Contemporary Political Philosophy
Lecture 1: introduction
Eichmann revisited by Hannah Arendt: controversial work of the 20th century. She reviews
the trial and comes up with very different conclusions. Eichmann was a nazi, responsible for
jewish deportation to extermination. Eichmann was executed in 1962 by hanging. His
defense was fascinating, because he was indefensible since he sent thousands of people to
their deaths, but he argued he obeyed the ‘new law’. He argued that what he did was lawful
and listened to the fuhrer’s orders, but the law was wrong. So was he guilty under the law?
We just follow laws, but the law is not always sufficient. He acted immorally, he did not act
against the law?
Political philosophy seeks the truth, it determines values and principles through rational
argumentation, pertaining to state institutions. It asks how the state should act, what moral
principles should govern the way it treats its citizens and what kind of social order it should
seek to create. A question of what SHOULD be done.
By what justification can we coerce people to … pay taxes. What is owed to whom? May the
state force you to redistribute?
Rawls: founder of liberalism. Political philosophy to uncover moral understanding and
compatibility. Through digging deeper into the core of our beliefs that we discover core
similarities. To reconsider our own institutions, as well as our purpose in those institutions.
This helps us to create a reasonable utopia. By looking at our institutions rationally, we can
understand their own rational fabric. This reasonable utopia is borne of accepting the world
as it it presents itself to us, and partially to help us structure a better world to our liking.
Social justice: justice is the first virtue of social institutions, says Rawls. How can society be
considered just or unjust? Social justice is about what a state can legally coerce us to do.
How can the state constrain individual action? Coercive institutions are the policy, prisons,
military, that are (almost) always accepted.
Ideal theory: the pursuit of understanding the ideal principles that should guide society. But
can we really approach this way?
→ Two objections: realism and non-ideal theory.
Realism: Idealism is insensitive to power, people are horrible and will mess up your
perfect system (people like trump).
Non-ideal theory: non-compliance, people break the rules, people are not ideal.
BUT: Lighthouse function: if you do not have a guide, towards which you can head. Ideal
theory generates this principle to guide society towards moral ends. The goal is not to design
an ideal society, but to figure out why it would be ideal. Ideal theory determines what values
take precedence over others. It helps you understand what is at stake morally, in decisions
we make politically.
,Lecture 2: Social Justice
Two biggest social movements of the last years: #metoo, and black lives matter. Most ethics
are formed through media, we care about what we see through media and gets our
attention. The media determines what counts.
1. A concept is a really big overarching set of principles, the basic structure of a value
or principle. Your concepts matches your intuition, you know what it means → liberty,
equality
2. A conception is the particular version of a concept, honing it down to a subset of
meaning and characteristics → equality of opportunity, equality of materials
The right and the good
1. A good is determined by what is for him the most rational long-term plan, given
favourable circumstances, the ends towards us decline. A conception of the good is if
you like bowling, like to pray to your god. Different conceptions of good, but none of
them has to be right.
2. The right is the means, not the end and more about the procedure. It is a set of
principles general in form and universal in application, that is to be publicly
recognized as right. It is less about substance. Not about if you got to go bowling, but
if you got to go bowling for a good reason.
Justice is a subset of morality. Justice is a moral duty sufficient to justify state coercion
towards that end.
Liberalism is based on consented contracts. If you consent to being punched, the contract
changes. Provided the terms are clear, we are adults etc. People constantly consent to
things they rationally would not do and would regret later.
Rawls: justice as fairness, egalitarianism
This leads to the thought experiment: original position and veil of ignorance, a kind of social
contract. Original position is your stick figure self, stripped of everything, you do not know
your preferences and have no material interest or ascriptive characteristics. It gets rid of the
preferences that would shape your interests. The appropriate initial status quo. Choosing
principles of justice, behind a veil of ignorance. They do not know their conception of the
good, or their values. In the original position you know you are going to have preferences,
but do not know what these preferences are, they need primary goods. → The outcome is
the hypothetical contract.
Hypothetical contract is based on essentially perfectly fair terms of deliberation. It is a fair
procedure, because the things that would make it unfair are invisible because of the veil of
ignorance. Like cutting a cake, and the one slicing the cake taking the last piece. There is
also unfair and imperfect procedural justice, an innocent man may be found guilty, a guilty
man may be set free → miscarriage of justice, in which a combination of circumstances
defeats the purpose of the legal rules. Hypothetical consent beats actual consent.
