ETHICS & POLITICS
ESSENTIAL INFORMATION
Times and Places:
Lectures: Lectures for this module will be held on Mondays, at 19:00, in [location] during
Term 1; and on Tuesdays, at 19:00, in [location] during Term 2.
Seminars: Seminars for this module will be held on Mondays at 20:00, in [location] during
Term 1; and on Tuesdays, at 20:00, in [location] during Term 2.
People:
Convenor: The module convenor is Professor X. If you have any queries or comments
concerning the organisation of the module as a whole, email him or her at X
Lecturers: The lecturers on this module are: Professor Hallvard Lillehammer
(h.lillehammer@bbk.ac.uk) and Professor Susan James (s.james@bbk.ac.uk). If you have
questions concerning a particular topic or lecture, contact the relevant lecturer.
Tutors: The module tutors are: [names and emails]. If for any reason you are unable to
attend a seminar, please contact your tutor in advance.
Set Readings and Essays:
Essential Reading: For every lecture there is assigned reading (listed below as ‘essential
reading’). This is reading that you must do in order to understand what is going on in the
lecture. Therefore, in addition to attending the lectures, you must plan each week to do
this reading in preparation for that week’s lecture.
Additional Reading: Each week there is also further, optional reading (marked below as
‘additional reading’). This is reading that you should do if you are writing an essay on a
topic, preparing to answer a question in the exam on the topic, or simply if the topic is of
particular interest to you.
Essays: Each student should submit two essays per term for formative assessment, one
before Reading Week and the other by the end of Term. Questions and readings are listed
in the final section of this document. If you are in any doubt concerning the topic on
which you are required to write, contact your module tutor.
Assessment:
This module will be assessed in two parts:
1) A presubmitted essay, up to a maximum of 2500 words. This accounts for one-third of
the total mark. The submission deadline is midnight ending Monday 18th April.
2) A two-hour examination, held in the Summer Term. This accounts for two-thirds of the
total mark. The exam will be ‘seen’, in other words the questions will be shown to you
well in advance of exam day. Past papers may be consulted at
www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/elib/exam.
Moodle:
Electronic copies of course materials are available through Moodle,
http://moodle.bbk.ac.uk. You will need your ITS login name and password to enter.
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LECTURE SCHEDULE
Autumn Term
Weeks 1-5: Consequentialism and its Critics: the Good, the Right and the Virtuous
(Lecturer: Prof. Hallvard Lillehammer)
Week 1: What is Consequentialism?
Essential Reading:
• Philip Pettit, ‘Consequentialism’, in A Companion to Ethics, ed. P. Singer (Blackwell,
1991), pp. 230-240.
Additional Reading:
• Julia Driver, Ethics: The Fundamentals (Blackwell, 2006), pp. 40-80.
• John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (various editions), extract in Ethical Theory, ed. R.
Shafer-Landau (Blackwell, 2007), pp. 457-62.
• John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Harvard, 1971), pp. 22-7. Reprinted in S. Scheffler ed.,
Consequentialism and Its Critics (Oxford, 1988), pp. 14-19.
Week 2: Consequentialism and its Critics
Essential Reading:
• Bernard Williams, ‘Consequentialism and Integrity’, in B. Williams and J.J.C. Smart, eds.,
Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 82-118.
Reprinted in S. Scheffler, ed., Consequentialism and Its Critics (Oxford:Oxford University
Press, 1988), pp. 20-50.
Additional Reading:
• Elizabeth Ashford, ‘Utilitarianism, Integrity and Partiality’, The Journal of Philosophy 97
(2000), pp. 421-39. Available online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2678423
• Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 164-88.
Reprinted as ‘Autonomy and Deontology’ in S. Scheffler, ed., Consequentialism and Its
Critics (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 142-172.
