PHI 2208 - Anarchy, Authority, & Autonomy

All of us have grown up under the authority of a government, which claims the right to make and enforce laws, collect 24 taxes, defend our borders, and more generally dictate the scope and boundaries of our rights and liberties. Western political philosophers have generally agreed that this arrangement is ideal, and best-suited to protecting our natural rights and liberties. But the track records of most governments suggest otherwise: police brutality; environmental degradation; imperialism and colonialism; mass incarceration. While many of us believe that we are safer with a state and a government than without, it is by no means obvious that this is in fact the case. In this class, we will critically examine the foundations of Western political theory, and the many writers and revolutionaries who have rejected it. Keeping our focus squarely on individual liberty and autonomy, we will examine first the views which maintain that a political society is the best guarantee of these two fundamental goods, and then views which reject this fundamental assumption entirely. As we move through the semester, we will acquaint ourselves with myriad visions of a more free, more just, stateless society, and we will learn to question the common assumption that such a society is impossible.

 
McDaniel Plan: Social, Cultural, and Historical Understanding; Textual Analysis