2
Freedom in Political Theory (PLIT10074)
Spring Semester 2013
Seminar director: Dr Lynn Dobson
Email:
Telephone: 0131 651 1285
Room: 4.25, CMB.
Seminars: Tuesdays, 11.10 in room SR4, Minto House
http://www.ed.ac.uk/maps/?building=minto-house
Tuesdays, 14.10 in room B9, Forrest Hill
http://www.ed.ac.uk/maps/?building=forrest-hill-building
Office hours: During semester (last session 2 April): drop in, Wednesdays 11.30-12.30
Out of semester: email to check availability/arrange a meeting
GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE COURSE
Description
Liberty, or freedom, is one of political philosophy’s fundamental concepts. All political theories contain ideas about its proper weight and limits, its relationship with other political values and concepts (such as autonomy, justice, authority, legitimacy, coercion, equality, power, citizenship, and obligation) and its implications for institutional organisation, interpersonal relationships, and person-institution relationships such as that between the individual and the state. A detailed understanding of the concept of freedom and its associated (modern) theory helps us towards a deeper understanding not only of developments in theory itself but also of current developments in both domestic and international politics.
We meet weekly for seminar based around the relevant topic. All members of the seminar will be called on during the seminar to discuss the week’s topic, based on their preparatory study.
Format and workload:
There are no lectures. Instead, we meet as a group of scholars in an academic seminar to discuss a substantial set of readings we have all done prior to meeting. FiPT requires active involvement and weekly preparation by all, in accordance with the College of Humanities and Social Science’s expectation that undergraduate students will do a minimum of 10 hours’ reading per week per course. The convenor’s job is to intervene minimally in the seminar to help focus, guide, and clarify participants’ work. If you expect to be passively ‘taught’ in a heavily didactic and structured way, this course will not be to your taste and you are invited to search for another better suited to your needs. The method of the course is performative: we practise freedom and autonomy as well as study it – and that includes taking on the responsibility of our own studies.
The work of the course is focused around one collection of readings, and mastering the relevant sections of this is the minimum amount of work required. Students wanting to do well on the course will read extensively beyond this book, consulting the ‘further readings’ suggested at the end of each section in the book and also showing initiative in sourcing relevant readings through searches of the library catalogues and databases, e-journals, etc. In your essay you will be expected to show some familiarity with the broader scholarly literature as well as with the extracts in the anthology.
The mode of enquiry and pattern of argument required by the course is normative and theoretical, not empirical. We are not discussing ‘what is’, but ‘what ought to be’, aiming to provide reasoned arguments to support our claims.
Reading
The anthology we will use each week is:
Freedom, a philosophical anthology, eds. Ian Carter, Matthew H Kramer, and Hillel Steiner, Blackwell Publishing, 2007. (Referred to in week-by-week programme below as ‘Freedom’.)
It is worth buying if you are able to do so. The cost of a new copy is likely to be c.£20. Blackwells on South Bridge (0131 622 8222) should have them in stock. The Main Library holds 10 copies (2 standard loan, 8 short loan in the HUB section, all at shelfmark B105.L45 Fre). If books are out to other readers you can recall them by request at the circulation desk.
To supplement the anthology, two basic all-round introductions are:
The Liberty Reader, David Miller (6 copies in the Library, JC585.Lib)
Freedom, Tim Gray (4 copies in the Library, JC585.Gra).
AND: use your initiative to expand your reading beyond these texts. The ‘Parts’ of the anthology contain suggested further reading; browsing Library bookshelves and databases such as JSTOR will open up yet more. Also useful is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/
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WEEK-BY-WEEK PROGRAMME OF SEMINARS
