Classics

This page and its subpages are the syllabus and visual and historical resources for my course on "Classics of Ethics, Politics & Economics." The course introduces students to classics in those three fields by examining how they deal with, and are inspired by, the clash between the demands of individual ethics and the demands of politics. This clash is often called "the paradox of public and private morality" or "the dirty hands problem." Machiavelli's Prince is the first modern text to treat it as a genuine moral paradox.

People sometimes ask: What is the point of studying these old and abstract theories of politics, economics, and ethics? Aren't people driven more by their vested interests than by abstract ideas? So if we want to improve things, shouldn't we focus on changing institutions and incentives, rather than on studying old theories?

A partial answer is:

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."

--John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936)

And a fuller answer is:

"If it is objected that all this seems very abstract and remote from daily experience, something too little concerned with the central interests, the happiness and unhappiness and ultimate fate of ordinary men, the answer is that this charge is false. Men cannot live without seeking to describe and explain the universe to themselves. The models they use in doing this must deeply affect their lives, not least when they are unconscious; much of the misery and frustration of men is due to the mechanical or unconscious, as well as deliberate, application of models where they do not work. Who can say how much suffering has been caused by the exuberant use of the organic model in politics, or the comparison of the state to a work of art, and the representation of the dictator as the inspired moulder of human lives, by totalitarian theorists in our own times? Who shall say how much harm and how much good, in previous ages, came of the exaggerated application to social relations of metaphors and models fashioned after the patterns of paternal authority, especially to the relations of rulers of states to their subjects, or of priests to the laity?

"If there is to be any hope of a rational order on earth, or of a just appreciation of the many various interests that divide diverse groups of human beings--knowledge that is indispensable to any attempt to assess their effects, and the patterns of their interplay and its consequences, in order to find viable compromises through which men may continue to live and satisfy their desires without thereby crushing the equally central desires and needs of others--it lies in the bringing to light of these models, social, moral, political, and above all the underlying metaphysical patterns in which they are rooted, with a view to examining whether they are adequate to their task."

--Isaiah Berlin, "The Purpose of Philosophy" (1962)

SYLLABUS

CLASSICS OF ETHICS, POLITICS & ECONOMICS

Was it unjust to bomb German cities after it became clear that the Nazis could not conquer Britain? Is anything morally wrong with hiring a prostitute, or with paying a desperately poor parent less than a living wage? Does market capitalism immorally exploit workers, or is it the optimal system of economic production and distribution? What is the supreme principle of morality, from which we can derive all our correct everyday moral judgments? Do we always do wrong if we break the law: have we made a social contract to obey it? How can we remedy social injustice so as to best ensure freedom, equality, and a well-ordered society? This course will grapple with these and similar problems, by engaging with some of the greatest and most powerful theories devised to answer them. These theories and arguments are due to Machiavelli, Marx, the general equilibrium theory of neo-classical economics, John Rawls, Kant, J. S. Mill, Hobbes, Thomas Malthus, W. E. B. Du Bois, H. L. A. Hart, Christine Korsgaard, and Michael Walzer.

We shall consider and test these theories and arguments as responses to the following problem. Our everyday, common-sense morality—conventional morality--tells us, above all, to avoid seriously harming other individuals. Moreover, it is the settled and established morality in society; and it claims to regulate everything we do. Yet when we think from the standpoint of politics, economic policy, and social structures, we often reach the conclusion that our conventional morality itself contributes to social injustice or public bads. Hence we often conclude that our conventional morality should be violated in the short-term and radically revised in the medium-term. But what if other people expect us to abide by that morality: isn’t it unfair to them to play by different rules than the established rules? Hence the morality of public life and of economic policy--critical morality--seems to require acts forbidden by conventional, common-sense morality. So there seem to be cases in which, no matter what we do, we do wrong. Yet isn't there always a right thing to do? This is the paradox of conventional and critical morality. It was clearly grasped by Machiavelli; and many of the classics of ethics, politics, and economics may be seen as responses to it. That is the lens through which we shall view the theories covered in this course.

One person who did not believe in the paradox was Thomas Jefferson, as we see in this quote:

"I never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having never believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man."