• Peter Railton, ‘Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality’, Philosophy
& Public Affairs (1984): 134-71. Reprinted in S. Scheffler, ed., Consequentialism and its
Critics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 93-133. Also in J. Rachels, ed.,
Ethical Theory 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 222-55. Available online at
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265273
Week 3: Reforming Consequentialism
Essential Reading:
• Brad Hooker, 'Rule-Consequentialism', in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
online: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism-rule/
Additional Reading:
• John J.C. Smart, ‘Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics’, in Utilitarianism: For &
Against, eds. J.J.C. Smart and B. Williams (Cambridge, 1973), 3-74.
• Raymond G. Frey, ‘Act-Utilitarianism’, in H. LaFollette, ed., The Blackwell Guide to
Ethical Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 165-82.
• Robert Merrihew Adams, ‘Motive Utilitarianism’, The Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976),
pp. 467-81. Available online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2025783
Week 4: Beyond Consequentialism I: the Virtues
Essential Reading:
• Philippa Foot, ‘Utilitarianism and the Virtues’, Mind 94 (1985), pp. 196-209. Reprinted in
S. Scheffler, ed., Consequentialism and its Critics (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1988), pp. 224-242. Available online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/3131701
Additional Reading:
• Rosalind Hursthouse, ‘Normative Virtue Ethics’, in R. Crisp ed. How Should One Live?
(Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 19-33. Reprinted in Ethical Theory, ed. R. ShaferLandau (Blackwell, 2007), pp. 701-709.
• Martha Nussbaum, ‘Non-relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach’, Midwest Studies in
Philosophy 13 (1988). Reprinted in Ethical Theory, ed. R. Shafer-Landau (Blackwell,
2007), pp. 684-700.
• Michael Slote, ‘Agent-based Virtue Ethics’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 20 (1995), pp.
83-101. Reprinted in Ethical Theory, ed. R. Shafer-Landau (Blackwell, 2007), pp. 710721.
Week 5: Beyond Consequentialism II: Rights
Essential Reading:
• Leonard Wayne Sumner, ‘Rights’, in H. La Follette, ed. The Blackwell Guide to Ethical
Theory (Blackwell, 2000), pp. 288-305.
Additional Reading:
• Matthew Kramer, Nigel E. Simmonds, and Hillel Steiner, A Debate Over Rights (Oxford
University Press, 1998), pp. 60-100; 195-232; 283-302.
• Onora O’Neill, Towards Justice and Virtue: A Constructive Account of Practical
Reasoning (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 128-153.
• Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford University Press 1986), ch. 7. Available
online at http://www.oxfordscholarship.com
---------------------------
READING WEEK
--------------------------Weeks 6-10: Comparing Moral Dimensions: Rights, Intentions, Values and
Responsibilities
(Lecturer: Professor Hallvard Lillehammer)
Week 6: Rights versus Goods
Essential Reading:
• J. L. Mackie, ‘Can there be a Right-based Moral Theory?’, in J. Waldron, ed., Theories of
Rights (Oxford, 1984), pp. 168-181.
Additional Reading:
• Frances Kamm, ‘Rights beyond Interests’ in her Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities,
and Permissible Harm, (Oxford, 2007), pp. 237-284 (esp. 241-262.)
• Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford University Press 1986), ch. 8. Also in in J.
Waldron, ed., Theories of Rights (Oxford, 1984), pp. 182-200. Available online at
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com
• Ronald Dworkin, ‘Rights as Trumps’, in J. Waldron, ed., Theories of Rights (Oxford,
1984), pp. 153-167.
Week 7: The Doctrine of Double Effect
Essential Reading:
• Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, ‘Action, Intention, and Double Effect’, ch. 15 of
her Human Life, Action and Ethics, ed. by M. Geach & L. Gormally (Imprint Academic,
2005), pp. 207-26.
Additional Reading:
• Philippa Foot, ‘The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect’, in her
Virtues and Vices (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), 19-32. [Available via Birkbeck elibrary.]
Also reprinted in B. Steinbock and A. Norcross, eds., Killing and Letting Die, 2nd ed.
