Course Director: Esteve Morera

Office:  S419 Ross

Email:  morera@yorku.ca

Office hours: Wednesday, 9:30 -10:45 am or by appointment.

This course will focus on the central issues of normative political theory: justice, liberty, equality, power.  These concepts are at the core of contemporary debates on the good society, the kind of society that is morally justified. We will explore these issues from a variety of perspectives, including socialism, anarchism, feminism, liberalism, and anti-colonialism. The course aims at developing the students’ understanding of political philosophy, its central issues, and approaches to this central aspect of philosophical work today.

Bailey, Andrew, et. al.  The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought. Volume 2: The Twentieth Century and Beyond

In-class test (Feb. 14)    30%
Research paper (Apr. 3)    40%
Final Exam                     30%

Learning is a practice.  The best way to learn is to engage with the subject matter you are studying and ask questions.  A good class is one in which students participate, are active in making comments, interpreting the readings, asking questions; in short, a good class is one in which students take control of their learning agenda.

The main purpose of our meetings will be to make sure that you achieve your academic goals.  Learning is an activity that is best accomplished by actively participating in discussion, raising questions, and suggesting ways of understanding a text or solving a problem.  Instructors should facilitate this activity.  Current research demonstrates the importance of active learning, but this is indeed a very old idea, one that the great thinkers of the past already understood well.

• Understand the development of key ideas in social and political philosophy in the 20th century
• Appreciate developments in contemporary social and political philosophy
• Evaluate critically arguments related to the nature of society, justice, freedom, and equality.

• Write cogently and clearly about social and political issues.

Additional Information:

Course policies

1. Academic honesty and integrity

In this course, we strive to maintain academic integrity to the highest extent possible. Please familiarize yourself with the meaning of academic integrity by completing SPARK’s Academic Integrity module at the beginning of the course. Breaches of academic integrity range from cheating to plagiarism (i.e., the improper crediting of another’s work, the representation of another’s ideas as your own, etc.). All instances of academic dishonesty in this course will be reported to the appropriate university authorities, and can be punishable according to the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty.

1.1 Notes-sharing websites

Notes-sharing websites (NSW), such as Course Hero enable students to upload and access course materials including tests, test answers and assignments. They are often used to plagiarize assignments or cheat on tests. The Dean's Office maintains that any student who uploads course material on these websites without permission of the instructor violates York's Academic Honesty Policy, even if that material is not used by another student to cheat or plagiarize. Uploading course material onto an NSW potentially violates two sections of the Senate Policy:

2.1.6 Dissemination of information without permission. Information or experimental data that was collected with a member of faculty or another student, and other works that involved the participation of a faculty member or another student, should not be submitted for publication or otherwise disseminated without their permission.

2.1.10 Encouraging, enabling or causing others to do or attempt any of the above with intent to mislead an instructor, academic unit, program, office or committee as to a student's academic status, qualifications, actions or preparation, or knowingly aiding or abetting anyone in a breach of academic honesty shall itself be considered misconduct. Taking any action which can reasonably be interpreted as intending to encourage or enable others to commit an offence of academic honesty.

1.2 AI

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as OpenAI’s text-generating ChatGPT and image-generating DALL-E are increasingly being used to generate text, images, etc. Note that in this course, all work should be completed by you and you alone. As such, you are not allowed to use generative artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, to help you complete any of your work in this course. If you do not know whether an online resource or tool can be used in this course, please contact me for guidance. Any use of generative AI in this course will be considered a breach of the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty.

1.3 In brief: Using Notes-sharing websites, Generative Artificial Intelligence, including Grammarly, ChatGPT, etc., is not allowed in this course. You must strive to develop your skills in reading, reflecting on and analyzing difficult issues, writing about them, correcting and editing your own writing.  These are transferable skills, useful for life and careers.

2. Turnitin

To promote academic integrity in this course, students will be required to submit their written assignments to Turnitin (via the course Moodle) for a review of textual similarity and the detection of possible plagiarism. In so doing, students will allow their material to be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database, where they will be used only for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. The terms that apply to the University’s use of the Turnitin service are described on the Turnitin.com website.

3. Late policy.

Assignments must be submitted on time.  No extensions will be generally granted for papers, other than in some officially documented exceptional circumstances (illness, bereavement, disability, special needs.)  Late papers will be penalized 5% per day.  There are no exceptions to this rule.

4. Copy Rights:

Note that all lectures, both their content and recordings of them, are protected by copyright law.

5. Course information

All students are expected to familiarize themselves with the following information:

Student Rights & Responsibilities

Academic Accommodation for Students with Disabilities

Weekly sessions: