POL20010 Individuals and the State: The Idea of Freedom in the History of Political Thought

Academic Year 2024/2025

The slogan of the French Revolution is still popular: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Liberty is usually the most glorious and most popular ideal, but what does it mean to be free? Free from what? Free to do what? How is my freedom from interference compatible with your freedom to act? How is the authority of the state compatible with my individual liberty? Equality also is still a very popular ideal but the question of what kind of equality matters when is very controversial. Are equal rights enough? Should there be equal opportunities? What about equality of well-being? Fraternity, finally, has a lovely ring to it, but is quite complicated to. And not just because of the sexist undertones. When is the idea of community and belonging important enough to allow compromising some liberties and/or some aspects of equality?
The key question of this model is how freedom is compatible with the authority of the state. Over the course of this module we will look at some classical responses to this question as well as to the related questions of how to organise statehood in a way that balances concerns for liberty, equality, and community.
In exploring the theoretical foundations of today’s debates on these issues, we will initially focus on a selection of historical thinkers from the pre-Enlightenment period onwards, later bringing the debate more up to date with scholarship by more modern thinkers.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

On the completion of this module, you will be able to
• read and critically engage with historical and more modern normative political theory texts
• summarize and explain central positions in the history of political thought
• analyse and evaluate different arguments about balancing the authority of the state with individual liberty
• develop and defend your own normative political theory arguments in the form of a clearly structured normative political theory essay

Indicative Module Content:

Legitimacy
Social Contract Theory
Liberalism
Republicanism
Feminism

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

22
Tutorial

8
Autonomous Student Learning

81
Total

111
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
• Reading
• Listening
• Contemplating
• Debating
• Writing
 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations
Learning Recommendations:

Ideally, students would have taken INRL 10010 Introduction to Political Theory and International Relations or another module introducing the methods of normative political theory.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Assignment(Including Essay): The main assignment for this module is a 2500 word essay on a question of normative political theory. n/a Graded No

50
Assignment(Including Essay): There are homework exercises as well as in class exercises for all five tutorial sessions. n/a Alternative linear conversion grade scale 40% No

25
Quizzes/Short Exercises: There are weekly quizzes on the required readings. n/a Alternative linear conversion grade scale 40% No

25

Carry forward of passed components
No
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Spring No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment
• Online automated feedback

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Feedback on the tutorial exercises will be provided during the tutorials. Feedback on the quizzes consists of automated feedback as well as comments during the lectures. Further questions can be discussed in the office hours. For the final essay, students will receive semi-automated but individualised feedback using a rubric.

Hobbes, Thomas. 1996 [1651]. Leviathan, edited by Richard Tuck. Cambridge University Press.

Locke, John. 1960 ]1689]. Two Treatises of Government, edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge University Press.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1994 [1762]. The Social Contract, translated by Christopher Betts. Oxford University Press.

Karl Marx: Selected Writings Second Edition (2000), edited by David McLellan. Oxford University Press.

Berlin, Isiah. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford University Press.

Arendt, Hannah. 1998 [1958]. The Human Condition, Second Edition. Chicago University Press.

Rawls, John. 1999 [1971]. A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition. Harvard University Press.

Rawls, John. 2005 [1993]. Political Liberalism Expanded Edition. Columbia University Press.

Hirschmann, Nancy J. 2003. The Subject of Liberty: Towards a Feminist Theory of Freedom. Princeton University Press.

Pettit, Philip. 1997. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford University Press.

Boucher, David and Paul Kelly (eds). 1994. The Social Contract from Hobbes to Rawls. Routledge.

Hampsher-Monk, Ian. 1992 A History of Modern Political Thought. Blackwell Publishers.

Pateman, Carole. 1989. The Problem of Political Obligation: A Critique of Liberal Theory. Polity Press.

Rawls, John. 2007. Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, edited by Samuel Freeman. Harvard University Press.

Morris, Christopher W. (ed.). 1999. The Social Contract Theorists: Critical Essays on Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Ch’s 1, 3 and 4. Rowman and Littlefield.