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1994), pp. 266–279; and in D. Oderberg, Moral
Theory: A Non-Consequentialist Approach (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), ch. 3.
• Frances Kamm, ‘Nonconsequentialism’, ch. 1 of her Intricate Ethics: Rights,
Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm (Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 11-47. Also
in H. La Follette, ed. The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory (Blackwell, 2000), pp.205226.
• T.M. Scanlon, Moral Dimensions: Permissibility. Meaning, Blame, (Harvard, 2008), pp.
7-36.
Week 8: Doing and Allowing
Essential Reading:
• Philippa Foot, ‘The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect’, in her
Virtues and Vices (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), 19-32. [Available via Birkbeck elibrary.]
Also reprinted in B. Steinbock and A. Norcross, eds., Killing and Letting Die, 2nd ed.
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1994), pp. 266–279; and in D. Oderberg, Moral
Theory: A Non-Consequentialist Approach (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), ch. 3.
Additional Reading:
• Kwame Anthony Appiah, ‘The Case against Intuition’, in his Experiments in Ethics
(Harvard, 2008), pp. 73-120.
• Frances Kamm, ‘Nonconsequentialism’, ch. 1 of her Intricate Ethics: Rights,
Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm (Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 11-47. Also
in H. La Follette, ed. The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory (Blackwell, 2000), pp. 205226.
• Judith J. Thomson, ‘Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem’, in her Rights,
Restitution and Risk (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1986), 78-93.
Week 9: Conflict, Comparability and Incommensurability
Essential Reading:
• Thomas Nagel, ‘The Fragmentation of Value’, ch. 9 of his Mortal Questions (Cambridge
University Press, 1979), pp. 128-141.
Additional Reading:
• Bernard Williams, ‘Conflicts of Values’, ch. 5 of his Moral Luck (Cambridge University
Press, 1981), pp. 71-82.
• Ruth Chang, ‘Incommensurability (and Incomparability), in H. LaFollette (ed.), The
Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, Second Edition (Wiley Blackwell, 2013). Online:
http://ruthchang.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/I_Lafollette_030-1correctedproofs1.pdf
• James Griffin, ‘Incommensurability: What’s the Problem?’, in R. Chang, (ed.),
Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason (Harvard University Press,
1997), pp. 35-51.
Week 10: Responsibility and Luck
Essential Reading:
• Bernard Williams, ‘Moral Luck’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 50
(1976), 115-35. [Available online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/4106826.] Also reprinted
as ch. 2 of his Moral Luck (Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 20-39.
Additional Reading:
• Thomas Nagel, ‘Moral Luck’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 50
(1976), 137-151. [Available online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/4106826 (follows
Williams’ paper in the PDF).] Reprinted, with revisions, in Nagel’s Mortal Questions
(Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 24-38.
• Judith J. Thomson, ‘Morality and Bad Luck’, in D. Statman (ed.), Moral Luck (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1993).
• Michael Zimmerman, ‘Taking Luck Seriously’, Journal of Philosophy, 99 (2002): 553576. [Available online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/3655750.]
Five Essay Questions, autumn term
1. What is the most plausible version of consequentialism? Is it convincing?
2. Which moral theory, if any, gives the best account of the moral significance of
character traits?
3. Is there an interesting connection between having a right and being able to choose? If
so, what is it?
4. What is the moral significance of the distinction between intention and foresight?
5. What is meant by ‘moral luck’? Is there any?
Thinker: Hobbesian Reflections on Ethics and Politics
ETHICS AND POLITICS
SSPL073S5
Spring Term
Lecturer: Prof. Susan James
Learning to Live Freely: Hobbes, Rousseau and Marx
What are the main threats to freedom and how can political societies limit or overcome them?
This is a central question within political philosophy. In this module we shall consider a range of
answers by focusing on the contrasting ideas of three philosophers: Thomas Hobbes (15881679); Jean-Jaques Rousseau (1712-78); and Karl Marx (1818-83). Each of these authors has a
different conception of a free way of life and a different diagnosis of the obstacles that stand in
the way of realising it. Furthermore, as we shall see, their views remain both challenging and
influential today.