--Letter to Valentin de Foronda, 1809

Jefferson here sets himself against Machiavelli's way of seeing the problem.* For him, politicians are just as bound to be honest and keep their promises as ordinary citizens. But what if it really seems that the politician's only way of saving the republic from disaster is to lie or break promises? Jefferson's is a morality for politicians when times are good. But what should politicians and ordinary citizens do in the face of disaster or flagrant injustice? How do we balance among the claims of ordinary morality, the reasonable expectations of fellow human beings, and averting disaster or oppression? That is the problem around which this course revolves.

The course aims, above all, to hone your skills in reasoning, drawing distinctions, spotting equivocations, accurately describing the shape of a problem or a clash between values, recognizing and dealing with paradoxes, drawing consequences from principles, immediately spotting the main thesis for which a discourse is arguing, specifying the premises from which a discourse argues to its thesis, and accurately specifying the structure of any theory. Those who develop these skills have a great advantage in the professions and in legal, political, or social advocacy. The course, then, will develop these skills by applying them to the theories mentioned above. Most people have no real desire to strengthen their ability to think with precision, depth, and power. This course is for those who have that desire.

We are lucky to have some of the world's leading scholars of these problems coming to lead sessions of the course and to discuss with us their own work on these topics. Faviola Rivera-Castro is scheduled to lead a session on Section II of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals; Sean Greenberg will lead one on Leibniz and the problem of evil; Charles W. Mills is scheduled to discuss with us his world-famous theory of racial supremacy and what to do about it, and Lionel McPherson will lead us in a session on Du Bois’s essay “On the Conservation of Races,” and his own theory of the obligations the victims of racial injustice owe each other. As said above, the course will emphasize honing skills of reasoning, drawing distinctions, and specifying theses and theory-structures. Two sessions will especially emphasize these: session 3 will present a method for reconstructing and critically examining arguments, and session 7 will focus on describing and using Mill’s methods of causal inference, applying them to a famous controversy over whether all violations of society’s moral code should be criminalized: the Hart-Devlin debate.

NOTE THAT THERE WILL BE A SPECIAL MANDATORY SESSION OF THE COURSE ON WEDNESDAY 3 APRIL, 4pm-6pm, WITH CHARLES W. MILLS.

Course Requirements. To earn full credit, you must:

(1) Participate in class discussion. I know many people find this daunting. Nevertheless, try. One main aim of the course is to help you improve in argument. Note that participating can never hurt your course grade, but not participating can.

(2) Submit 8 weekly response papers. Each week, you may submit a paper, of not more than 350 words, that examines some thesis that that week’s reading has argued. The paper may criticize the argument by which the reading defends the thesis, mount its own argument to refute the thesis, or mount its own argument to defend the thesis. For full credit, you need only submit 8 such papers. (You may submit more than 8, and in that case, only the best 8 will count towards your grade.)

(3) Submit a paper proposal . You are required to submit, at the beginning of Session 8, a proposal for your final paper. The proposal should state a question concerning one of the topics covered in the course, say why the question is important, state your answer to the question (i.e., your thesis), give the key reasons by which you will defend the thesis, state two serious objections to your thesis, and state how you will respond to the objections. The proposal should be not more than 800 words long, and can be definitely less.

(4) Submit a final paper . You are required to submit, on the last day of reading period, a final paper. The paper should state a question concerning one of the topics covered in the course, say why the question is important, state your answer to the question (i.e., your thesis), defend the thesis with argument, present two serious objections to your thesis, and respond to the objections. The paper should be not more than 4,000 words long.

Course Assessment. Course marks will be computed on the following distribution: Class Participation: 20%; Response Papers: 35% (4.375 % each); Paper Proposal: 15%; Argumentative Paper: 30%

Course format. The course will be discussion oriented. I will usually begin sessions by presenting a thesis advanced in the week’s reading. I will discuss its implications. I will then ask one or many of you whether you think the thesis true or false, and why. We shall then examine the reasons you offer for your view. We shall then turn to the reasons the text offers in defense of the thesis. I will ask you what you think of those reasons, and so forth. The course in part aims to improve your skill in reasoned argument.

E-mail policy. You are welcome to e-mail me with questions about the course. I try to answer emails within 48 hours of receipt. Don’t expect an answer before then.

