Lecture Notes Contemporary Political Philosophy (6442DCPP)
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Course
Contemporary Political Philosophy CPP (6442DCPP)
Institution
Universiteit Leiden (UL)
These are my complete notes from the Contemporary Political Philosophy (CPP) lectures taught in the second year of IRO. If there's anything about the exam, this is about the exam in March 2021.
Lecture 1 – Introduction
Eichmann Revisited
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil (1963)
• He considers it to be one of the best CPP works
• A report on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, in the Beth Hamishpath – “House of Justice”
(Jerusalem)
• Eichmann (1906-1962) Was a SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer (“Senior Assault Unit
Leader”).
• Responsible for Jewish deportation to extermination camps (1942-44).
• Captured by Israeli Mossad in Argentina (May 11, 1960)
• Executed (hanging) in 1962
• Arendt describes Eichmann’s account from the trial:
o “This was the way things were, this was the new law of the land, based on the
Fuhrer’s orders; whatever (Eichmann) did he did, as far as he could see, as a
law-abiding citizen. He did his duty, as he told the police and the court over
and over again; he not only obeyed orders, but he also obeyed the law” (135).
• She gives quite a controversial answer evil is banal bc in part of the motivations of
the actors
• Very powerful argument we do things bc we follow the law without thinking what
the law is makes Eichmann understandable
• Arendt: first you need to know what right is, then you can decide if the law is right and
worth following (you need justice)
Nazis were not a legal problem, but a problem of political philosophy (deeper
understanding of right and wrong)
What is Political Philosophy?
• It is a philosophy because it seeks truth – i.e., it attempts to determine values and
principles through the use of rational argumentation
no empirical component
• It is political because it pertains to state institutions) and people in so far as they are
public citizens).
no questions of morality inside of home situation (only public institutions)
• Swift (primary reading):
o “Political philosophy asks how the state should act, what moral principles
should govern the way it treats its citizens and what kind of social order it
should seek to create ... [And it asks] what we should do, as individuals, when
the state isn’t doing what it should be doing. It also includes the crucial
question of what should and should not be subject to political control – what is
and what is not the proper business of the state ...”
o “As those ‘shoulds’ suggest, it is a branch of moral philosophy, interested in
justification, in what the state ought (and ought not) to do. The state, as
political philosophers think about it, isn’t – or shouldn’t be – something
separate from and in charge of those who are subject to its laws. Rather, it is
the collective agent of the citizens, who decide what its laws are. So, the
question of how the state should treat its citizens is that of how we, as citizens,
should treat one another. The state is a coercive instrument. It has various
means – police, courts, prisons – of getting people to do what it says, whether
they like it or not, whether they approve or disapprove of its decisions.”
o “Political philosophy, then, is a very specific subset of moral philosophy, and
one where the stakes are particularly high. It’s not just about what people
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, ought to do, it’s about what people are morally permitted, and sometimes
morally required, to make each other do” (5-6).
• Fabre:
o “One of the most important questions in contemporary political philosophy is
that of which principles ought to regulate major social and political
institutions, so as to ensure, as much as is feasible, that we are given what we
are due. An answer to this question provides a theory of social justice: of social
justice, in that it addresses the issue of what we owe to each other, and of
social justice, in that it attends to the organization of societies .... A theory of
justice sets out what is owed to whom. In other words, it sets out the content of
justice and delineates its scope” (Fabre 2007: 1).
EX: do people owe it to them to have wealth redistributed?
Why Political Philosophy?
• Rawls (Justice as Fairness: A Restatement): Why political philosophy?
1) To uncover deep moral understanding and compatibility, even at the root of
warring peoples and ideologies. It is through digging deeper into the core of
our beliefs that we discover core similarities at their roots.
NB: the roots of modern debates over liberty comes from Locke (liberty
from interference, freedom of speech, rights, etc.) This is what Constant called
the liberty of the moderns. The roots of our notion of equality comes from
Rousseau (liberty needs equal positions in society, and equality in daily public
life). This is what Constant called the liberty of the ancients (two conceptions
of liberty).
This question about how we resolve conflicts is essential bc often it looks
unmanageable. To see whether that is the case is by getting to the bedrock of
the core principles that we all believe in. When you start to clarify principles,
what you get is a deep level of moral understanding that can help you get out
of this difficulty of political non-understanding.
2) It is to reconsider our own institutions, as well as our purpose in participating
in these institutions.
3) By looking at our institutions rationally, we understand their own rational
fabric.
the world may look like a mess: police brutality, legal system failing
how to get out of the mess is to get back to the core (what is justice; law
enforcement), then we can see what went wrong.