All readings are in Freedom, a philosophical anthology
15 Jan: General orientation & welcome, Q&A. Read ‘General Introduction’ (pp.xvii-xxi)
22 Jan: Part I (pp3-80), with special attention to extracts from Constant (pp 15-20) and Berlin (pp 39-69).
29 Jan: Autonomy. Part VI (pp.323-350), and Harry Frankfurt, (1971) ‘Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person’, Journal of Philosophy, 68:1 (on LEARN, also in JSTOR)
5 Feb: Freedom, Government, and Arbitrary Power. Part II (pp.83-122)
12 Feb: Coercion. Part V (pp.251-320)
NO SEMINAR 19 FEB (‘Innovative Learning Week’)
26 Feb: Freedom, Ability, and Economic Inequality. Part VII (pp.353-379)
5 Mar: Freedom and the Mind. Part III (pp.125-186)
12 Mar: Freedom and Morality. Part IV (pp.189-248)
19 Mar: Liberalism and the Value of Freedom. Part VIII (pp.383-439)
26 Mar The measurement of freedom. Part IX (pp 441-490)
Preparation, Attendance, and Participation; Time and Task Management
The possibility of good quality seminars depends on each member having done the reading so as to be able to conduct well-informed debate on every week’s topic, and each member speaking up, rather than free-riding on others’ efforts, so please play your part. Student questionnaires show time and again that many students complain about under-prepared or non-participating students in their class/seminar. If you are unwilling to do the required work for this course, please find another.
A university is an institution devoted to scholarship in which intelligent adults of all ages initiate, manage, and conduct intellectual enquiry. The members of a university are not teachers and pupils. Instead we are all, equally, students of our common discipline. Amongst other things that means we are each responsible for our own learning, including planning tasks intelligently over the course of the semester so as not to be trying to access materials at the last minute, not beginning written work just before the deadline, not expecting others to have to remind us of rules and procedures as if we were children, etc etc.
Unavoidable absences should be notified to the course convenor, preferably in advance, and with such supporting documentation as is available.
Administration/contact
Learn: will contain course-related documentation. I will communicate to the group as a whole through LEARN, so check it frequently. In the (very unlikely!) event of my not being able to attend a seminar, e.g. due to illness, I will notify you through LEARN.
ALL general queries about the course should be addressed to the course secretary (Ms Ruth Winkle, room 1.11 CMB, telephone 650 4253, email ).
Queries on matters to do with the intellectual substance of the course and your progress on it should be directed to me. The best way to do so is by dropping in to see me during office hours (don’t email – just come).
For very short and specific queries I also respond to properly-addressed emails (i.e. those beginning ‘Dear Lynn’ or ‘Dear Dr Dobson’, not ‘Hey’ or ‘Hi there’). Outside of semesters I will normally respond in 2-5 working days when in Edinburgh. When I am meeting professional commitments elsewhere or on leave an automatic ‘out of office’ email will advise you of the date of my return to convening duties. Due to the enormous pressure on my inbox (often over 100 emails daily during semesters) my usual practice is not to answer emails asking for information that has already been provided, e.g, in undergraduate handbooks or during seminars that you did not attend, or that should be directed to other members of staff, including the course secretary.
ASSESSMENT
100% on an essay of 4,000 words (excluding notes and bibliography). One or more essay questions will be uploaded to LEARN on 26 March 2013. (Exchange students please note: in the UK the essay question is also the essay title, and you must answer the question exactly as given and not provide your own question/title instead.) Deadline: 12 noon Tuesday 23 April 2013. The deadline is the last day on which you may submit without penalty, not the target day on which you must submit! There is nothing to stop you submitting earlier and you should certainly have most of your essay prepared well before the deadline, so that in the final 48 hours only last-minute editing remains. Most information on assessment is in the main Honours handbook (in both its ‘Politics’ and ‘International Relations’ versions), and you should consult it, but here follow some course-specific points:
Essay submission and marking
Prior to its submission, please don’t hesitate to discuss your essay plans with me during office hours on 27 March or 2 April. I am in Edinburgh and able to provide essay guidance in weeks 11 and 12 of the semester but you should assume I will be unavailable throughout the vacation. For reasons of fairness I cannot read and comment on a draft, but will look at and comment on a brief outline/list of headings (on no more than one sheet of A4, font no smaller than 12).