So what would these hypothetical stick figures choose? Rawls answer: each person is to
have equal rights to the most extensive total system of liberties compatible with a similar
, liberty for all. Social and economical inequalities are arranged to be to the greatest benefits
of the least advantage and attached to offices and positions op to all under conditions of fair
equality of opportunity.
Principle 1: liberty
Principle 2: the difference principle (to maximize the position of the worst off)
Lecture 3: Justice II
Objections to Rawls
1. Risk aversion → embedded in a theory of human nature to be pessimistic and risk
averse. Why would we assume that people are careful, rather than to gamble on their
talents?
2. The priority of liberty → people can not forego liberties in exchange for material
gains, except of course if it is about survival. Can we value liberty before we have
food/human security?
3. Redistribution → minimal or justified inequality when there is a blind redistribution,
inequality can be justified by helping the worst off. Who is the worst off?
4. The ‘hypothetical contract’ → it is not worth the paper it is not written on, no one ever
agreed and you can override consent. Hypotheticals are not binding.
5. Egoism → is it wrong to determine a just society on self interest alone.
6. Private sphere → everything is about the public institutions, but what if injustice
happens in the private and household sphere
7. Justice as entitlement / libertarianism by Nozick
- Start with the world as it is, the world is given and we have property and
holdings, you can not pretend we start from scratch.
- So we protect those holdings. Justice is this protection, freedom is what you
do with these holdings.
- Outcome is the minimal state: the state is there just to protect holdings. The
state can not create an ideal distribution that would disturb property rights.
Very strong on protecting property rights and liberty.
- Separateness of persons: contra utilitarianism: you as a person are taken
seriously, not only your stick figure in which you are nobody again. That
betrays that we are separate with our own holdings. Both Rawls and Nozick
are against utilitarianism. Nozick recognizes a person's talent and
achievements as their own.
- No taxation, because it is basically theft. If the wealthy are to give to the poor,
they must do it voluntarily, not because they are forced.. Taxation can not be
justified.
- Acquisition, transfer and rectification. If the terms of acquisition (equal shares)
are fair, it is just, as long as nobody is worse off. Transferring is about
assuming you own the property so you can do what you like. You can
exchange your property or labour, assuming it is voluntarily, they are all
legitimate → market principles. “Sucks to be you, but it is not unjust”. Unjust
transfers must be rectified, especially when those generate new entitlements
- Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps, is itself just
Lecture 1: introduction
Eichmann revisited by Hannah Arendt: controversial work of the 20th century. She reviews
the trial and comes up with very different conclusions. Eichmann was a nazi, responsible for
jewish deportation to extermination. Eichmann was executed in 1962 by hanging. His
defense was fascinating, because he was indefensible since he sent thousands of people to
their deaths, but he argued he obeyed the ‘new law’. He argued that what he did was lawful
and listened to the fuhrer’s orders, but the law was wrong. So was he guilty under the law?
We just follow laws, but the law is not always sufficient. He acted immorally, he did not act
against the law?
Political philosophy seeks the truth, it determines values and principles through rational
argumentation, pertaining to state institutions. It asks how the state should act, what moral
principles should govern the way it treats its citizens and what kind of social order it should
seek to create. A question of what SHOULD be done.
By what justification can we coerce people to … pay taxes. What is owed to whom? May the
state force you to redistribute?
Rawls: founder of liberalism. Political philosophy to uncover moral understanding and
compatibility. Through digging deeper into the core of our beliefs that we discover core
similarities. To reconsider our own institutions, as well as our purpose in those institutions.
This helps us to create a reasonable utopia. By looking at our institutions rationally, we can
understand their own rational fabric. This reasonable utopia is borne of accepting the world
as it it presents itself to us, and partially to help us structure a better world to our liking.
Social justice: justice is the first virtue of social institutions, says Rawls. How can society be
considered just or unjust? Social justice is about what a state can legally coerce us to do.
How can the state constrain individual action? Coercive institutions are the policy, prisons,
military, that are (almost) always accepted.
Ideal theory: the pursuit of understanding the ideal principles that should guide society. But
can we really approach this way?
→ Two objections: realism and non-ideal theory.
Realism: Idealism is insensitive to power, people are horrible and will mess up your
perfect system (people like trump).
Non-ideal theory: non-compliance, people break the rules, people are not ideal.
BUT: Lighthouse function: if you do not have a guide, towards which you can head. Ideal
theory generates this principle to guide society towards moral ends. The goal is not to design
an ideal society, but to figure out why it would be ideal. Ideal theory determines what values
take precedence over others. It helps you understand what is at stake morally, in decisions
we make politically.