4) It is to help create the terms for a reasonable utopia. This is partially borne of
accepting the world as it presents itself to us, and partially to help us structure
a better world to our liking.
NB: Rousseau the aim of political philosophy is to “take men as they are
and laws as they should be.”
Thinking like a Political Philosopher – (1) Social Justice
• Focus on ‘Social Justice’. This follows John Rawls’s proclamation that ‘justice is the
first virtue of social institutions.
justice is what makes a social institution right and good
• So, what is ‘social justice’? – it is a complicated term
o How can society be considered just or unjust?
o Can society act?
• What we mean by social justice is a set of things (which can be phrased as questions):
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, o What can the state legitimately coerce us to do?
o How can (and should) the state constrain individual action?
police/courts
o How can the law be justified?
Eichmann
o How should society be organized?
relationship between citizens and between citizens and state
Thinking like a Political Philosopher – (2) Ideal Theory
• This approach to the study of politics is called ‘ideal theory’. The pursuit of ‘ideal’
principles that should guide society.
o But can we really approach society this way?
• Two objections: realism, and non-ideal theory
1) Realism
or the claim that the pursuit of the ‘ideal’ of justice is unmoored from reality
Pursuing idealist visions misunderstand the nature of politics, which
distils to vicious and (sometimes) irrational struggles for power
i.e., idealism is insensitive to power.
This suggests a different approach. You don’t begin with moralism, and
then apply it to real politics; instead, you begin with real politics, and
aim for good outcomes.
Raymond Guess, Philosophy and Real Politics:
“[The realist approach to political philosophy] is centered on the study
of historically instantiated forms of collective human action with
special attention to the variety of ways in which people can structure
and organize their action so as to limit and control forms of disorder
that they might find excessive or intolerable for other reasons" (22).
you start with the really existing form of collective action and then
you try to limit the forms of disorder that are too intolerable as opposed
to starting with the principles and trying to create institutions in their
image.
2) Non-ideal theory
or the claim that ideal theories of justice cannot apply to actual societies
For example, problems of non-compliance. How do we approach such
ordinary conundrums? Idealism provides no answer
i.e., idealism is unpragmatic
EX: policy brutality cannot go away by restructuring police force as
long as the racism is structural.
What is needed are principles for what to do in our actual societies.
Since ideal theory is unrealistic, this means that pursuing it may
actually be dangerous (because it is unmoored from social reality).
So why do ideal theory? Some reasons
1) Generate principles to guide society towards moral ends – the ‘lighthouse’ function.
reasons for why police brutality is wrong build up institutions that embody
principles
2) The goal isn’t just to design an ideal society but figure out why it would be ideal.
3) It determines what values take precedence over others (so we have a way of
adjudicating between them).
avondklok
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, 4) Determine what is at stake morally, in decisions we make politically.
you can talk about the avondklok only politically, even though it’s a moral issue
(ignores what really matters what kinds of values do the political decisions
embody)
Aims of the course: Five core concepts in Political Philosophy (Swift)
1) Justice
2) Liberty
3) Equality
4) Community
5) Democracy
Aims of the course: Closer look into a particular debate – Liberty
1) Negative/Positive Liberty (Berlin, MacCallum, Taylor)
2) Republicanism (Arendt, Skinner, Pettit)
3) Socialism & Feminism (Cohen, Hirschmann)
Aims of the course: Applications (Faber)
1) Multiculturalism
2) Global Distributive Justice
3) Immigration
Lecture 2 – Justice
Examples
• Justice as a basic intuition
• What are the ethics of public health?
• Redistribution?
• Phoenix police dispute Cindy McCain’s allegation of human trafficking at airport after
she saw a child with a woman ‘of a different ethnicity’.
• Questions of justice can be complicated but are everywhere (core of contemporary
politics)
Fundamentals: Concepts and Conceptions
• What is the difference between a concept and a conception?
o A concept is the basic structure of a value or principle – such as justice, or
liberty. It is broad and capacious, encapsulating many different meanings.
should be broadly understandable
o A conception is the particular version of a concept supported by an author,
honing it down to a subset of meanings and characteristics – as in a ‘civic
republican conception of liberty’.
We will mostly be dealing with competing conceptions
• Example: justice
o What is the ‘concept’ of justice
• Swift:
o “The basic concept of justice is that it is about giving people what is due to
them… [This] ties justice to duty – to what is morally required that we,
perhaps collectively through our political and social institutions, do for one
another. Not just to what it would be morally good to do, but what we have a
duty to do, what morality compels us to do”
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