Introductory description

PH362-15 Hobbes and Rousseau

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Hobbes on human psychology, motivation and freedom
2. The function of the state of nature in Hobbes’s political philosophy
3. Morality and the laws of nature
4. The source, nature and limits of political obligation
5. Natural freedom: Rousseau on independence
6. Inequality and domination
7. The aims of the Social Contract
8. The general will and popular sovereignty
9. The role of pity in Rousseau’s moral psychology

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• To have a systematic understanding and knowledge of many of the key ideas and arguments found in Hobbes’s and Rousseau’s major writings in the area of political philosophy, and the issues they raise in connection with the nature of the modern state and the individual’s place within it. The students should also be able to understand how Hobbes’s and Rousseau’s positions on key issues differ and to be able offer an independent assessment of them.
• To communicate clearly and substantively in speech and in writing on the issues raised by their close reading and critical analysis of the relevant texts. They should be able to engage with these texts in a way that appreciates their potential relevance to present-day concerns while being sensitive to the historical context in which they were written. The students should also be able to evaluate critically the relevant secondary literature.

Indicative reading list

Bertram, Christopher, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Rousseau and the Social Contract (London: Routledge, 2004)
Cohen, Joshua, Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals (Oxford University Press, 2010)
Dent, Nicolas, Rousseau (London: Routledge, 2005)
Gauthier, David, The Logic of Leviathan: The Moral and Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969)
Hobbes, Thomas, On the Citizen, eds. Richard Tuck and Michael Silverthorne (Cambridge University Press, 1998)
-- Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge University Press, 1991)
James, David, Rousseau and German Idealism: Freedom, Dependence and Necessity (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Chapter 1
-- ‘Rousseau on Needs, Language and Pity: The Limits of “Public Reason”’, European Journal of Political Theory 10(3) (2011)
Kavka, Gregory, Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory (Princeton University Press, 1986)
Lloyd, S. A., Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes: Cases in the Law of Nature (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
Neuhouser, Frederick, Rousseau’s Critique of Inequality: Reconstructing the Second Discourse (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
-- Rousseau’s Theodicy of Self-Love: Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition (Oxford University Press, 2008)
-- ‘Freedom, Dependence, and the General Will’, The Philosophical Review 102(3) (1993)
O’Hagan, Timothy, Rousseau (London: Routledge, 2003)
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Discourses and other early political writings, ed. and trans. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
-- The Social Contract and other later political writings, ed. and trans. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
-- Emile or on Education, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1979)
Simpson, Matthew, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom (London: Continuum, 2006)
Skinner, Quentin, Hobbes and Republican Liberty (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
Springborg, Patricia, The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
Sreedhar, Susanne, Hobbes on Resistance: Defying the Leviathan (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
Warrender, Howard, The Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes: His Theory of Obligation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957)

Subject specific skills

TBC

Transferable skills

TBC