Classics of EP&E–Intellectual Origins of Liberalism and Conservatism

Undergraduate

The purpose of this course is to explore the intellectual origins of liberalism and conservatism through an EP&E framework. We discuss the tensions between collective wisdom and individual reason in the early modern period and survey the thought of thinkers in the proto-liberal and proto-conservative traditions, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke on sovereignty, individual autonomy, reason, and toleration; and Robert Filmer, Richard Hooker, and David Hume on order, custom, and utility. Our main object of inquiry, however, is the intellectual division that emerged between supporters and critics of the French Revolution, the historical event that prompted the modern political identities of liberalism and conservatism. Accordingly, we examine the political, moral, and economic theories of the Revolution; reactions to the Revolution from Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre, and other counterrevolutionaries; critical responses to their reactions, including those from Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, and James Mackintosh; and the impact of this debate on the evolution of liberalism and conservatism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Europe and the United States. Class discussions and readings confront liberal and conservative perspectives on human nature; reason; freedom; tradition; individual rights; religion; the Enlightenment; market economies; democratic participation; and equality. SO Th 1:30pm-3:25pm