,Lecture 2: Social Justice
Two biggest social movements of the last years: #metoo, and black lives matter. Most ethics
are formed through media, we care about what we see through media and gets our
attention. The media determines what counts.
1. A concept is a really big overarching set of principles, the basic structure of a value
or principle. Your concepts matches your intuition, you know what it means → liberty,
equality
2. A conception is the particular version of a concept, honing it down to a subset of
meaning and characteristics → equality of opportunity, equality of materials
The right and the good
1. A good is determined by what is for him the most rational long-term plan, given
favourable circumstances, the ends towards us decline. A conception of the good is if
you like bowling, like to pray to your god. Different conceptions of good, but none of
them has to be right.
2. The right is the means, not the end and more about the procedure. It is a set of
principles general in form and universal in application, that is to be publicly
recognized as right. It is less about substance. Not about if you got to go bowling, but
if you got to go bowling for a good reason.
Justice is a subset of morality. Justice is a moral duty sufficient to justify state coercion
towards that end.
Liberalism is based on consented contracts. If you consent to being punched, the contract
changes. Provided the terms are clear, we are adults etc. People constantly consent to
things they rationally would not do and would regret later.
Rawls: justice as fairness, egalitarianism
This leads to the thought experiment: original position and veil of ignorance, a kind of social
contract. Original position is your stick figure self, stripped of everything, you do not know
your preferences and have no material interest or ascriptive characteristics. It gets rid of the
preferences that would shape your interests. The appropriate initial status quo. Choosing
principles of justice, behind a veil of ignorance. They do not know their conception of the
good, or their values. In the original position you know you are going to have preferences,
but do not know what these preferences are, they need primary goods. → The outcome is
the hypothetical contract.
Hypothetical contract is based on essentially perfectly fair terms of deliberation. It is a fair
procedure, because the things that would make it unfair are invisible because of the veil of
ignorance. Like cutting a cake, and the one slicing the cake taking the last piece. There is
also unfair and imperfect procedural justice, an innocent man may be found guilty, a guilty
man may be set free → miscarriage of justice, in which a combination of circumstances
defeats the purpose of the legal rules. Hypothetical consent beats actual consent.
So what would these hypothetical stick figures choose? Rawls answer: each person is to
have equal rights to the most extensive total system of liberties compatible with a similar
, liberty for all. Social and economical inequalities are arranged to be to the greatest benefits
of the least advantage and attached to offices and positions op to all under conditions of fair
equality of opportunity.
Principle 1: liberty
Principle 2: the difference principle (to maximize the position of the worst off)
Lecture 3: Justice II
Objections to Rawls
1. Risk aversion → embedded in a theory of human nature to be pessimistic and risk
averse. Why would we assume that people are careful, rather than to gamble on their
talents?
2. The priority of liberty → people can not forego liberties in exchange for material
gains, except of course if it is about survival. Can we value liberty before we have
food/human security?
3. Redistribution → minimal or justified inequality when there is a blind redistribution,
inequality can be justified by helping the worst off. Who is the worst off?
4. The ‘hypothetical contract’ → it is not worth the paper it is not written on, no one ever
agreed and you can override consent. Hypotheticals are not binding.
5. Egoism → is it wrong to determine a just society on self interest alone.
6. Private sphere → everything is about the public institutions, but what if injustice
happens in the private and household sphere
7. Justice as entitlement / libertarianism by Nozick
- Start with the world as it is, the world is given and we have property and
holdings, you can not pretend we start from scratch.
- So we protect those holdings. Justice is this protection, freedom is what you
do with these holdings.
- Outcome is the minimal state: the state is there just to protect holdings. The
state can not create an ideal distribution that would disturb property rights.
Very strong on protecting property rights and liberty.
- Separateness of persons: contra utilitarianism: you as a person are taken
seriously, not only your stick figure in which you are nobody again. That
betrays that we are separate with our own holdings. Both Rawls and Nozick
are against utilitarianism. Nozick recognizes a person's talent and
achievements as their own.
- No taxation, because it is basically theft. If the wealthy are to give to the poor,
they must do it voluntarily, not because they are forced.. Taxation can not be
justified.
- Acquisition, transfer and rectification. If the terms of acquisition (equal shares)
are fair, it is just, as long as nobody is worse off. Transferring is about
assuming you own the property so you can do what you like. You can
exchange your property or labour, assuming it is voluntarily, they are all
legitimate → market principles. “Sucks to be you, but it is not unjust”. Unjust
transfers must be rectified, especially when those generate new entitlements
- Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps, is itself just