Objectives. By the end of the course, students should be able to (1) immediately and accurately specify the main thesis of any discourse, (2) immediately and accurately identify the question which that thesis directly answers, (3) identify and accurately describe the main propositions of any theory, (4) accurately derive consequences from any of a theory’s propositions, (5) draw careful distinctions between different interpretations of concepts, (6) immediately and accurately specify the main premises of any argument, (7) describe the inferential relation between the premises and the thesis, (8) accurately evaluate that relation, (9) construct a well-ordered argument against the thesis, (10) construct a well-ordered argument against each premise, (11) accurately identify equivocations in arguments, (12) put a precisely-specified question about the topics of interest to ethics, politics & economics, (13) explain why that question is significant,(14) present their own precisely-specified thesis which directly answers their research question, (15) construct well-ordered arguments for their own theses, (16) construct well-ordered objections to their own arguments, and (17) construct well-ordered replies to those objections.

BOOKS

Y = At Yale Bookstore.

I= In print, purchasable from Barnes & Noble, Routledge, or Powell’s.

U= Out of print, purchasable used at Barnes & Noble or Powell’s.

A= Out of print, purchasable used at Amazon, Alibris, or Abebooks.

Try addallDOTcom for pricing of in print and out of print books.

All books will be on reserve at Bass Library.

REQUIRED

[1] John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, revised ed. (Cambridge MA: Belknap, 1999) Y, U, A

[2] John Skorupski, John Stuart Mill (London: Routledge, 1989). I, U, A

[3] Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge

UP, 1998). U, A

[4] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994). Y, U, A

RECOMMENDED

[1] Steven Lukes, Marxism and Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985). U, A

[2] Alec Fisher, The Logic of Real Arguments (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Y, U, A

[3] Fred R. Berger, Happiness, Justice, and Freedom: The Moral and Political Philosophy of

John Stuart Mill (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). U, A

[4] John Plamenatz, The English Utilitarians, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958 or 1966). A

[5] Wayne C. Booth et al., The Craft of Research (University of Chicago Press, 2008). Y, U, A

[6] Steven Lukes, Marxism and Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985) U, A

RECOMMENDED REFERENCES AND BACKGROUND READING

[1] The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta [plato.stanford.edu]

A free resource which is probably the most comprehensive encyclopedia of philosophy ever compiled. Authoritative articles by scholars.

[2] The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2^nd edn (2008) [www.dictionaryofeconomics.com]

A non-free resource accessible online through the Yale Libraries. One of the most comprehensive dictionaries of economics ever. Authoritative articles by scholars.

[3] Timeline of Events and Ideas, by me

A timeline of political, social, and economic events from the European discovery of America to the First World War, side by side with a timeline of the dissemination of ideas and intellectual institutions during the same period. Sets the ideas in social, political, and economic context; and the events in intellectual context.

SCHEDULE

(Click on the links below for visual and historical resources, and remember to check out

the Timeline of Events and Ideas)

Session 1. Introduction to the Course: The Paradox of Critical and Conventional Morality.

Suggested readings to prepare for class: Extracts from Machiavelli, The Prince, on the paradox of critical and conventional morality, and on the dirty hands problem. From Ch. XV, "The things for which men, and especially rulers, are praised or blamed," from Ch. XVIII, "How princes should keep their promises," and from Ch. VIII, "Those who become rulers through wicked means." [2pp. ClassesV2]

An early statement of the paradox of conventional and critical morality, and of the dirty hands problem.

Also suggested: Steven Lukes, Marxism and Morality, pp. 100, 102-106. [5pp. ClassesV2]

On the contours of the dirty hands problem: A famous passage from Jean-Paul Sartre’s play Les mains sales (Dirty Hands), and Rosa Luxemburg’s criticism of the Bolsheviks’ elevating dirty hands into a general principle, rather than a tragic emergency tactic.

And also: Michael Walzer, "Supreme Emergency," Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 2006), pp. 251-263

[12pp. ClassesV2]

A criticism of a famous decision that was driven both by conventional morality and critical morality: that by Churchill and Bomber Command to continue bombing German cities even after it was clear that the Nazis could not conquer Britain. Conventional morality in Britain at the time held that Nazism was so evil, and that the Blitz of British cities had been so unjust, that it was permissible to saturation-bomb German cities until Germany surrendered. The critical morality held by some British officials, including Bomber Command chief Arthur Harris, claimed that the total number of casualties on both sides would be lower if the city-bombings continued until Germany surrendered than if they stopped before that.