Essays must be typed on A4 paper in font no smaller than 12 and bear page numbers. Double or 1.5 line spacing is preferable, but single-line spacing will be accepted. The word limit is 4,000 words excluding footnotes/endnotes and bibliography/references and your essay should not be more than 5% over or under this. Material beyond 4,200 words will not be read.
Course-specific assessment criteria:
This course places special value on -
a. addressing the question set, and maintaining a good focus on that question throughout
b. demonstrating mastery of its subject matter and relevant literature
c. developing and elaborating, over the entire course of the essay, a clear argument
d. delivering a logical and effective pattern of argumentation
e. scrutinising arguments and claims with measured and fair-minded critical rigour
f. demonstrating theoretical suppleness and sophistication in the treatment of ideas
g. impeccable spelling, punctuation, grammar, referencing, and overall presentation
On g. above – this is really the very least one should be able to expect from an honours student at this University. If you have managed to get this far with major shortcomings in your writing it is your job to fix them. There’s a bit of help on the LEARN site for this course, and Library staff can point you to useful sources; or you could get hold of Lynne Truss’s international bestseller on punctuation (yes, really - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eats-shoots-leaves-Tolerance-Punctuation/dp/1861976127) or the more old-fashioned but classic Fowler’s Modern English Usage, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fowlers-Modern-English-Re-Revised-Edition/dp/0198610211
Referencing: Either Cambridge or Harvard referencing is acceptable – choose one, then follow it accurately and consistently. Otherwise I am happy for you to follow the citation method adopted by the British Journal of Political Science (a guide to which is or will be soon on LEARN).
The Department of Politics and International Relations has a variety of robust procedures in place to check the quality and consistency of marking on each course - including sampling, double-marking, third-marking, marking by external examiners, and oversight by the Board of Examiners - so you can be assured that marking on our courses is neither arbitrary nor out of line with the marking standards of P/IR departments in comparable universities.
One copy of your essay is retained for formal review by External Examiners at a meeting of the Examinations Board held at the end of May or early in June, and all marks are provisional until ratified by that Board.
Comment on your work (‘feedback’)
Essays will be returned with written feedback, the length of which will depend on how much there is to say. I may also write marginal comments on the essay where specific points arise. Since the assessment of the essay on this course is summative (an evaluation of your overall completed achievement) it is likely to be briefer than if it were formative (intended to guide future assessed work for the course). Students are very welcome to a meeting for more extended verbal feedback and/or to discuss their essay mark: email to arrange an appointment.
Something on your mind?
If you are sufficiently dissatisfied with any aspect of a class or a course that you want to bring it to someone’s attention, elementary courtesy requires that you raise the matter with the person immediately responsible for that class or course in the first instance. Please bring any problems to my attention direct, during office hours. If still unhappy, you can refer the matter on to the Staff-Student Liaison Committee (via your student representative), or discuss it with the Director of Undergraduate Teaching (Dr Odmalm) in his office hours.
Course aims and objectives
Learning Outcomes: By the end of the course, students will be expected to:
· Present and communicate work well, in writing and orally
· Plan and manage their time and workload
· Maintain reasonable interpersonal relations
· Work independently and productively
· Locate, gather, select and deploy relevant sources using IT and library facilities
· Analyse and assess large amounts of theoretical material
· Understand the relation of normative political theory to other kinds of theory
· Read theoretical texts and comprehend complex and abstract ideas and arguments
· Analyse and critically evaluate concepts, claims, and arguments
· Develop, articulate and defend theoretical argument
· Think clearly and precisely
· Understand the appropriate use of empirical claims within normative argument
· Apply theoretical frameworks to the evaluation of political institutions and practices
· Exercise independent thought and critical judgement
· Identify relevant bodies of political theory and understand their core propositions
· Know and understand key contemporary debates in relation to the field
· Be familiar with key texts and approaches within the specific field and its sub-areas
· Analyse, evaluate and comment on the current work of notable scholars in the field
Please see the ‘Politics & International Relations Honours Handbook’ for further information on submission of coursework; Late Penalty Waiver’; plagiarism; learning disabilities, special circumstances; common marking descriptors, re-marking procedures and appeals.