everything.study
CC.111

Modern Conceptions of Freedom

3-0-9 units. HASS-H; CI-H · Undergraduate

Students read early modern political theorists, and trace the growth of the value of freedom. Examines the modern definition of freedom, and the obligations that people accept in honoring it. Also investigates how these obligations are captured in the principles of our political association. Studies how the centrality of freedom plays out in the political thought of such authors as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke and Montesquieu. Students also debate which notions of freedom inspire and sustain the American experiment by carefully reading the documents and arguments of the founding of the United States. Preference to students in Concourse.

Spring 2013

Topics

  • The New Understanding of Human Nature and Politics
  • On Man
  • On Commonwealth
  • Contract
  • Legitimate Government
  • Freedom of Thought
  • The American Founding
  • Liberty and Equality in America
  • Lincoln: A New Birth of Freedom?
  • Human Nature and Inequality
  • The Freedom of the Citizen
  • A New Vision

Readings

  • [Machiavelli] = Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. 2nd ed. Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield. University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780226500447.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] = Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan: with Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668 . Edited by Edwin Curley. Hackett Publishing Company, 1994. ISBN: 9780872201774. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] = Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government . Edited by C. B. Macpherson. Hackett Publishing Company, 1980. ISBN: 9780915144860. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] = Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America . Translated, Edited, and with an Introduction by Harvey C. Mansfield, and Delba Winthrop. University of Chicago Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780226805368.
    Listed reading
  • [Rousseau] = Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The First and Second Discourses . Edited by Roger D. Masters. Bedford / St. Martin’s Press, 1969. ISBN: 9780312694401.
    Listed reading
  • [Nietzsche] = Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life . Translated by Peter Preuss. Hackett Publishing Company, 1980. ISBN: 9780915144945. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
    Listed reading
  • [Machiavelli] Chapters 1–26.
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter I: “Of Sense.” in Part I: Of Man.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter II: “Of Imagination.” in Part I: Of Man.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter III: “Of the Consequence or Train of Imaginations.” in Part I: Of Man.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter IV: “Of Speech.” in Part I: Of Man.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter V: “Of Reason, and Science.” in Part I: Of Man.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter VI: “Of the Interiour Beginnings of Voluntary Motions, Commonly Called the Passions, and the Speeches by Which They Are Expressed.” in Part I: Of Man.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter X: “Of Power, Worth, Dignity, Honour, and Worthiness.” in Part I: Of Man.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XIII: “Of the Natural Condition of Mankind, As Concerning Their Felicity, and Misery.” in Part I: Of Man.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XIV: “Of the First and Second Natural Laws and of Contracts.” in Part I: Of Man.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XV: “Of Other Laws of Nature.” in Part I: Of Man.
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XVI: “Of Persons, Authors, and Things Personated.” in Part I: Of Man.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XVII: “Of the Causes, Generation, and Definition of a Commonwealth.” in Part II: Of Commonwealth.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XVIII: “Of the Rights of Sovereigns by Institution.” in Part II: Of Commonwealth.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XIX: “Of the Several Kinds of Commonwealth by Institution and of Succession to the Sovereign Power.” in Part II: Of Commonwealth.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XX: “Of Dominion Paternal and Despotical.” in Part II: Of Commonwealth.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XXI: “Of the Liberty of Subjects.” in Part II: Of Commonwealth.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XXVI: “Of Civil Laws.” in Part II: Of Commonwealth.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XXVII: “Of Crimes, Excuses, and Extenuations.” in Part II: Of Commonwealth.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XXVIII: “Of Punishments and Rewards.” in Part II: Of Commonwealth.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XXIX: “Of those Things that Weaken or tend to the Dissolution of a Commonwealth.” in Part II: Of Commonwealth.
    Listed reading
  • [Hobbes] Chapter XXX: “Of the Office of the Sovereign Representative.” in Part II: Of Commonwealth.
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter I: “7.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter II: “Of the State of Nature.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter III: “Of the State of War.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter IV: “Of Slavery.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter V: “Of Property.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter VI: “Of Paternal Power.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter VII: “Of Political or Civil Society.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter VIII: “Of the Beginning of Political Societies.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter IX: “Of the Ends of Political Society and Government.”