Click for materials on dirty hands and supreme emergency

Session 2. (1) What To Do If The Conventional Morality of Our Day Supports Oppression, and Yet We Know That Other People Will Keep Following It? (2) Mill's Theory of Economic and Penal Justice.

Read first: Fred R. Berger, "The Status of Women," Happiness, Justice, and Freedom: The Moral and Political Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, pp. 195-204. [9 pp. ClassesV2]

Mill’s famous indictment in The Subjection of Women of the Victorian legal and moral subjection of women to their husbands or fathers. His arguments that such domination is not natural, is a violation of the demands of equality, and that ending the subjection would increase the freedom both of women and men. Mill thus indicts the conventional morality of his time, and calls for a radical revision of it. But, though he called for an end to legal inequality and the opening of all jobs to women, he did not also call for remedial justice by the state and society to give women equal opportunity to men: and seems to have opposed it. So then the revised conventional morality has to carry the huge load of providing women with equal opportunity. But what to do if some individuals cheat and don’t do their share of providing such opportunity?

Then read: Berger, "Wage-Relation and Poor Laws," [Mill's diagnosis of the bad effects of wage-labor and of poverty; his theories that the wage relation should be abolished, and the poor provided by the state with subsistence and employment] Happiness, Justice, pp. 183-86

[3pp. ClassesV2]

Then: Berger, "Property," "Taxation," [Mill's strong defense of the right to private property that one has earned by one’s own effort, his theory that inheritances may be heavily taxed because unearned; and his theory that the portion of one’s income not due to one’s own effort may be liberally taxed] Happiness, Justice, pp. 171-75, 178-83

[9pp. ClassesV2]

Mill’s radical critique of the conventional and critical morality of his day—and ours—concerning these questions.

Next: Berger, "Basic Principles [of Economic Justice]," pp. 166-171 [5pp. ClassesV2]

Principles from which Mill conducts that critique: chief among them, that economic rewards should be proportioned to merit, and merit is based ONLY on labor or exertion.

Then: Berger, "Desert and Reward," and "Equality," pp. 153-166 [13 pp. ClassesV2]

Mill's theory of what we deserve, and his view that society's duty to treat people as equals requires that no one be allowed to fall below a certain baseline of goods.

Finally: Berger, "Punishment and Desert," pp. 134-146

[12 pp. ClassesV2]

Mill's theory that we ought to punish the deserving only when the ends achieved by the punishment are likely to be good. But then wouldn't we do an injustice to those we punish who deserve it, if we allow others who deserve it to escape punishment?

Click for materials on the subjection of women and Mill's theory of economic justice

Session 3. (1) Marx's Theory that Market Capitalism Is Unacceptably Exploitative; (2) the Efficiency Argument for Market Capitalism; (3) Malthus's Argument that a Society of Equals Is Impossible; & (4) A Method for Reconstructing and Evaluating Arguments.

Read first: Allen W. Wood, "Capitalist Exploitation," Karl Marx, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 242-264.

[22pp. ClassesV2]

Indicts conventional morality for creating some of the serious harms which critical morality must reduce.

Click for materials on Marx and exploitation

Then read: Allen Buchanan, "Efficiency Arguments for the Market," Ethics, Efficiency, and the Market (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1985), pp. 14-18 [5pp. ClassesV2]

An argument, from general equilibrium theory in economics, to the view that the demands of our pro-market conventional morality help permit the achievement of one of the most cherished goals of critical morality: efficient distributions of goods.

Then: Alec Fisher, "A first example--from Thomas Malthus," The Logic of Real Arguments, pp. 29-47.

[18pp. ClassesV2]

A theory that the demands of conventional morality and the facts about sexual desire and population make it impossible to achieve a cherished goal of critical morality: a society of equals.

Finally: John Plamenatz, "Malthus," The English Utilitarians, p. 115-117. [3pp. ClassesV2]

A corrective to the slightly unfair picture of Malthus’s theory given above.

Click for materials on general equilibrium and efficiency arguments

Click for materials on Malthus and population pressure

Session 4. Rawls's theory of economic justice, and how far market capitalism can satisfy it.

