Lecturers:

Assoc. Prof. Hristo Gyoshev, PhD

Course Description:

Competencies:

After completing successfully this course the students will:

1) know:

The main concepts and ideas in the tradition of the social contract theory; the key figures in the debates on the social contract, and the contemporary interpretations of the idea of social contract.

2) are capable of:

Understanding in detail the philosophical arguments about nature and justification of the social contract and applying them in the analysis of philosophical and political texts, and in political debates.
Prerequisites:
None

Types:
Full-time Programmes

Types of Courses:
Lecture

Language of teaching:
English

Topics:

1. Origins of Modern political thought
2. The idea of the social contract
3. The justification of sovereignty
4. Philosophy and political views of Thomas Hobbes
5. Hobbes's theory of the state of nature and natural law
6. Justification, function, and rights of political authority
7. Locke's political philosophy
8. Natural law and the social contract
9. Forms and limits of political government
10. Rousseau's social contract theory
11. The conception of general will
12. Hume on the social contract
13. Rawls' political philosophy
14. Main concepts and problems of the 'Theory of justice'
15. What we owe to each other

Bibliography:

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, edited by Edwin Curley. ISBN: 978-0-87220-177-4

John Locke, Political Writings, edited by David Wootton. ISBN: 978-0-87220-677-9

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Basic Political Writings, 2nd Edition, translated and edited by Donald A. Cress. ISBN: 978-

1-60384-673-8

James Buchanan, The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan, The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan

volume 7. ISBN: 0-86597-226-6

Scanlon, Thomas, 1998. What We Owe to Each Other, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, edited by Erin Kelly. ISBN: 978-0-67400-511-2

Locke, John, 1960 [1689]. The Second Treatise of Government, in Two Treatises of Government, Peter Laslett (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 283–446.

Kant, Immanuel, 1999 [1797]. Metaphysical Elements of Justice, second edition, John Ladd (trans.), Indianapolis: Hackett.

Hume, David, 1985 . Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, Eugene Miller (ed.), Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 465–487.

Hobbes, Thomas, 2012 [1651]. Leviathan (3 volumes), Noel Malcolm, (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rawls, John, 1999 A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Bodin, J. 1955. Six books of the commonwealth. Oxford: Blackwell.