PHIL469-12S1 (C) Semester One 2012
Special Topic

Description

The cosmopolitan liberal-egalitarian state, dreamt of by philosophers in the late twentieth century has been profoundly influential, creating an explosion of interest in the philosophy of concepts like rights, individual choice, duty, trust, legitimacy, and fairness. With the 'return of the state' in political science, and the emerging substate national and ethnic conflict across the world, it has become clear the liberal egalitarian theory helps us theorise too few of the political problems of the day, from the Rwandan tragedy, to the Yugoslav collapse, to indigenous claims. This course charts the aspirations of contemporary political philosophy to grapple with both the larger demands of ideal justice and the very real problems inside the state including recent work on normative theories of liberalism, self-determination, freedom, territory, group rights, historic injustice & nationalism.

Pre-requisites

For further information see School of Social and Political Sciences.