Arguing About Political Philosophy

Matt Zwolinski is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego, co-director of USD’s Institute for Law and Philosophy, and the founder of and frequent contributor to the popular Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog. He is the author of numerous articles in political philosophy on topics such as exploitation, price gouging, and sweatshop labor.

Browsing the table of contents of Zwolinski's Arguing About Political Philosophy got me eager to teach Introduction to Political Philosophy next time using this text. The readings are well chosen and combine classic texts and state of the art recent work on a broad range of crucial topics within political philosophy better than any other introductory text I know of. I will surely be using this excellent text. David Sobel, Syracuse UniversityIt’s unusual for a textbook to possess both breadth and depth, but Zwolinski achieves just that. Debates over the meaning of central political concepts, and their reflection in several salient current political issues, are presented through a range of carefully selected readings representing both mainstream and other positions, historical and contemporary. The result is a strongly engaging introduction to the concerns of political philosophy. Hillel Steiner, University of ManchesterThis book is like a time machine, right from your own armchair or library carrel! One of the things students find scary about philosophy is the emphasis on "mastering thinkers." The recent resurgence in interest in studying philosophy has been caused in part by a reorientation toward problems. You can't study problems without time travel: what would Hume have thought of Rawls? How would Hobbes have reacted to Martin Luther King? Arguing About Political Philosophy is a portal to the kind of intellectual time travel that reveals why philosophy is at the core of a liberal education.Michael Munger, Duke UniversityMatt Zwolinski has assembled a lively anthology that retains a commitment to high standards while being extremely student-friendly as well. Arguing about Political Philosophy is above all about ideas, and it is refreshing to see so many diverse ideological perspectives brought together in one teaching text. Well-organized and judiciously selected, this collection provides an ideal foundation on which to build your own world-class course in political philosophy.John Tomasi, Brown UniversityThis excellent anthology presents political philosophy and theory within the social sciences as well as the liberal arts. Its thematic units combine selections from historical and contemporary canonical works with well-chosen supplemental texts ranging from literature to economics. It also lets students encounter an unusually wide range of normative positions, and so makes clear that the central problems of political philosophy remain live questions for debate.Jacob T. Levy, McGill University

• General Introduction What’s Your Political Philosophy PART 1 Foundational Concepts 1a. POLITICAL AUTHORITY i. Social Contract Theory and its Critics 1 The State of Nature as a State of War (Leviathan chapters 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21) 2 The Evolution of Cooperation 3 The State of Nature and the Law of Nature (Second Treatise chapters 2, 3, 8, 9) 4 Of the Original Contract 5 Society Without a State 6 Held Non- contractual Society: A Feminist View 7 The Racial Contract ii. Obedience to Authority 8 Crito 9 The Perils of Obedience 10 Letter from a Birmingham Jail 11 Is There a Prima Facie Duty to Obey the Law? 1b. RIGHTS 12 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights 13 Making Sense of Human Rights 14 Libertarian Rights 1c. JUSTICE 15 Justice as Convention 16 Justice and Utility 17 A Theory of Justice 1d. POLITICAL LIBERALISM 18 The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self 19 Justice as Fairness: Political Not Metaphysical 20 The Moral Foundations of Liberal Neutrality PART 2 Government, the Economy, and Morality 2a. POLITICAL ECONOMY 21 The Communist Manifesto 22 Critique of the Gotha Program 23 The Wealth of Nations 24 Market Failure 25 Pathological Politics: The Anatomy of Government Failure 2b. PROPERTY RIGHTS 26 Property 27 The Injustice of Private Property in Land 28 The Institution of Property 2c. DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE 29 The Entitlement Theory of Justice 30 The Atavism of Social Justice 31 Why Not Socialism? 32 A Basic Income for All 2d. FREEDOM 33 John Stuart Mill On Liberty 34 Two Concepts of Liberty 35 The Four Freedoms: Annual Message to Congress, January 6, 1941 36 Philip Pettit Republican Political Theory 2e. EQUALITY 37 Kurt Vonnegut Harrison Bergeron 38 Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare 39 Equal Respect and Equal Shares 40 Discourse on the Origins of Inequality 41 Difference and Dominance PART 3 Applied Political Philosophy 3a. DEMOCRATIC DELIBERATION AND VOTING 42 Moral Disagreement in a Democracy 43 Political Liberty: Who Needs It? 3b. IMMIGRATION 44 Is There a Right to Immigrate? 45 Immigration: The Case for Limits 3c. GLOBAL DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE 46 The Life You Can Save 47 World Poverty and Human Rights48 Liberalism Beyond Borders