Read in this order: Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Revised ed, Sections 3, 4, 11, 41-43, 46-48 [51pp.]

Then read: Rawls, Theory, Sections 12-15 [24pp.]

A theory of economic justice comprising part of a general theory of social justice constructed so that, if implemented, it would help dissolve the paradox of conventional and critical morality.

Session 5. Led by Faviola Rivera Castro, National Autonomous University of Mexico. Kant's theory of the supreme principle of morality: a version of the Golden Rule? Derivation of the Categorical Imperative from the Autonomy of the Will. The five Formulations of the Categorical Imperative: Formulae of Universal Law, Law of Nature, Autonomy, End in Itself, and Kingdom of Ends. The Unity of the Formulae.

Read first: Christine M. Korsgaard, "Introduction," Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), ed. Mary Gregor, pp. vii-xxx. [23pp. ClassesV2]

Then read: Kant, Groundwork , ed. Gregor, Preface, pp. 1-6. [6pp. ClassesV2]

Then: Kant, Groundwork , ed. Gregor, Section II, pp. 19-51. [32pp. ClassesV2]

A theory of morality which reduces conventional and critical morality to a single moral system, founded in something like the Golden Rule.

Click for materials on equal-respect theory from Kant to Rawls

Session 6. Led by Sean Greenberg, Univ of California-Irvine. Leibniz’s theory of the problem of evil and his perfectionist theory of morality.

Read: Selections from Leibniz’s Theodicy. [ClassesV2]

A theory according to which all the evil and injustice caused by violations of conventional and critical morality is in fact necessary for the world to be maximally good.

Click for materials on Leibniz and the problem of evil

Session 7. John Stuart Mill's Theory of the Foundations of Utilitarian Morality and Liberal Utiliarianism: Synopsis of the Theory & How Utilitarianism Is Grounded in the Canons of Causal Inference. A Famous Controversy On Which You Can Use the Methods.

Read first: John Skorupski, John Stuart Mill, pp. 5, 12-26 [15pp.]

Some main features of Mill’s system: its view that humans should be seen wholly as natural beings within the natural causal order, its view that knowledge is based on revisable generalizations from experience, its view that the happiness of individuals is the highest good, its commitment to the moral equality of all humans, its commitment to the value of autonomous development of individuality, and its claim that human nature is changeable and changing.

Click for materials on the foundations of Mill's system

Then read: Skorupski, "Induction and Inductivism," John Stuart Mill, 6.1, 6.2, p. 178, 6.4, 6.5 [20pp.]

Mill’s methods of causal inference. The Agreement Method isolates necessary conditions of the phenomenon, the Difference Method isolates sufficient conditions of the phenomenon. These conditions may be used when debating any alleged necessary, sufficient, or jointly necessary and sufficient conditions.

Then: H. L. A. Hart, "Social Solidarity and the Enforcement of Morality," pp. 248-50, 256-262 [9pp. ClassesV2]

A famous analysis of the disintegration thesis: that it is necessary for the continued existence of a society that its core moral norms—those that constitute its pervasive style of life—be widely followed and respected. If they are not, then people feel free to break them, and then that society will disintegrate, in that antisocial behavior will rise. In short: It is sufficient for a rise in antisocial behavior that the core moral norms not be widely followed and respected. How would one use the Agreement Method and the Difference Method to evaluate this thesis?

Finally: Skorupski, "Induction and Inductivism," John Stuart Mill, pp. 187-89, 6.8 [9pp.]

How do we establish that we have exhaustively listed all the possible necessary or sufficient conditions of a phenomenon, as the Methods require? Is Mill right in claiming that inference to the best explanation is not a good method for justifying hypotheses?

Click for materials on positivism, from which Mill gets his inductivism

Session 8. Mill’s Liberal Utilitarian Political Theory and How It Is Grounded in His Utilitarian Moral Theory.

Read first: Skorupski, John Stuart Mill, "Liberty," 10.1, 10.2, 10.8 [12pp.]

Then read: Skorupski, Mill, "Liberty," 10.3-10.5, 10.6, 10.7 [21pp.]

Then: Skorupski, Mill , "Utilitarianism," 9.1, 9.2, 9.11-9.14 [24pp.]

Then read: Skorupski, Mill, "Utilitarianism," 9.5-9.8 [15pp.]

