 2000
*Jonathan Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, New York: Oxford University
Press, 2011, Chap. 8
7
Duncan Forbes, Hume’s Philosophical Politics, New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1985, Chap. 3
Neil McArthur, David Hume’s Political Theory, Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 2007, Chap 6
Week 9: Burke (Nov 19)
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. J.G.A. Pocock, Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1987
Michael A. Mosher, “The Skeptic’s Burke,” Political Theory, Vol. 19, No. 3,
1991
Week 10: Tocqueville (Nov 26)
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. and trans. Harvey C. Mansfield, and
Delba Winthrop, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000
*Aurelian Craitu, “Tocqueville's Paradoxical Moderation,” Review of Politics,
Vol. 67, No. 4, 2005
*Eric Nelson, The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2004 (read “Coda: Tocqueville and the Greeks”)
*Paul Carrese, “Montesquieu's Complex Natural Right and Moderate Liberalism:
The Roots of American Moderation,” Polity, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2004.
8
Week 11: Tocqueville (Dec 3)
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. and trans. Harvey Claflin Mansfield,
and Delba Winthrop, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000
*Harry Clor, “Political Moderation,” in On Moderation, Waco: Baylor University
Press, 2008
*Robert C. Calhoon, “Political Moderation,” in Political Moderation in America’s
First Two Centuries, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009
*Anne Cohler, Montesquieu's Comparative Politics and the Spirit of American
Constitutionalism, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1998, Chap. 7
Week 12: Aron, Oakeshott, and Berlin (Dec 10)
Raymond Aron, Democracy and Totalitarianism, trans. Valence Ionescu, London:
Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1965, Chaps. 2-5, 18.
Raymond Aron, “After the Fall of the Idols,” in In Defense of Political Reason, ed.
Daniel J. Mahoney, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994
Raymond Aron, “Politics and History,” in Politics and History: Selected Essays by
Raymond Aron, ed. Miriam B. Conant, New York: Free Press, 1978
9
*Aurelian Craitu, “Faces of Moderation: Raymond Aron’s Committed Observer,”
in Daniel J. Mahoney and Brian Paul Frost, eds. Political Reason in an Age of
Ideology, Transaction Publishers, 2007
*Daniel Mahoney, The Liberal Political Science of Raymond Aron, Latham:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1992 (“Appendix: Excursus”)
Aurelian Craitu, “Raymond Aron and the Tradition of Political Moderation in
France,” in Raf Geenenes and Helena Rosenblatt, eds., French Liberalism from
Montesquieu to the Present Day, New York: Cambridge University Press,
Michael Oakeshott, The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Skepticism, New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1996, Chaps. 3-5 (focus on Chaps. 4-5)
Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal,” in The Crooked Timber of Humanity, ed., Henry
Hardy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
*** ***
10