Syllabus
Week 1: Introduction: Between the hedgehog and the fox
Overview of the course and the topic, explaining the method of work, logistics, literature, and academic requirements
Week 2: Isaiah Berlin, value pluralism, and the dangers of political utopia (Presentation by Kirill Burenkov)
Required reading: Isaiah Berlin: The Pursuit of an Ideal (In: The Crooked Timber of Humanity, p.1-20)
Suggested reading: Isaiah Berlin: Two Concepts of Liberty, section VIII - The One and the Many (in: Four Essays on Liberty, 167-172)
Week 3: The critique of Berlin - Dworkin’s case for unity of value (Presentation by Jan Venclik)
Required: Ronald Dworkin: Do Liberal Values Conflict? (In: The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin, 73-90)
Suggested: Bernard Williams: Liberalism and Loss (In: The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin, p. 91-103)
Week 4 From pluralism to liberalism (Valentina d'Amore)
Required: Bernard Williams: Introduction to Isaiah Berlin: Concepts and Categories (p. xix-xx - only the last two pages)
Required: John Gray: What is Dead and What is Living in Liberalism (in: Post-Liberalism, p.284-313)
Week 5 Two concepts of liberalism (Freedeman Kleemeyer)
Required: William Galston: Liberal Pluralism (excerpts: p. 3-4; 15-28)
Suggested: George Crowder: Two Concepts of Liberal Pluralism
Week 6 Toleration (Ivanna Dovhoruk)
Required: Joseph Raz: Autonomy, Toleration and the Harm Principle (in: Justifying Toleraton: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives, S. Mendus (ed.), p. 155-175)
Suggested: Bernard Williams: Toleration, A Political or Moral Question (In: In the Beginning There Was Deed, p. 128-138)
Week 7 Between the Good and the Right: liberal neutrality (Maria Brennan)
Required: Ronald Dworkin: Liberalism (in: A Matter of Principle, p. 181-204)
Suggested: Michael Freeden: Ideologies and Political Theory, chapter II.3.f (p. 259-275)
Week 8 Rawls’ political liberalism (Jiří Kalous)
Required: John Rawls: Justice as Fairness - Political, not Metaphysical
Suggested: Jean Hampton: Should Political Philosophy Be Done without Metaphysics?
Week 9 Political Liberalism and Perfectionism (Christoph Schlesiger)
Required: Martha Nussbaum: Political Liberalism and Perfectionist Liberalism
Week 10 Rawls and Relativism (Sophie Jackson)
Required: Richard Rorty: Priority of Democracy to Philosophy (In: Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, p. 257-282)
Suggested: Bernard Williams: Human Rights and Relativism (In: In the Beginning There Was Deed, p. 62-74)
Week 11 Feminism (Manon Hechard)
Required: Susan Moller Okin: Feminism and Multiculturalism: Some Tensions
Suggested: Susan Moller Okin: Political Liberalism, Justice and Gender
Week 12 Religion in pluralist society (Marco Costa)
Required: Henry Hardy: Taking Pluralism Seriously (in: The One and the Many, G. Crowder, H. Hardy (eds.) p. 279-292)
Suggested: William Galston: Must Value Pluralism and Religious Belief Collide? (in: The One and the Many, G. Crowder, H. Hardy (eds.) p. 251-262)
Annotation
This course will focus on the nature, character, and sources of values and ideals in contemporary political societies. We will formulate and discuss different approaches, posing and trying to answer the following questions: Do values necessarily conflict? And if they do, what are the political consequences of this fact? Can (liberal) state promote a certain set of specific values, or is such practice always illegitimate and paternalistic? Are certain political values universal, or are they necessarily tied to a particular political practice and culture? Should state intervene in religious practices? If yes, to what extent?