Chapter 11 Further Reading: Political Philosophy

Primary Texts: The Social Contract Tradition

Thomas Hobbes — Leviathan (1651) Available free online (Project Gutenberg) and in countless editions. Parts I and II are the core. The writing is remarkably clear for a 17th-century philosophical text. Chapter XIII ("Of the Natural Condition of Mankind") is the famous state of nature argument; Chapter XVII sets out the argument for the sovereign. Worth reading in the original — the directness of Hobbes's reasoning is bracing.

John Locke — Two Treatises of Government (1689) Available free online. The Second Treatise is what you want: it contains the argument for natural rights, limited government, and the right of revolution. Chapters 2-5 on the state of nature and natural law, and Chapters 18-19 on tyranny and dissolution of government, are the essential passages.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau — The Social Contract (1762) Available free online. Shorter than Hobbes or Locke but more difficult — Rousseau's prose is dense. Book I (the foundations) and Book II (the general will and law) are the core. Book IV is useful on democracy and voting.

A warning on primary texts: all three social contract theorists are far more readable than they are often made out to be. Reading ten pages of the actual Locke is worth more than ten pages of summaries. The originals are available for free; use them.

John Rawls

John Rawls — Political Liberalism (1993, Columbia University Press) The development of Rawlsian political philosophy for a pluralist society. More demanding than A Theory of Justice. Lecture VI ("The Idea of Public Reason") is the most important for this chapter.

John Rawls — "The Justification of Civil Disobedience" (1969) — reprinted in various collections Short essay, clear argument, essential reading for understanding Rawls on political obligation and resistance.

Samuel Freeman — Rawls (2007, Routledge) The best single-volume scholarly guide to Rawls's political philosophy. Readable, thorough, and philosophically sharp.

Democracy and Its Foundations

Robert Dahl — Democracy and Its Critics (1989, Yale University Press) The most comprehensive philosophical and empirical treatment of democracy by the twentieth century's leading democratic theorist. Chapter 5 on Dahl's criteria for democracy is excellent. Dahl is bracingly honest about democracy's limitations.

Jürgen Habermas — Between Facts and Norms (1996, MIT Press) The full development of deliberative democracy theory. Long and demanding; the introduction and Chapter 3 on "A Reconstructive Approach to Law" are the most accessible.

Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson — Democracy and Disagreement (1996, Harvard University Press) The clearest introduction to deliberative democracy in practice. Accessible and focused on actual political controversies. Excellent starting point for Habermasian ideas without the difficulty of Habermas himself.

David Estlund — Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework (2008, Princeton University Press) The most rigorous philosophical treatment of the epistemic case for democracy. Careful, original, and rewarding.

Communitarian Critiques

Michael Sandel — Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982/1998, Cambridge University Press) The philosophically most rigorous critique of Rawlsian liberalism. Chapter 1 is the core argument about the "unencumbered self."

Michael Sandel — Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (1996, Harvard University Press) More accessible than the earlier book; applies the communitarian critique to American political history and contemporary debates.

Alasdair MacIntyre — After Virtue (1981/1984, University of Notre Dame Press) The most radical communitarian critique — argues that modern moral and political philosophy has collapsed into incommensurable preferences. Demanding and rewarding. Chapters 1-3 and 14-18 are the core.

Will Kymlicka — Liberalism, Community, and Culture (1989, Oxford University Press) A Rawlsian liberal's response to communitarianism. Argues that liberalism can accommodate the communitarian insight about the importance of cultural community.

Political Obligation

H.L.A. Hart — "Are There Any Natural Rights?" (1955, Philosophical Review) The original statement of fair play theory of political obligation. Accessible and elegant. Available in various collections.

A. John Simmons — Moral Principles and Political Obligations (1979, Princeton University Press) The most thorough philosophical treatment of political obligation — and one of the most skeptical. Simmons argues that none of the standard theories successfully ground a general political obligation. Essential counterpoint.

Joseph Raz — The Morality of Freedom (1986, Oxford University Press) An influential alternative account: we should obey the law when doing so better enables us to act on our own best reasons than acting independently would. Authority is legitimate when it is an "expert" whose guidance we should follow. Demanding but important.

Accessible Introductions

Jonathan Wolff — An Introduction to Political Philosophy (revised edition 2006, Oxford University Press) Excellent undergraduate introduction. Clear, fair, and engaging on all the major figures. Highly recommended.

Will Kymlicka — Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (2nd edition, 2002, Oxford University Press) More comprehensive than Wolff; excellent on liberalism, libertarianism, egalitarianism, and multiculturalism. Essential reference.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — free entries on: - "Contractarianism" - "Liberalism" - "Legitimacy, Political" - "Political Obligation" - "Democracy" - "Deliberative Democracy" - "Communitarianism" All authoritative and freely available at plato.stanford.edu

Contemporary Applications

Danielle Allen — Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education (2004, University of Chicago Press) A profound meditation on what democratic citizenship and political sacrifice require — focused on the Little Rock crisis, but deeply relevant to any contemporary reader thinking about political obligation and civic life.

Yascha Mounk — The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It (2018, Harvard University Press) A sharp, accessible analysis of democratic backsliding and the conditions under which liberal democracy is vulnerable. Grounded in the political philosophy tradition but focused on contemporary threats.

Francis Fukuyama — Political Order and Political Decay (2014, Farrar, Straus and Giroux) A comprehensive historical and philosophical account of how political institutions develop and why they fail. Rawlsian in spirit, empirical in method.

A Closing Note on Political Philosophy

Political philosophy is unusual among the branches of philosophy in having direct, immediate practical significance. The questions it asks — what makes government legitimate? what do we owe each other as citizens? when is resistance justified? — are questions you encounter every time you vote, pay taxes, protest, or decide whether to comply with a law you find unjust.

The tradition is old but the questions are fresh. Read the primary texts when you can — Hobbes and Locke and Rawls are more readable than their reputations suggest, and engaging with the argument in the original is different from engaging with a summary of it. The questions are important enough to think about carefully, and these are the clearest thinkers we have.