Political Thought

Description

Human beings live together in societies which, by their very nature, give rise to institutions governing the behavior and freedom of individuals. This raises important questions about how these institutions ought to function, and the extent to which actual systems of government succeed or fail
in meeting these ideals.
This Oxford Reader contains 140 key writings on political thought, covering issues about human nature and its relation to society, the extent to which the powers of the State are justified, the tension between liberty and rights, and the way resources should be distributed. Topics such as
international relations, minority rights, democracy, socialism, and conservatism are also discussed by contributors ranging from Plato and Aristotle to Foucault, Isaiah Berlin, and Martin Luther King.

Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: Human Nature Introduction
1a: The Natural State of Mankind1. Aristotle: The State Exists By Nature
2. Thomas Hobbes: The Misery of the Natural Condition of
3. John Locke: The State of Nature and the State of War
4. Baron de Montesquieu: Fear and Peace
5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Noble Savage
6. Robert Owen: Man’s Character is Formed For Him
7. Karl Marx and FriedrichEngels: Man as a Productive Being
8. Charles Darwin: Natural Selection
9. Charles Darwin: The Advantage of Morality
10. Peter Kropotkin: Mutual Aid
1b: Man’s Nature and Woman’s Nature11. Plato: Women as Weaker Partners
12. Aristotle: Separate Spheres
13. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Likeness and Unlikeness of the Sexes
14. Mary Wollstonecraft: The Rights of Women
15. John Stuart Mill: The Subjection of Women
16. Carol Gilligan: In a Different Voice
17. Alison M Jaggar: Socialist Feminism and The Standpoint of Women
Chapter 2: The Justification of the State 2a What is the State?18. John Locke: Political Power
19. Max Weber: The State and Coercion
2b The Social Contract20. Thomas Hobbes: Creating Leviathan
21. John Locke: Express and Tacit Consent
22. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Natural Freedom and the Freedom of the Citizen
23. Immanuel Kant: The Hypothetical Contract
2c Against The Social Contract24. David Hume: The Irrelevance of Consent
25. Jeremy Bentham: Utility as the True Foundation
26. G.W.F Hegel: The Priority of the State over The Individual
27. H.L.A. Hart: The Principle of Fairness
2d: The Anarchist Response28. Michael Bakunin: Science and the People
29. Robert Paul Wolff: The Conflict of Autonomy and Authority
2e: Civil Disobedience30. Plato: The Duty of Obedience
31. Henry David Thoreau: The Duty of Disobedience
32. Martin Luther King: An Unjust Law is No Law
33. John Rawls: Civil Disobedience
Chapter 3: Democracy and Its Difficulties 3a: Against Democracy34. Plato: Ruling as a Skill
35. Frederick the Great: The Enlightened Despot
3b: Democratic Ideals36. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The General Will
37. Immanuel Kant: Freedom and Equality
38. John Stuart Mill: The Democratic Citizen
39. John Rawls: Majority Rule
3c True and False Democracy40. V.I. Lenin: Bourgeois and Proletarian Democracy
41. Carole Pateman: Participatory Democracy
3d Dangers in Democracy42. Aristotle: Rule of the People and Rule of Law
43. James Madison: The Danger of Faction
44. Alexis de Tocqueville: Tyranny of the Majority
3e Democracy and Bureaucracy45. Max Weber: Bureaucratic Administration
46. Vilfedo Pareto: Rule By Oligarchy
3f: Separation of Powers47. John Locke: Legislative, Executive, and Federative Powers
48. Baron de Montesquieu: The Ideal Constitution
Chapter 4: Liberty and Rights 4a: What is Liberty?49. Benjamin Constant: The Liberty of the Ancients and the Liberty of the Moderns
50. Isaiah Berlin: Two Concepts of Liberty
51. Charles Taylor: In Defence of Positive Freedom
52. Ronald Dworkin: No Right to Liberty
4b: Law and Morality53. John Stuart Mill: One Simple Principle
54. James Fitzjames Stephen: The Consequences of Liberty
55. Partick Devlin: The Enforcement of Morals
56. H.L.A. Hart: The Changing Sense of Morality.
4c: Toleration and Free Expression57. John Locke: The Futility of Intolerance
58. Thomas Scanlon: Free Expression and the Authority of the State
59. Jeremy Waldron: The Satanic Verses
60. Catherine MacKinnon: Only Words
4d: Virtue and Citizenship61. Pericles: The Democratic Citizen
62. Aristotle: The Requirements of Citizenship
63. Niccolo Machiavelli: The Servility of the Moderns
64. Alexis de Tocqueville: The Nature of Modern Servitude
