Understand Political Philosophy

Book title......Page 2
Contents......Page 4
Meet the author......Page 6
Only got a minute?......Page 7
Only got five minutes?......Page 9
Only got ten minutes?......Page 11
What is political philosophy?......Page 16
An historical perspective......Page 20
How do you decide what is right?......Page 24
Justification, not just clarification......Page 27
The modern agenda......Page 28
The structure of this book......Page 33
Why ancient Greece?......Page 36
Plato and the Good......Page 42
Aristotle\'s political options......Page 50
Cynics, Stoics and Epicureans......Page 55
Mediaeval otherworldliness......Page 56
Renaissance realism and principled dreaming......Page 58
3 The social contract......Page 63
Contracts, dilemmas and war games......Page 64
Hobbes: an alternative to chaos......Page 67
Locke and the principles of democracy......Page 70
Rousseau: the tyranny of the general will......Page 80
Still relevant?......Page 84
4 Ideas, systems and ideologies......Page 89
What is a political ideology?......Page 90
Starting with freedom and democracy......Page 92
Starting with established values and traditions......Page 97
Starting with equality......Page 100
Starting with personal or national development......Page 110
Starting with the environment......Page 115
The future of ideologies......Page 118
5 Equality and fairness......Page 121
Utilitarianism and capitalism......Page 122
Distributive justice......Page 129
Rawls and fairness......Page 130
Equality of self-direction and moral regard......Page 136
Monochrome conformity......Page 138
Democracy......Page 140
6 Freedom......Page 146
Negative freedom......Page 149
Positive freedom......Page 158
Freedom and the law......Page 163
7 Rights, justice and the law......Page 169
Justice handed down?......Page 170
Justice from the people......Page 173
Rights......Page 174
Political authority......Page 182
Legislation......Page 190
8 Gender and culture......Page 199
The essence of womankind......Page 201
Women and freedom......Page 204
Gender and distinctiveness......Page 210
Multiculturalism......Page 214
States......Page 226
What should the state do?......Page 232
Sovereignty, identity and representation......Page 242
The just war theory......Page 250
Terrorism......Page 255
10 The global perspective......Page 264
The international dimension......Page 266
Sovereign states......Page 272
Global networks......Page 274
Moral and religious perspectives......Page 281
Politics and climate change......Page 287
Postscript: what hope humankind?......Page 293
C......Page 295
E......Page 296
M......Page 297
P......Page 298
V......Page 299
Taking it further......Page 300
F......Page 303
N......Page 304
W......Page 305