Values represent general goals and enable judgements that help us define what is good or desirable. The problem is that we mobilize certain values to think and to act but we constantly fight over their definition, their ranking, and their translation into norms that organize our legal, social and political world. Simply put, values are what we are fighting for and what we are fighting about. To better understand these fights, we need political theory. Theory provides concepts, principles, categories and arguments to guide us through our conflicting normative aspirations. How to be coherent while having different values, beliefs and practices? Where to bridge the gap between ideal political principles and current institutions? Are there acceptable trade-offs between conflicting values or conflicting interpretations of values? Why and how are some values politicized and sometimes weaponized? We will address these questions through several contentious cases and with the help of classical and contemporary authors.
PROGRAM
Session 1: Introduction
Session 2: Democratic values (1): Does citizenship matter when we can sell it?
Session 3: Democratic values (2): Contesting who can vote and be represented
Session 4: Values at the borders (1): Cultural preservation, security and self-determination
Session 5: Values at the borders (2): Freedom, equality and asylum
Session 6: Home: a conservative or progressive value?
Session 7: Methodology (mid-term and final exam preparation): Reading and writing political theory
Session 8: The value of identity (1): Gender politics and the majoritarian backlash
Session 9: The value of identity (2): Race and culture
Session 10: Sacred values: Religious beliefs in the public sphere
Session 11: Values worth fighting for: When contesting values means disobeying
Session 12: The value of non-human lives: Redrawing our moral boundaries
Iris LAMBERT,Benjamin BOUDOU
Cours magistral seul
English
Intermediate coursework in political theory, and/or political science or philosophy.
Autumn 2021-2022
Modalités d'évaluation du cours
Mid-term exam (40%): Take-home essay covering the first half of the course. Essay topics will be given 3 days before the exam is due.
Final exam (60%): Take-home essay covering the whole course. Essay topics will be given 3 days before the exam is due.
List, Christian, and Laura Valentini. 2016. The Methodology of Political Theory. In H. Cappelen, T. S. Gendler. J. Hawthorne (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Anderson, Elizabeth. 2010. The Imperative of Integration. Princeton: Princeton University Press, chap. 5-6.