The supreme paradox-dissolving moral theory, and how it supports a liberal political theory.

Click for materials on liberalism

Click for materials on the development of utilitarianism

PAPER PROPOSALS DUE IN CLASS

Session 9. Hobbes’s Theory that Morality and Natural Law are Norms of Prudence, his Violence-of-Anarchy Justification of the State, and his Social Contract Theory of Legitimate Authority and the Duty of Obedience.

Read first: Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), Chapters 13-18. [45 pp.]

Then read: Leviathan, Chapters 20-21 [18 pp.]

A theory that reworks conventional morality so that humans—seen as selfish and prone to engage in conflict and strife—can better fulfill the demands of critical morality, which it also reworks to fit this vision of human nature.

Then: Jean Hampton, "Contract and Consent," in A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Blackwell, 2007), pp. 478-483, 488-491. [8pp. ClassesV2]

Click for materials on natural rights and social contract theory

Session 10. Led by Charles W. Mills, Northwestern Univ. The Domination Contract, and Rawls's Silences on Race.

Read first: Charles W. Mills, "The Domination Contract," in Mills and Carole Pateman, Contract and Domination (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), pp.79-105 [26pp. ClassesV2]

Then read: Charles W. Mills, "Retrieving Rawls for Racial Justice: A Critique of Tommie Shelby," Critical Philosophy of Race 1 (2013). [ClassesV2]

Session 11. Led by Lionel McPherson, Tufts Univ. Du Bois's Theory of the Conservation of Races. A Theory of the Obligations of Solidarity that the Victims of Racism Owe to Each Other.

Read first: W. E. B. Du Bois, "The Conservation of Races," [ClassesV2]

A theory that argues that, partly because of systematic violations of conventional and critical morality, we should conserve racial categories and racial distinctions.

Then read: Lionel McPherson, "Obligations of Solidarity," unpublished typescript [ClassesV2]

A theory that argues that victims of racial injustice do not have a moral obligation of solidarity to each other, though they do have practical and prudential reasons for solidarity. The demands of critical morality need not reshape the demands of conventional morality on this issue.

Session 12. Rawls's Theory of the Political Institutions Demanded by Justice; and His Theory of the Priority of Liberty, How the Two Principles Amount to an Egalitarian Conception of Justice, and the Two Principles for Individuals that Are Also Demanded by Justice.

Read first: Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Sections 32-34, 36, 38, [35pp]

Then read: Rawls, Theory, Sections 2, 8, 10, 14, 16-19 [38pp.]

A theory of social justice constructed so that, if implemented, it would help dissolve the paradox of conventional and critical morality.

Session 13. Marx’s Criticism of Rights-focused Morality as Ideological and Contributing to Oppression; His Criticism of Common-sense Rights-based Morality; and His Conception of (Critical) Morality as a System for Achieving Emancipation and a Socialist Utopia; Trotsky’s and John Dewey’s Responses to the Dirty Hands Problem, and to the Methods of the Bolsheviks.

Read first: Steven Lukes, Marxism and Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), pp. 3-4. [2pp. ClassesV2]

Then read: Lukes, Marxism and Morality, pp. 27-47. [21 pp. ClassesV2.]

Then: Lukes, Marxism and Morality, pp. 61-66. [6 pp. ClassesV2.]

Then: Lukes, Marxism and Morality, pp. 71-99. [29 pp. ClassesV2.]

Finally: Lukes, Marxism and Morality, pp. 109-114, 117-124 [12pp. ClassesV2.]

A theory that indicts our rights-focused conventional morality itself for creating some of the serious harms which critical morality must reduce. It then calls for the abolition of that conventional morality, saying it will not be needed in the post-conflict society to which a properly-understood critical morality will lead us.

Click for materials on Marx, the Russian Revolution, and Dirty Hands

FINAL PAPER DUE ON LAST DAY OF READING PERIOD AT NOON.

*= Jefferson also had this to say about Napoleon Bonaparte, who notoriously thought that politics was autonomous from the realm of everyday morality, and so was what political theorists call "a political realist":

"Bonaparte...has by this time felt that true wisdom does not lie in mere practice without principle."

--Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1816

[By this time, Bonaparte was finally defeated, and confined by the British on an island in the South Atlantic]