Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy

by Rawls, John

• ISBN13: 9780674030633
• ISBN10: 067403063X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-09-15
• Publisher: Belknap Pr

Summary

This last book by the late John Rawls, derived from written lectures and notes for his long-running course on modern political philosophy, offers readers an account of the liberal political tradition from a scholar viewed by many as the greatest contemporary exponent of the philosophy behind that tradition.Rawls's goal in the lectures was, he wrote, "to identify the more central features of liberalism as expressing a political conception of justice when liberalism is viewed from within the tradition of democratic constitutionalism." He does this by looking at several strands that make up the liberal and democratic constitutional traditions, and at the historical figures who best represent these strands--among them the contractarians Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau; the utilitarians Hume, Sidgwick, and J. S. Mill; and Marx regarded as a critic of liberalism. Rawls's lectures on Bishop Joseph Butler also are included in an appendix. Constantly revised and refined over three decades, Rawls's lectures on these figures reflect his developing and changing views on the history of liberalism and democracy--as well as how he saw his own work in relation to those traditions.With its clear and careful analyses of the doctrine of the social contract, utilitarianism, and socialism--and of their most influential proponents--this volume has a critical place in the traditions it expounds. Marked by Rawls's characteristic patience and curiosity, and scrupulously edited by his student and teaching assistant, Samuel Freeman, these lectures are a fitting final addition to his oeuvre, and to the history of political philosophy as well.

Table of Contents

Editor's

Foreword

Introductory Remarks Texts Cited

Introduction: Remarks on Political Philosophy

Lectures on Hobbes

Hobbes's Secular Moralism and the Role of His Social Contract

Human Nature and the State of Nature

Hobbes's Account of Practical Reasoning

The Role and Powers of the Sovereign

Appendix: Hobbes

Index

Lectures on Locke

His Doctrine of Natural Law

His Account of a Legitimate Regime

Property and the Class State

Lectures on Hume

"Of the Original Contract"

Utility, Justice, and the Judicious Spectator

Lectures on Rousseau

The Social Contract: Its Problem

The Social Contract: Assumptions and the General Will (I)

The General Will (II) and the Question of Stability

Lectures on Mill

His Conception of Utility

His Account of Justice

The Principle of Liberty

His Doctrine as a Whole

Appendix: Remarks on Mill's Social Theory

Lectures on Marx

His View of Capitalism as a Social System

His Conception of Right and Justice

His Ideal: A Society of Freely Associated Producers

Appendixes

Four Lectures on Henry Sidgwick

Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics

Sidgwick on Justice and on the Classical Principle of Utility

Sidgwick's Utilitarianism

Summary of Utilitarianism

Five Lectures on Joseph Butler

The Moral Constitution of Human Nature

The Nature and Authority of Conscience

The Economy of the Passions

Butler's Argument against Egoism

Supposed Conflict between Conscience and Self-Love

Appendix: Additional

Notes on Butler

Course Outline

Index

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