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter X: “Of the Forms of a Common-wealth.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter XI: “Of the Extent of the Legislative Power.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter XII: “Of the Legislative, Executive, and Federative Power of the Common-wealth.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter XIII: “Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Common-wealth.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter XIV: “Of Prerogative.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter XV: “Of Paternal, Political, and Despotical Power.
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter XVI: “Of Conquest.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter XVII: “Of Usurpation.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter XVIII: “Of Tyranny.”
    Listed reading
  • [Locke] Chapter XIX: “Of the Dissolution of Government.”
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • Locke, John. A Letter Concerning Toleration . CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013. ISBN: 9781453846414. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 7: “On The Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and its Effects.” Vol. One: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 8: “On What Tempers the Tyranny of the Majority in the United States.” Vol. One: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 1: “On The Philosophic Method of the Americans.” Vol. Two: Part One.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 2: “On the Principal Source of Beliefs Among Democratic Peoples.” Vol. Two: Part One.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 3: “Why the Americans Show More Aptitude and Taste for General Ideas Than Their English Fathers.” Vol. Two: Part One.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 1: “Why Democratic Peoples Show a More Ardent and More Lasting Love for Equality Than for Freedom.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 2: “On Individualism in Democratic Countries.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 3: “How Individualism Is Greater at the End of a Democratic Revolution Than in Any Other Period.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 4: “How the Americans Combat Individualism with Free Institutions.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 5: “On the Use That the Americans Make of Association in Civil Life.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 6: “On the Relation Between Associations and Newspapers.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 7: “Relations Between Civil Associations and Political Associations.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 8: “How the Americans Combat Individualism by the Doctrine of Self-Interest Well Understood.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 9: “How the Americans Apply the Doctrine of Self-Interest Well Understood in the Matter of Religion.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 10: “On the Taste for Material Well-Being in America.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 11: “On the Particular Effects That the Love of Material Enjoyments Produces in Democratic Centuries.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 12: “Why Certain Americans Display Such an Exalted Spiritualism.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 13: “Why the Americans Show Themselves So Restive in the Midst of Their Well-Being.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 14: “How the Taste for Material Enjoyments among Americans Is United with Love of Freedom and with Care for Public Affairs.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 15: “How Religious Beliefs at Times Turns the Souls of the Americans toward Immaterial Enjoyments.” Vol. Two: Part Two.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 6: “What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.” Vol. Two: Part Four.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 7: “Continuation of the Preceding Chapters.” Vol. Two: Part Four.
    Listed reading
  • [Tocqueville] Chapter 8: “General View of the Subject.” Vol. Two: Part Four.
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. “Book III.” In The Social Contract . CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013. ISBN: 9781453754207.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “Book IV.” In The Social Contract . CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013. ISBN: 9781453754207.
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • See the Study Questions section ↗
    Listed reading
  • Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. 2nd ed. Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield. University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780226500447.
    Required
  • Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan: with Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668 . Edited by Edwin Curley. Hackett Publishing Company, 1994. ISBN: 9780872201774. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
    Required
  • Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government . Edited by C. B. Macpherson. Hackett Publishing Company, 1980. ISBN: 9780915144860. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
    Required
  • Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America . Translated, Edited, and with an Introduction by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. University of Chicago Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780226805368.
    Required
  • Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The First and Second Discourses . Edited by Roger D. Masters. Bedford / St. Martin’s Press, 1969. ISBN: 9780312694401.
    Required
  • Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life . Translated by Peter Preuss. Hackett Publishing Company, 1980. ISBN: 9780915144945. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
    Required

Prerequisites & course information

Same subject as 17.04[J] Prereq: None U (Spring) Not offered regularly; consult department 3-0-9 units. HASS-H; CI-H

Sources