There is one ‘essential reading’ for each session. You need to read this before you come to class.
The ‘additional reading’ is optional, but it is advisable to read it if you can. At the start of term I
shall provide fuller reading lists to go with each essay title. If you want to write an essay on a
different topic, please consult me before you start.
Weeks 1-2: THOMAS HOBBES
Week 1: Escaping insecurity: the justification of the state
Required reading
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chs. 13, 17, 18.
Additional reading
Jean Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 1986), ch. 2.
Week 2: Living freely in the state
Required reading:
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 21.
Additional reading
Julie Cooper, ‘Vainglory, Modesty, and Political Agency in the Political Theory of Thomas
Hobbes’, The Review of Politics 72 (2010), 241–269.
Weeks 3 – 6: JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Week 3: ‘Man is born free but is everywhere in chains’: dependence, amour-propre and
political corruption
Required reading
Jean Jacques Rousseau, ‘The Second Discourse on the Origins of Inequality’ (many editions but I
recommend Victor Gourevitch ed., Rousseau: the Early Political Writings (Cambridge University
Press)). Part II up to para. 33 (pages 161-174 in Gourevitch ed.).
Additional reading
Frederick Neuhouser, Rousseau's Theodicy of Self-Love - Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition
(OUP, 2008), ch. 1. (Available at Oxford Scholarship Online)
Week 4: Working Towards Freedom: the Social Contract
Required reading
Jean Jacques Rousseau, ‘On the Social Contract’ in Victor Gourevitch ed., Rousseau: The Social
Contract and Later Political Writings (Cambridge University Press), Book I.
Additional reading
Joshua Cohen, Rousseau. A Free Community of Equals, chs. 1 and 2. (Available at Oxford
Scholarship Online)
Week 5: Learning to Live Freely: the General Will
Required reading
Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book 2, chs. 1-6.
Additional reading
Joshua Cohen, Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals, chs. 2 and 3. (Oxford Scholarship Online).
READING WEEK
Week 6: Learning to Live Freely: the Figure of the Lawgiver and Civil Religion
Required reading Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book II, chs. 7-12; Book IV, ch. 8.
Additional reading
Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens. A Study of Rousseau’s Social Theory (Cambridge University Press,
1969), chs. 3 and 4.Charles Griswold, “Liberty and Compulsory Civil Religion in Rousseau’s
Social Contract,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 53.2 (2015): 271-300. Now available online.
WEEKS 7 – 10: KARL MARX
Week 7: Capitalism and Class
Required reading
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
Additional reading
Jeffrey Reiman, ‘The Critique of Capitalism and the Problem of Ideology’ in Terrell Carver ed.,
The Cambridge Companion to Marx, Cambridge University Press, 1991)
Week 8: The Distorting Power of Capitalism: Alienation
Required reading
Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, Section 1 in David McLellan ed., Karl Marx,
Selected Writings, 83-95
Karl Marx, ‘Alienation in the Productive Process’ from Results of the Immediate Process of Production
in McLellan ed., 547-550.
Additional reading
Allen Wood, Karl Marx, chs. 1 and 2
Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution, Part II. The Foundations of the Dialectical Theory of
Society.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/reason/ch02-4.htm
Week 9: The Distorting Power of Capitalism: Exploitation
Required reading
Karl Marx, Selections from Capital in McLellan ed, 458-508.
Additional Reading:
Nancy Hostrom, ‘Exploitation’ in Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7(2), 1977/
Week 10: Ideologies of Capitalism
Required reading
Michael Rosen, On Voluntary Servitude, ch. 6.
Additional reading
Allen Wood, Karl Marx, ch. 10.
Tommie Shelby, ‘Ideology, racism and critical theory’, Philosophical Forum 34.2 (2003).