65. Quentin Skinner: The Republican Ideal of Political Liberty
4e: Rights66. Jeremy Bentham: Nonsense on Stilts
67. Karl Marx: The Rights of Egoistic Man
68. Robert Nozick: Rights as Side-Constraints
69. Ronald Dworkin: Taking Rights Seriously
4f: Punishment70. John Stuart Mill: In Favour of Capital Punishment
71. H.L.A. Hart: Punishment and Responsibility
72. Robert Nozick: Where Deterrence Theory Goes Wrong
Chapter 5: Economic Justice 5a: Private Property73. John Locke: Labour as the Basis of Property
74. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Earth Belongs to Nobody
75. G.W.F Hegel: Property as Expression
76. Herbert Spencer: The Right to the Use of the Earth
77. Karl Marx: Money, the Universal Whore
78. Karl Marx: The True Foundation of Private Property
79. Sigmund Freud: Property and Aggression
80. R.H. Tawney: Reaping Without Sowing
81. Robert Nozick: Difficulties With Mixing Labour
5b: The Market82. Adam Smith: The Dangers of Government Interference
83. Karl Marx: Appearance and Reality
84. F.A. Hayek: Prices as A Code
85. Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman: The Tyranny of Controls
86. G.A. Cohen: Poverty as Lack of Freedom
5c: Theories of Distributive Justice87. Aesop: The Grasshopper and the Ants
88. Aristotle: Reciprocity
89. Aristotle: Equality and Inequality
90. Gerald Winstanley: The Common Stock
91. David Hume: The Impossibility of Equality
92. Karl Marx: From Each According to His Abilities, To Each According to His Needs
93. Edward Bellamy: Looking Backward
94. F.A. Hayek: The Impossibility of Planning
95. John Rawls: Two Principles of Justice
96. Robert Nozick: The Entitlement Theory
97. Ronald Dworkin: Equality of Resources
Chapter 6: Justice Between Groups 6a: Peace and War98. Immanuel Kant: Perpetual Peace
99. Richard Cobden: The Civilizing Influence of Commerce
100. Michael Walzer: Just and Unjust War
101. Thomas Nagel: The Limits of Warfare
6b: Nationalism102. Isaiah Berlin: National Sentiment
103. Alasdair MacIntyre: Is Patriotism a Virtue?
6c: Minority Rights104. Thomas Hill: The Message of Affirmative Action
105. Avishai Margalit and Joseph Raz: National Self-Determination
6d: Intergenerational Justice106. Brian Barry: Justice Between Generations’
6e: International Justice107. Peter Singer: Famine, Affluence and Morality
108. Onora O’Neill: Lifeboat Earth
Chapter 7: Alternatives to Liberalism 7a: Liberal Theory Under Strain109. Jurgen Habermas: Legitimation Crisis
110. Michael Walzer: Liberalism in Retreat
111. Michael Walzer: The Artificiality of Liberalism
7b: Conservatism112. Edmund Burke: Eternal Society
113. T.S. Eliot: The Transmission of Culture
114. Michael Oakeshott: On Being Conservative
7c: Communitarianism115. Charles Taylor: Identificiation and Subjectivity
116. Alasdair MacIntyre: Tradition and the Unity of a Life
117. Michael Sandel: Conceptions of Community
7d: Socialism118. Karl Marx: Work in Communist Society
119. Karl Marx: The Communist Manifesto
120. Karl Marx: The Realm of Freedom
121. Oscar Wilde: The Soul of Man Under Socialism
122. Ernest Mandel: Productive Activity
123. G.A. Cohen: Socialism and Equality of Opportunity
7e: Post-Modernism124. Friedrich Nietzsche:The Impulse Towards Justice
125. Michel Foucault: Power/Knowledge
126. Richard Rorty: The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy
Chapter 8: Progress and Civilization 127. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Effect of the Arts and Sciences
128. Adam Smith: Division of Labour
129. Friedrich Schiller: Fragmentation and Aesthetic Education
130. Karl Marx: Development of the Productive Forces
131. Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Our Self-Destructive Impulse
132. Friedrich Engels: Transition to Communism
133. Max Weber: Disenchantment
134. Karl Popper: The Utopian Method
135. Francis Fukuyama: The End of History
Appendix: Fundamental Political Documents 136. U.S. Declaration of Independence 1776
137. Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen 1789
138. The Bill of Rights 1789
139. The Gettysburg Address 1863
140. United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948

Jonathan Wolff is Reader in Philosophy at University College London and author of An Introduction to Political Philosophy (OUP, 1996) and Robert Nozick (1991). Michael Rosen is a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, coeditor of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, and author of Hegel’sDialectic and its Criticism (OUP, 1982) and The Need for Interpretation (Abalone, 1987).

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