ESSAY QUESTIONS
Explain and assess Hobbes’s view that liberty and fear are compatible.
Does Hobbes’s analysis of political freedom imply that people can live freely in the state whether
or not they have consented to it? If so, why does he lay so much emphasis on the need for a
social contract?
How, according to Rousseau, does submitting ourselves to the general will make us free? What
do you think is the most significant objection to this view? How might Rousseau respond to it?
Assess Rousseau’s account of the contribution made by EITHER the lawgiver OR civil
religion to the creation and maintenance of political liberty.
Does Marx offer a convincing analysis of the notion of an ideology?
Does alienation make people unfree? If so how?
Weeks 3 – 6: JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Week 3: ‘Man is born free but is everywhere in chains’: dependence, amour-propre and
political corruption
Required reading
Jean Jacques Rousseau, ‘The Second Discourse on the Origins of Inequality’ (many editions but I
recommend Victor Gourevitch ed., Rousseau: the Early Political Writings (Cambridge University
Press)). Part II up to para. 33 (pages 161-174 in Gourevitch ed.).
Additional reading
Frederick Neuhouser, Rousseau's Theodicy of Self-Love - Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition
(OUP, 2008), ch. 1. (Available at Oxford Scholarship Online)
Week 4: Working Towards Freedom: the Social Contract
Required reading
Jean Jacques Rousseau, ‘On the Social Contract’ in Victor Gourevitch ed., Rousseau: The Social
Contract and Later Political Writings (Cambridge University Press), Book I.
Additional reading
Joshua Cohen, Rousseau. A Free Community of Equals, chs. 1 and 2. (Available at Oxford
Scholarship Online)
Week 5: Learning to Live Freely: the General Will
Required reading
Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book 2, chs. 1-6.
Additional reading
Joshua Cohen, Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals, chs. 2 and 3. (Oxford Scholarship Online).
READING WEEK
Week 6: Learning to Live Freely: the Figure of the Lawgiver and Civil Religion
Required reading Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book II, chs. 7-12; Book IV, ch. 8.
Additional reading
Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens. A Study of Rousseau’s Social Theory (Cambridge University Press,
1969), chs. 3 and 4.
WEEKS 7 – 10: KARL MARX
Week 7: Capitalism and Class
Required reading
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
Additional reading
Jeffrey Reiman, ‘The Critique of Capitalism and the Problem of Ideology’ in Terrell Carver ed.,
The Cambridge Companion to Marx, Cambridge University Press, 1991)
Week 8: The Distorting Power of Capitalism: Alienation
Required reading
Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, Section 1 in David McLellan ed., Karl Marx,
Selected Writings, 83-95
Karl Marx, ‘Alienation in the Productive Process’ from Results of the Immediate Process of Production
in McLellan ed., 547-550.
Additional reading
Allen Wood, Karl Marx, chs. 1 and 2
Week 9: The Distorting Power of Capitalism: Exploitation
Required reading
G. A. Cohen, ‘Exploitation in Marx. What makes it unjust?’ in Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality
(Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Additional Reading
Karl Marx, Selections from Capital in McLellan ed, 458-508.
Week 10: Ideologies of Capitalism
Required reading
Michael Rosen, On Voluntary Servitude, ch. 6.
Additional reading
Allen Wood, Karl Marx, ch. 10.
ESSAY QUESTIONS
Explain and assess Hobbes’s view that liberty and fear are compatible.
Does Hobbes’s analysis of political freedom imply that people can live freely in the state whether
or not they have consented to it? If so, why does he lay so much emphasis on the need for a
social contract?
How, according to Rousseau, does submitting ourselves to the general will make us free? What
do you think is the most significant objection to this view? How might Rousseau respond to it?
Assess Rousseau’s account of the contribution made by EITHER the lawgiver OR civil
religion to the creation and maintenance of political liberty.
Does Marx offer a convincing analysis of the notion of an ideology?
Does alienation make people unfree? If so how?